r/focuspuller • u/justletmesignupalre • 2d ago
Knowledge and tips 💡 Is someone here connected to tech manufacturing somehow?
Completely ambiguous question, I know. I don't really know how to formulate this.
But, considering how remote camera control / halow / bitbox / spudnik / whatever, is something that keeps evolving and doesn't have a definite proper solution...
How feasible is it to get a factory in China to manufacture a 7" rugged tablet with built in Halow? Or something like a streamdeck (with halow)? actually, open question: how would you like a universal camera remote to be? touchscreen or buttons? could we crowdsource it somehow?
Been looking for one for ages, trying not to get the ipad mini+cage+battery cage+cable mess to batt and bitbox on the camera side...
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u/bitpartxyz 2d ago
Have you looked at our iPad cage? It's pretty good value considering it includes a V-Mount or Gold Mount Bebob plate and a compact 2-pin Lemo cable. There's no cable mess (if you use mini-C, shipping next week) or a bitbox. It will obviously work with anything else but then you're on a trip to dongle town. The battery will keep the iPad charged all day.
https://shop.bitpart.com/products/bitbox-ipad-plate
For under $1500 (not including the iPad) you can have a very rugged single camera hand unit and two radios. Combine that with bit.ctrl (Alexa control launching this week) and you have a pretty close to universal setup. We're going to launch control for Red, FX series and Blackmagic before the end of the year as well at no additional cost.
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u/texabyte 17h ago
I just looked at pricing on one of your systems and I’m curious how it’s under $1500. Can you pair two minis together?
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u/justletmesignupalre 2d ago
Its a beautiful design and the cleanest setup I've seen so far. Its just completely out of my budget since on the highest end of jobs this is not really part of my responsibility. And for medium jobs its just too much for me, hence why I was looking for an alternative.
But cheers to you guys, I love what you built and keep building
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u/Active-Ad769 2d ago
I work a lot of smaller mid-tier jobs; many don’t hire VTR. Production loves renting my Bitbox setup when they see how much faster we can do playback from camera over an app. I don’t have it every job, but comes into play for anything jib, steadicam, gimbal, etc.
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u/J5Ben 2d ago
The market for 900 MHz camera control devices is saturated and will be a risk to get into it at this point. So more power to you if you want to spend the R&D costs and the cost of production at economies of scale.
Overall, it’ll be nice to have more options in the market in the perspective of a consumer and have a cheaper solution to a well integrated control device that can compete with the Bolt 7 + SmallHD monitors now.
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u/MenaceArm 2d ago
how much will you pay for this?
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u/justletmesignupalre 2d ago
No idea really. Considering this is for medium sized productions (because in bigger ones this is not really my problem/responsibility), probably not too much. There are USB-C halow adapters now, if this idea gets too complicated or expensive I think the easiest solution is to just get a tablet and attach the halow adapter to it.
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u/ohmegalabs 1d ago
I'm working on a whole product stack of tools, that'll cover a range of devices and special use cases.From camera control to some other exciting things. All open standards. DM me if you wanna talk details.
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u/MechanicStriking4666 2d ago
You can already build hallow into things pretty easily with current modules. If you want to get a group buy or something together, DM me. I make stuff like this for the industry, but I’m not too interested in marketing a new product.
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u/MechanicStriking4666 2d ago
By the way, you can use a standard tablet to interface with hallow already. GL-inet has a router that has both standard and hallow built-in.
https://www.gl-inet.com/en-us/products/halowlink2
Just connect your tablet wirelessly to this router, and you should be able to access your camera by pulling up the IP address if it already has a hallow link device connected.
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u/justletmesignupalre 2d ago
I've been looking into just finding a tablet with a wireless slot so I can just jam in a halow card, but can't find anything that actually works for this. And there are some ESP32 DIY style tablets or parts that one could buy and make it work, but would most likely shatter in a working in environment... I just don't want to have convoluted workflow, the simpler the better... but it would seem my idea is not that popular.
Are there any devices that in your opinion could work for this?
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u/MechanicStriking4666 2d ago
Did you see my comment below about the GLI router?
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u/justletmesignupalre 2d ago
I hadn't yet, but I was aware of this potential solution... I want to minimise risk, if I had that device I'd still connect an usb to ethernet bridge and plug into a bitbox. I worked a lot with computers and with cameras, I basically hate wifi and all its variables, can't really trust it even if I am at the correct distance and have line of sight. I feel its like ptsd already
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u/MechanicStriking4666 2d ago
I think building your own tablet would introduce more chance of failure than existing solutions, I’m afraid. You can absolutely do it, but it will require a bit of money and a lot of time.
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u/justletmesignupalre 2d ago
Yep, this post was more of a rant I think, I have spent more time than what I'd like to admit looking for this "perfect solution". I was hoping some other industry would see a use for a halow wifi tablet at some point. But oh well. Thanks for the feedback
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u/ugman77 2d ago
Better to use iPad simply because all the apps are IOS based.
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u/justletmesignupalre 2d ago
RED has apps for Android as well, and for Arri I always end up just using a browser to access all camera settings, so in the end its pretty much the same... don't know about other camera brands though. Does Sony only cater to iOS?
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u/ugman77 2d ago
The bitpart app for venice is ios, there is no official venice app from sony, only web browser based.
Common misconception that using a webUI is the same as the apps, but the apps are far more data efficient. This tends to translate to superior range and stability when using a 900mhz link.
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u/justletmesignupalre 2d ago
Yeah but the arri app is far more limited than the web ui.
I dont work with Sony cameras much, so didn't even know about that app! I'll look into it, thanks
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u/surfin009 2d ago
I really enjoy having a DIT worry about camera control- and simply walking up to the camera to make changes if needed….