Camera Overview

Figure 1.1 – Panasonic RCP Desk Mounted Controllers

           1  Menu Screen Display and Button Functionality

        2        Mono Knob (Iris control and black levels)

 3           ND Filter Wheel and Colour Wheel

See connection diagram where the PoE switching hub represents the Curtin University Network

                                                         Figure 1.4 dual tech monitoring at technical directors workstation

                                                                   (L) Waveform Monitor                          (R) Vectorscope

RCP Panel Operation.

Three flush mounted Panasonic HRP1000 remote panels control each of the respective studio cameras. This means the technical director’s position in the control room has full control over the cameras white balance, colour balance, lens iris/aperture, black levels and resolution settings amongst a myriad of other controls.

The tech directors main priority is to check all three cameras are “aligned” correctly, or are displaying the exact same colour and image reference as each other. This is usually done by positioning all three cameras at the same reference chart and using the scopes and waveform monitoring to check this.

Pushing down on the “Mono Knob” will activate this camera by cutting it to line on the tech directors monitor.

RCP Menu Operation

The RCP menu is accessed via the “menu” button on the panel and then sub menus are accessed via the far right scroll knob directly beneath the LCD screen. Settings can be selected and altered by cycling the knob left or right and pushing in. Each of the 4 knobs will correspond to settings above on the miniature LCD monitor. For a full comprehensive list of menu items selectable from the panel, please consult the provided manufacturers manual.

Additionally the studio camera body and viewfinder can be powered on and off remotely from the top two buttons underneath the Panasonic logo.

The RCP panels are connected to the camera’s CCU in the equipment rack via the Curtin University network using standard IP connectivity. If the RCP panels are not showing a connection to the cameras or display a “connecting to camera message” please contact Curtin University’s networking team or CITS to troubleshoot any connection problems.

Technical Monitoring

The Blackmagic 4K Duo rackmounted monitors situated beneather the 25 inch Sony OLED display a waveform on the left (or YUV) and a vectorscope on the right. The monitors can be configured via ethernet and USB connection to display alternative scopes, video or program output - however the preferred technical instrument monitoring scopes are configured for waveform and vectorscope. Alternative configurations should only be configured by Vizcom onsite support staff and not students.

As the human eye is not always 100% accurate and similarly not all cameras are manufactured with the exact same sensor or image output, the tech director will need to rely on the scopes to give an accurate technical reading and analysis of the image being produced from the camera.

The waveform gives a read out of luminance (dark to light) values from top to bottom representative of the picture from left to right. After white balancing the cameras, operators can use this to set the black level at 0 and then increase brightness level by opening and closing the Iris.

Waveform display is a vital tool and a valuable reference for unifying background levels when keying.

The vectorscope on the righthand side will give a readout of colour information coming from the image with a top-down visual map of red, magenta, blue, cyan, green and yellow. The colouration from each image will need to be matched to produce a uniform output for each camera and any necessary alterations can be reduced or increased via the RCP panel.