Overview
About the group
Theydon Bois Drama Society is a village based amateur
dramatics group. Founded in 1925 they have preformed over 250 shows. They have
staged shows ranging from dramas to comedies to panto right to big musical
numbers. Each show brings a new challenge to the technical team. There is over
50 years of technical experience with in the group and over 300 years with in
the back stage crew.
For their 250th show the society
is staging a variety show. This ranges from solo singing to big cast showing to
short comedy sketches. There are 21 performers in the show. For the crew there
are 8 support crew who are supporting the show. These range from sound engineers
to stage hands to the stage manager. The groups website can be found on http://theydondrama.org
The old set up
The society currently own its own
tie lines between the stage and the control room. As a group they currently
used a CCTV camera plugged in on the front rig bar facing in to the stage. This
then connects back though the main patch panel to the stage managers monitor. By
doing this we was only able to connect to one monitor at a time. The issue with
this meant that the green room could not see the stage.
Setting up the new set up
Hardware
- 1X 8 channel DVR unit
- 1X 1M cat5 network cable
- 2X BNC 1m connectors
- 1X Wireless point
- 1X Laptop
- 2X small monitors
- 2X large monitors
- 1X 3m HDMI to DVI
- 1X 3M VGA M to VGA M
- 1X 6 way
- 1X 4 way
- 1X CCTV camera
Locations
- Stage mangers point
- Dressing room
Set up issues
- Between the green room and the main patch panel there are no BNC or network sockets
- The green room does not have many plug sockets
- Where the stage manager is there is not much space to place the DVR
The set up
To start with the CCTV camera was
placed on the main rig bar where it is normally housed. This is facing on to
the stage to give a view of what is happening to the stage manager. This is then
feed back via a line to the main patch panel. From here this is plugged in to
the DVR unit socket 1. On top of the DVR is one of the small monitors that then
connected in to the DVR unit. This provides a control source to work on the DVR
is the need arises. From here the Wireless router is connected in. Afterwards
the DVR is connected via BNC in to the patch panel to provide the stage mangers
view. This allows him to view the direct feed from the DVR and is set to
display the view from camera 1. In practice if there was four cameras this
could be set to display a split view of the four feeds. From the patch panel to
the stage managers point is a another BNC line that is then connected to a
small output monitor
To set up the green room a pair
of 22" monitors are used from a laptop with a VGA and HDMI out. These are
set to mirror each other which means both show the same content. The laptop
monitor is disabled but when the monitors are disconnected the laptop goes back
to its own monitor. In windows the monitors are preset so when they are
connected they take up the configuration. The laptop connects back to the
wireless point and then it runs IMS200 video monitor. When this is running it
shows the feed from camera 1. In theory this could support all eight cameras
the DVR unit can handle. The dressing room is split in to two halves but due to
the size one monitor will face to the left and the other to the right. This
means both sides will have their own views.
The end result
From a testing point of view the
theory works well. There would be room for improvement but cost wise this could
provide a financial problem and also involve replacing current hardware. During
the show a lag of 50ms was noticed between the DVR and the laptop. This could
be due to the use of wireless and the limitations placed. The stage mangers
feed does not seem delayed nor does the DVRS local monitor.
The image on the screens in the
green room is not a clear image but does allow for the tracking of the show and
for the people waiting to see what is going on. This could be resolved with a
better camera and a better DVR unit. Deeper testing would be practical to
re-size the images on the green room screens. Smaller screens in theory could be
used to over come this problem.
From a actors point of view this
was a useful system which meant they could see what was happening on stage and even
tie up the actions of the performers to the sound the they are hearing.
To
In this case this set up if further
experimentation with more time the results could be better. The practical side
of this set up is nearly working as well as it could. One of the main factors
effecting the final result was the time needed to set up the hardware and get
it to work with the society's current system. This system for smaller shows
would not totally be required if other important matters was needed.
