Camera for streaming Amateur Sports Events

[FloRolf]

Hey everyone!

 

TLDR below!

 

i am very new to the camera game so i have very limited knoweldge, hence why i seek help here

So me and some friends are currently building a Livestreaming setup for our amateur sports events (Volleyball and Table Tennis)

Thus far we have had a couple of streams and it's been great and we had decent perception so we

want to improve things and blow some money on it. Events are usually like 2-4 hours long.

 

Currently we are using a shitty $100 action cam which is limited to 720p30 HDMI output.

For Volleyball it's okay-ish but as table tennis has a much smaller ball and faster movement it desperately needs an upgrade.

Also lighting isn't terrible but not the greatest as games are usually in the evening so there's no natural light just

kinda decent artificial light and obviously for a place that big we can't improve that.

 

So anyways, the camera feeds an Elgato Camlink Pro and goes through OBS to Youtube, blabla.

As we are only using mobile data to upload the stream (we get almost 14mbit) we are limited to the quality

we can actually stream BUT with AV1 being implemented into both YT and OBS i might get an A380 for the streaming PC

some time later.

 

 

 

TLDR

 

Coming back to the Camera.

What we need:

- good for bad lighting conditions

- at least 1080p60 HDMI output, prefered 1440p60 as that's the max the Elgato can do (we prefer 60fps)

- Up to say $750-1000

- usual streaming requirements: Charge while shooting, No overheating, clean HDMI output

- Swappable lense is probably a good idea so we can have perfect settings for the two sports.

- CAN be mutliple cameras and not one fancy one, we are very open to recoding multiple angles.

- CAN be older and used stuff

 

 

So yeah, we are open for any suggestions and if you have experience in sports livestreaming we will gladly take

suggestions as well because the setup is a hot mess right now.

[bezza...]

i mean can you use a iphone? they are easy to use and include wifi/ data to stream with

[FloRolf]

12 minutes ago, Tomberry said:

i mean can you use a iphone? they are easy to use and include wifi/ data to stream with

We were thinking about using a phone as the camera but not as the actually streaming 'PC' because we are also adding commentary, camera of the commentators and an overlay of the score, donation links etc. I don't think an iPhone would allowus to do all that. 

[Needfuldoer]

10 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

We were thinking about using a phone as the camera but not as the actually streaming 'PC' because we are also adding commentary, camera of the commentators and an overlay of the score, donation links etc. I don't think an iPhone would allowus to do all that. 

As long as the iPhone and your streaming PC are on the same network, NDI HX Camera will let you use it as a source in OBS. (Once you have the NDI Tools installed on your streaming PC, anyway.)

 

https://www.ndi.tv/products/ndi-hx-camera-app/

 

https://github.com/obs-ndi/obs-ndi

 

If you're going to do this with physical cameras, 1080p webcams are inexpensive. A step up from that would be handheld consumer camcorders; I've had good luck with Canon Vixias.

[TheStarkster90]

I'd say go for a used DSLR or mirrorless camera. I use a Canon Rebel T6i for my webcam and it's so clear for Teams calls that it's almost illegal for me to be on.

 

I use Canon's EOS Webcam Utility for that, but to be honest I'd say look for a used Sony camera like the a6300 (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/used/1222744/sony_ilce6300_b_alpha_a63000_mirrorless_digital.html). It supports interchangeable lenses (E-mount) and has a clean HDMI output. Granted, it's microHDMI, but if you do upgrade later Sony's a7 line has regular HDMI output with all the same features. Plus, the E-mount lenses you'll buy will work for any new Sony body you'll buy (generally).

 

Granted, the output will be 4K but you can downsample to an insanely clean 1440p or 1080p video. Your only problem may be some rolling shutter (aka: the Jell-O effect when panning a camera without a global shutter), but to get past that your budget needs to shoot up a lot. Like, more than my $2500 a7 IV (a7S III is better with rolling shutter, but is also over $3000). Plus, that issue is going to be present on nearly all your cameras in your price range so I'd just accept it for now.

[sub68]

I think a camcorder is good in this instance. 

A used canon XA20 or XA10 is good they output 1080p 60 fps

On 4/27/2023 at 11:48 AM, FloRolf said:

prefered 1440p60

I have never heard of a camera shooting 2.5k 

[ToboRobot]

I'd probably try to find free or cheap used GoPro Hero 4s and try to provide more coverage rather than better.

Good cameras that look good without good lighting tend to be rather expensive, and getting more shots and learning multicamera switching will be a better learning experience and lead to better content with more/better angles.

Upgrade later.

[FloRolf]

3 hours ago, MarshallBeck said:

Considering your budget, you might want to check out the Panasonic Lumix GH5 or Sony Alpha a6400.

 

Thanks for reviving my thread

I've been eying the ZV-E10. I think it's similar to the 6400, what are the benefits of one over the other? 

 

 

3 hours ago, ToboRobot said:

I'd probably try to find free or cheap used GoPro Hero 4s and try to provide more coverage rather than better.

Good cameras that look good without good lighting tend to be rather expensive, and getting more shots and learning multicamera switching will be a better learning experience and lead to better content with more/better angles.

Upgrade later.

Yes we've actually been doing that lately with multiple shitty webcams. Having multiple angles was really great, I agree on that, but ultimately the quality just isn't good. We had one DSLR for post game interviews and that was night and day difference, but I think that was just on loan for this one day. So ideally we start off now with a good full view cam and shitty detail cams and upgrade them one by one until we have a great setup

 

And about the GoPro, I am not sure. They are all too fisheyeie which is not great for our use case imo. Are there comparable little cams without that lense?