How do you deal with doing conventions or trade shows?

[RichardCleveland]

Hey Gang,

This past week-end Naked Ape Productions was invited to take part in the 2nd annual Horror-Con. My co-host on Between The Pages packed up some gear and got a lot of footage.

The gear we took:

4 microphones
a Behringer Zenyx 802 mixer
Logitech C-910
3 lights from Home Depot
laptop
various stands
Canon Vixia HFR 20 with a Beachtec mic adapter.


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We recorded all our coverage to a harddrive for later editing back at the studio. So I was wondering how other podcasters dealt with similar challenges.

[BradShoemaker]

My road set (which is pretty much every show at this point) is the following...

Board: Zoom R16
Mics (6) Shure SM58
Computer: Portable Desktop (miniATX for the extra usb bus support) & 23" Flat Screen Monitor
Headphone Amps: (2) Samson S-Amp 4 Ports
Cameras: (6) Microsoft Lifecam Cinema, (1) Logitech C910 (only use 3-4 cams at a time generally)
Speakers: Bose Stick (L1)
Soundboard: iPad with Soundslate Soundboard App for intro, music, clips, etc
Technical Directing Software: Vidblaster

Depending on the space I generally don't have room for lights (even though I need to find a way to bring them in because we need them).

I record the full show (video and mixed down audio) direct to harddrive (via vidblaster) and capture the audio (each channel is it's own file) via the Zoom R16's SD card (just in case for backup purposes and tweaking of audio later if needed).

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[andrewzarian]

We do a remote show every week from Sapphires in NYC. for that show we use:

1. Mackie Pro FX12 mixer
2. 4 MXL Lapel Mics
3. 6 Core AMD Dell computer with Vidblaster
4. 2 lifecam cinema webcams

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[mcphillips]

Brad, I still don't understand how you use 3 or 4 of the same webcams on the same computer. When Amnon tried it, he could only get two USB cameras to work if they were different models.

[andrewzarian]

We have used 4 USB cameras :) all streaming HD

[BradShoemaker]

Brad, I still don't understand how you use 3 or 4 of the same webcams on the same computer. When Amnon tried it, he could only get two USB cameras to work if they were different models.

The biggest reason I have found to be camera failure has nothing to do with whether the cameras will run, it's do they have enough throughput to run. I have attached up to 6 Lifecam cinemas to one computer all running just fine.

You have to have enough USB Busses to make it work. 2 cameras attached to one bus may or may not work. I had to ditch my laptop in favor of a desktop so I could add USB cards into the computer to give me enough resources to make it work.

Also USB 2.0 works well. USB 3.0 does not like cameras as much.

[mcphillips]

Do you have one camera per USB bus? That's a lot of buses.

[andrewzarian]

Here are some pictures from our setup at this years blogworld

http://www.guysfromqueens.com/shows/blogworld-new-media-expo-2012-photos/?nggpage=2

[BradShoemaker]

Do you have one camera per USB bus? That's a lot of buses.

It is. Sometimes you can get two to play nice on the same bus, but every now and then it just overloads the throughput and one of them won't respond and you'll get a black screen.

Now the only thing that drives me insane is the inability to control the camera settings on a Windows machine going into vidblaster. The Lifecam's will autofocus every now and then and will also have different color temps. So that is the one area I am still working on. Lighting kits will help, but sometimes there is no room for them.