camera suggestions, noob here.

A

Andrew Burns

n3wb
Mar 30, 2015
1
0
I plan on setting up a semi-automated (on a schedule) recording rig with Blue Iris and a single camera to record basketball games on a full length court. The camera will be mounted on the short side. It needs to capture audio, have as high res as possible and have a wide fov to cover the entire court. My goal is have it such that, for example Blue Iris will start and stop recording then automatically upload that footage to either an ftp site or somewhere like Dropbox. My budget for the camera is around 300. Do you all see anything wrong with this system or do you have any suggestions?

The distance from the camera position and the side of the court is probably about 20'. My guess on the needed for is 150-160 degrees.

My understanding is the camera can run cat5 or 6 to a router or switch/hub then to the computer and carry audio and video. Is that correct? And would that be an IP camera. I'm not against going wireless as long as it was a solid reliable signal. It is a clear shot to the computer location and measures about 40'

Thanks in advance

Andrew
 
Hello Andrew.

You understand correctly. You can plug them in with cat5 or cat6 to a router or switch (hub not recommended due to poor performance) and it carries video and audio (only if the model supports audio and has a microphone).

I would avoid wireless especially in a place like this where there may be a lot of people trying to use WiFi during the game.

For a 150-160 degree angle you just about have to use a fisheye camera which typically has a 180 degree field of view. I have no personal experience with fisheye cameras but I can tell you the distortion caused by the lens is probably more than you want to deal with. And besides that, you'll probably end up paying well over $300 for one with audio.

The next best that you can find easily is going to be about 90 to 100 degrees FOV. Much less distortion, but it may miss the near corners of the basketball court unless you mount it in a corner. For this, any Hikvision or Dahua 2MP or 3MP security cameras with a 2.8mm lens will do a pretty good job. Hikvision DS-2CD2532F-IS and DS-2CD2432F-IS are two notable models with microphones that can be found around $100 on aliexpress.com.

You may have trouble getting acceptable audio however. Cameras with integrated microphones do not use particularly high quality audio. Think cell phone quality. And I'm not even sure the audio stays in perfect sync. You may be better off with a nicer microphone connected directly to the PC, since Blue Iris supports this. However in this case I am fairly certain the audio will not be in sync since it comes from a different source than the video.

I encourage you to investigate using a GoPro camera. This will get you closer to the field of view that you want, and from what I've seen and heard they have decent microphones and no problems with audio sync. The problem will be automating it and possibly even getting it to work reliably over 40 feet of USB extender(s).
 
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