> On Jul 3, 2020, at 11:02, Michael Thomas <mike@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > I have a friend who is a theater person, who as everybody knows has been completely shut down. I remarked to him that it's probably time to start thinking about streaming plays. His counter is that it's expensive which I'm guessing is mainly in the production costs much more than the equipment. What occurs to me is that you don't *really* need camera people on site, or at least it's very plausible that they could do this remotely which would cut down quite a bit of the cost. > > So the obvious question is whether there are existing standards for remote operation of cameras, sound equipment, lighting, etc? Is this something we've done? Live broadcast television, sports, even cinema production make extensive use of remotely controlled cameras, lighting is essentially all remotely controlled, audio is mixed by computers etc. While there exist camera specific control protocols such as AW which run over rs422 or IP, one should be aware that a ptz camera is simply a light duty industrial robot with three or more axises of freedom and some data acquisition grafted onto the side and that therefore modbus iccp or some other cnc protocol may well be the principle control protocol. dmx512 for lighting control was essentially an adaptation of pre-exisiting industrial control standards The existence of standards while foundational to building interoperable industrial control devices; doesn't seem entirely germain to the question of whether you can replace camera operators with robots where appropriate, or remote operators. You can, and productions do it all the time. As cultural artifacts, go though, a recording once made for remote consumption is a good as the first time is was captured if not better due to post-acquisition editing or processing. One can therefore ask whether recording it once and really well and as somewhat greater expense (including ongoing royalties for the contributors) is a more worthwhile effort then reducing your production costs by making the production less costly but retaining the most expensive part (the labor). The fact that we place value in the live, and repeated presentation of staged production is both anachronistic and the reason we go to the theater. I would hazard that while we can make do with the recording, attending in person cannot be replaced. > Mike >
