Controlling an NDI camera

An NDI camera that takes PTZ control, as many PTZ and broadcast cameras do, can be set from InterDirector: pan and tilt, its presets, its zoom, its focus, its exposure and its white balance. Nothing needs setting up beyond adding the camera as an NDI input.

Open its Camera window

When an NDI input’s sender says it takes PTZ, its card shows a camera button beside the gear, and its right-click menu Camera Control…. Either opens a small Camera window for that camera. It floats beside your show and does not stop you switching, so you can keep one open for each camera. Closed and opened again, it shows the camera as it last set it.

The button appears once the camera has answered, a moment after the input starts. A camera that does not take PTZ, or a sender that is not a camera, has none.

Pan, tilt and presets

Pan and tilt: press in the pad and drag. The camera moves the way you drag, faster the further you drag, up to Speed; let go and it stops. Click the pad once and the arrow keys move it too. Home sends it back to the centre.
Presets: click 1 to 9 to send the camera to the shot it keeps under that number, at Speed. ⌥-click a number to store the camera’s present shot there; the button says Stored. The presets are the camera’s own, the same ones its remote recalls, so InterDirector cannot show what is under each.
From a key: Recall camera preset is an action for a hotkey, a rule or a Stream Deck key, and for Companion, which has a button for each camera’s nine presets. A key recalls at the camera’s fastest: use it on a camera that is not on air, and the window’s Speed for a move the audience sees.
Pan, tilt and zoom from a button: the Stream Deck’s PTZ action, and Companion’s Move an NDI camera, move a camera while the button is held, at the button’s own speed, and stop it when you let go. If the deck or Companion disconnects while one is held, InterDirector stops the camera.

What it sets

Zoom: drag the lever toward Wide or Tele to zoom: the further you drag, the faster; let go and it springs back and stops. Or hold − or + to zoom at full speed, as a rocker does, until you let go.
Focus: Auto, or Manual with a slider from Near to Far.
Exposure: Auto, or Manual with a slider from Darker to Brighter.
White balance: Auto; Indoor (3,200 K) or Outdoor (5,600 K); One-shot, which measures once and holds it, with Measure Again to measure afresh; or Manual, with sliders for red and blue.

A slider, and the zoom lever, send as you drag, so you see the camera follow on its card and in Preview.

What it shows

An NDI camera does not say how it is set. The window shows what InterDirector last sent it, so if someone changes the camera from its own remote or menu, the window does not know. Move a control and the camera follows the window again.

Not yet

More than nine presets, naming them, and pan, tilt or zoom from a keyboard hotkey are not there yet.

NDI inputs, for adding the camera and its tally light.