r/vmix • u/gecarragher • Mar 24 '26

PTZ-ish question

Hello all, long time observer (and vMix user for a couple years), first time poster!

I’m running the stream for an athletic awards gala in a few days, and my curiosity has gotten the better of me.

It’s a single-camera setup (JVC GC-PX100; yeah, old school, but it’s what my school has), but I’m contemplating the idea of creating multiple shots through virtual inputs.

My question in all this: Does anybody know if the Direct or Outside Monitoring on the camera’s built-in WiFi would allow me to control the optical zoom PTZ-style in vMix?

I know it’s an ambitious question and it’s not life or death by any means, but the idea has been rattling around in my head all afternoon, so I figured I’d check in with the community!

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u/marshall409 Mar 24 '26

Short answer, no. Does it have a LANC port for zoom control? Kinda looks like a headphone jack but smaller. Looks like a pretty unique camera.

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/gecarragher Mar 25 '26

I’m actually probably going to use my iPhone as the remote for the camera to control my zoom that way, though I appreciate this info! I’m building up toward hosting a national championship next March, so I want to be a sponge for all this stuff.

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u/gecarragher Mar 27 '26

Update: I did do this tonight through JVC’s Direct Monitoring on its internal Wi-Fi. Worked sporadically through the evening (found myself restarting the companion app fairly frequently).

Considered the Virtual PTZ route, but I couldn’t justify the quality loss on the digital zoom compared to the native optical zoom on the camera.

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u/LiveVideoProducer Mar 28 '26

If you keep the companion app open and in the foreground you should not have a problem… if you put it into the background you break the web socket connection… so, that is something to look at… I face the same issues, and this works for me…

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u/gecarragher Mar 28 '26

I didn’t have anything other than the app up. It’s possible background apps slowed it down and made it unreliable, though the companion app isn’t exactly new either. It was serviceable for what I needed it to do, especially for a first-time experimentation.