Introduction to OSSCafe Studio

Published in

OpenSource Cafe

4 min readOct 26, 2018

Hello, folks. Our studio has been renewed recently, so it’s time to become a videographer! Let me explain how to use our recording equipment. If you’re a member, you can record movie clips as you like. Feel free to use it and ask me about it.

Getting Started

To record your first clip here, you need a SD card or a Mac/Win laptop:

SD card (8GB or more recommended)
or Mac/Win laptop (USB 3.0 port required)

In advance, turn on the video switcher and wait a couple of minutes.

Push the button behind the body to turn it on.

Recording with SD card: put your SD card into this device and push REC button. After finished recording, push REC button again. Then you can eject your SD card.

Recording with Mac/Win: no special driver or application needed. Just connect the blue cable (USB 3.0) to your laptop. Our studio system will be recognized as a “standard web camera.” Then, open any application you like. Here’s a list of typical ones:

QuickTime for Mac
Camera for Windows 10
YouTube Studio (beta) through Chrome browser

Tips for Quality

Noise cutting: To reduce the noise on sound, turn them off before recording:

Wall fan
Circulator
Air purifier
Air conditioner

Lighting: Output needs more light? Change the direction of any spotlight on the wall and ceiling.

After recording, don’t forget to turn the wall fan back on and put the spotlights back to their original position.

Scenes

Typical scene setups would be like these below:

**Scene A**: nice for minimal recordings.

**Scene B**: if someone else controls the switcher beside of you.

**Scene D**: to record the events at our workshop.

**Scene E**: unfortunately, it’s not *greenback*, but we have a white screen so that you can focus on the person.

**Scene F**: designed for *unboxing new arrivals.*

Scene A: one person (host) with camera 1 and mic 1
Scene B: two people (host and director) with camera 1, 2 and mic 2
Scene C: three people (host, guest, and director) with camera 1, 2 and mic 2

Scene D (presentation): a presenter with camera 2, 4 and mic 1
Scene E (white back): a host with camera 3 and mic 1
Scene F (top-down): display something with camera 1 and mic 1

Equipment Overview

Here’s a list of our main tools:

Cameras

Sony α6000: free position / top-down-camera rig
Sony α5100: front of the center table (fixed)
Sony Handycam CX430: front of the white screen (fixed)
Sony Handycam CX430: front of the 60-inch display (fixed)

Mics

audio-technica AT2035: on the wall
audio-technica AT2050: on the center table

We also have a lavalier mic and a headset mic, but these are not connected to mixer usually. You might need to set up by yourself.

Mixers

Roland V-1HD: a video switcher with four HDMI input
MACKIE 402VLZ4: a sound mixer

Miscellaneous

Displays for camera preview and output preview
Some tripods, a slider, a camera stabilizer

Equipment Details

Some tools have each paticular procedure to power on and off. Check them below:

Roland V-1HD

Power on: push the power button behind the body. The starting process may take one or two minutes. Check the LCD monitors. If you can’t see anything, push the reset button of the HDMI extender.
Switching: push center buttons to switch between the cameras. Camera 1 (α6000) / camera 2 (α5100) / camera 3 (CX430) / camera 4 (CX430). See more detail here.
Power off: push the power button.

Sony α6000

Power on: remove the lens cover and turn the power nob to “ON.” Then push the shutter button once (I don’t know why…, but it’s needed).
Shooting position: you can put this camera anywhere you like. There’re some types of tripods which help you. In the case the power cable is short, you might want to use a battery.
Power off: turn the power nob to “OFF” and put the lens cover back on.