Education
Solutions for Learning
PTZOptics cameras are used to create many great audiovisual solutions for education. From live streaming sporting events to distance learning for university-level courses, PTZOptics has a lot to offer the educational space. Check out some of our case studies below.
Rosemont College
In March 2020, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf mandated stay-at-home orders, and K-12 schools, colleges and universities closed for the remainder of the semester. While many schools had to adopt technologies quickly for their reopening plans, Rosemont College was ready to accommodate students with previously implemented audiovisual technologies.
Download the full case study here.
USC Keck School of Medicine, Distance Learning Studio
“We’re flipping the classroom, one recording at a time,” this is the motto of the Soto Studio run by Gary San Angel inside the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. The flipped classroom is a highly regarded educational strategy for delivering interactive media into a blended learning environment. The studio is often used to produce high-quality recordings for professors who are preparing to deliver portions of their curriculum through online learning courses. The idea of the flipped classroom is to essentially bring the homework into the classroom and make learning via online tools the homework.


Live Streaming a School Graduation
Morgan County High School’s digital media instructor, Tom White, sought to produce an uncomplicated workflow for this past year’s graduation. With a lack of camera operators and no power in the press box, he found himself needing a low maintenance, low cable solution. White used two 20X PTZOptics SDI cameras and a HuddleCamHD Joystick to stream the ceremony. With the PTZ cameras, he was able to capture a variety of angles and zoom lengths. Only a single operator was used to set and call over 7 presets for each camera with the HuddleCamHD Joystick.
- Ease of Use: Each camera is connected directly to the ATEM Studio to access video feeds. The pan, tilt, zoom feature allows operators to manipulate the camera position with a touch of a button.
- Single Operator: Eliminating static cameras negates the need for multiple camera operators. Using PTZ cameras allows the control of hundreds of camera positions with a single operator.
- Tactile Control: The HuddleCam Joystick connects directly into each camera via serial cabling, capable of daisy-chaining multiple units. Set and call over 250 camera presets from one controller.
From basketball to soccer, Willamette University live streams sporting events
Willamette University is a small liberal arts school located in Salem, Oregon where Christopher Sabato, the Assistant Director of Athletics for Media, organizes live broadcasts for the sports teams. From outdoor soccer matches to indoor basketball games, Christopher shares with us his techniques for live broadcasting these events and how the students’ families watch from out of state.
At Willamette University, the majority of the student population comes from out of state making it important to the Athletics Department that these families are able to watch the live sports broadcasts online. Using a selection of live streaming hardware and software which includes PTZOptics cameras, Wirecast, Magewell capture cards, xKeys controllers and more, Christopher regularly produces high quality live broadcasts the school’s sports fans enjoy all season long. At the end of the day, it’s all about the fans that cannot make it to every game who are now able to watch live and enjoy the broadcasts from the comfort of their homes.

For outdoor broadcasts during the soccer season, Christopher uses a PTZOptics 20X-SDI camera housed in an outdoor enclosure to capture all the action using a PTZ joystick controller. The Dotworkz outdoor camera enclosure is designed for permanent outdoor use and includes two weather-sealed cable ports, which Christopher uses for HD-SDI video and RJ45 converted to DB9 to be used for camera control with the HuddleCamHD joystick. The camera captures all the action from high above the field mounted on top of a SkyHawk TriPod mount made by US Sports Video. This giant tripod allows Christopher to follow the direction of game play from high above the athletes on field. “I don’t have a big production crew. So everything has been designed to be operated by myself or one other work study student,” says Christopher.

During every live broadcast, Christopher tries his best to include a play-by-play announcer audio feed. “It’s our goal to have play-by-play in all our sports broadcasts. ” Once the game starts, a dedicated play-by-play announcer will handle all audio including ad spots, bumpers and pre-recorded interviews. The Technical Director can play video overlays, with no audio, to match what the PxP is sending. The Technical Director mixer is sending an aux out to a Galaxy Audio Anyspot wireless receiver. The play-by-play audio workflow is explained below along with the entire video/audio system outline.
Watch the live interview with Christopher above, and don’t miss the detailed setup outline below.
- 5 Cameras
- 1 x JVC GY-HM200SP
- HDMI Magewell
- 2 x endline cameras mounted under the hoop. CV502-MB, CV505-MB
- SDI Magewell
- 1 x PTZOptics 20x SDI
- RTSP (until NDI® Firmware is available) POE
- 1 x Canon HV20
- NDI® via Newtek Connect Pro via HDMI Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle
- 1 x JVC GY-HM200SP
- Wirecast 7 running on the PTZOptics Producer Kit Skull Canyon NUC
- Added Skull Canyon Expansion Ring for additional USB ports including 2 USB 2
- Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard (these are notoriously finicky with USB 3 but this is mitigated by using the added USB 2 ports)
- X-Keys 24 – also using usb 2 ports to free bandwidth on the USB3 bus
- Allows quick access to graphics, scoreboard and replay. 24 keys wasn’t enough I should have went bigger.
- Thunderbolt 3 USB hub – Two of the Magewell cards are plugged in to this hub.
- The NUC couldn’t support three capture cards on its single bus.
- Mounted and enclosed in an SKB Studio Flyer Waterproof Carry-on Rack Case – 2U
- CAT6 and siamese RG58 coaxial cable.
- Siamese RG58 coaxial cable from the control area to the two endline Marshall cameras for power and video.
- CAT6 from the Control area to the network closet
- One for the streaming computer
- One for the PTZOptics 20x SDI, including POE for power
- HDMI from the Canon HV20 to the Network closet
- Laptop with Newtek Connect Pro and Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle
- It was too far to run hdmi and I didn’t have any HDMI to SDI converters.
- Play-by-play at the table
- XLR cable from the mixer on the table to the control area.
- Ingested by the JVC and sent to wirecast via SDI
- Once the game starts PxP person handles all audio including ad spots bumpers and pre-recorded interviews.
- For almost 10 years we have been streaming video with just a camera and PxP. We are upping our production with a technical director this year, but doing it slowly.
- Technical director can play video overlays with no audio to match what the PxP is sending.
- The TD mixer is sending an aux out to a Galaxy Audio Anyspot wireless transmitter / receiver.
- Plugged into the PxP mixer tape in and goes to PxP headphones but not out the master mix.
- TD can adjust what input are being sent to the PxP via the AUX control. To talk to PxP just turn up AUX on his mic.
- Audio from wirecast is sent via NUC out into the TD mixer and sent back to PxP via AUX.
- The TD Mixer doesn’t have any effect on the audio output to the stream. It’s for communication between TD and PxP
- Because this is going back to PxP it has to be a mix minus so Wirecast is not monitoring the audio from the JVC camera, but it it sending the out to the stream.
- To hear PxP Audio out of the JVC is plugged into the TD Mixer.
- XLR cable from the mixer on the table to the control area.
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