DIY CCTV STUDIO PROJECT

[Raywinny]

Hi folks,

We are attempting to create a series for Youtube based inside of a small commercial warehouse. The idea atm is to use 4 well placed 4k CCTV cameras inside the unit to capture the footage. The receivers will store the video and it can be downloaded at the end of every night.

If that works well, we went to use wireless lapel microphones to capture the audio.

I wanted to know if it's possible for the CCTV receiver to capture and store the audio from the microphones?

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Ray

 

[Sonic007]

Very much doubt this is possible as the NVR would have to have some kind of receiver built in to receive the Microphones transmissions.

 

[Dan]

Hi @Raywinny

Yes, capturing audio from lapel mics to an NVR is not going to be possible. The only way you would be able to record audio to an NVR would be to use cameras with built-in microphones or cameras that support audio I/O to allow you to connect a 3rd-party microphone.

A camera we often recommend for video streaming is the AXIS V5925 because it has PTZ functionality to allow you to follow the activity in the scene and it also supports XLR audio inputs for high-quality audio, but it is a very expensive option and likely outside your budget.

 

[Raywinny]

Many thanks for the replies.
Budget is the key consideration for us. Could we use a CCTV set up and capture the audio on a different device and sync it up later in post production?

 

[Dan]

This would be a possibility but would be tricky to execute. IP cameras usually give quite wide overall coverage (especially with 2.8/4mm focal lengths) and this makes details like mouths very small and it will be very hard to lip-sync any separately recorded sound. One way you could do it would be to do a loud hand clap or use a clapper board in a position that is both visible to all the cameras and audible to all the microphones, you can then sync the clap up in post which would probably give you the most accurate sync. (but network cameras can sometimes skip/freeze and this may mess up the syncing over longer durations)

 

[Raywinny]

That could possible work because the footage would be cut into smaller sections when edited.

Many thanks

 

[Dan]

What kinds of duration were you planning to record for?

Another issue you could encounter is export time for longer periods of footage, CCTV recorders are designed with the expectation that you are rarely going to export any piece of footage larger than 30 minutes because you only need to download the footage covering the activity of a crime. If you plan to download sections of footage that are hours long you could find that those files also take hours to download.