We are using VMix to stream our church service to Facebook. Everything is working well except for an occasional freeze in the video input from our PTZ camera (Avkans). I realize that the problem may originate in the camera or our network but I need this group’s assistance in ruling out a VMix issue.

We have an wifi-Ethernet network from our Orbi router to an Orbi satellite. Network connection is over 100mbit/sec. A 4-port Ethernet bridge is used to connect the local network to the Windows 10 PC running VMix, the Avkans PTZ camera (connected to VMix as an NDI input, and the Avkans joystick controller. All these connections appear to be fine and stable.

Our primary video input is an HDMI feed sent through an ATEM mini switcher to the PC via USB, input #2 is the PTZ camera via NDI and input#3 is a Mevo Smart camera using a wifi connection to the network and NDI input to VMix. I have not observed any problems with the HDMI or Mevo video inputs.

I have learned that if I try to use VMix in the normal preview-live manner, the PTX camera will “freeze” every time I cut from it to the HMDI input. The workaround is to use the PTZ camera only as a full-screen overlay and turn the overlay on and off rather than using cuts/fades. Not great, but it works, most of the time.

What happened yesterday is typical of my problem. PTZ camera is live as full-screen overlay during the sermon. About 90 seconds before the end of the 15 minute sermon, the PTZ live video “freezes.” I rescue the stream by making the Mevo NDI video a full -screen overlay, unplugging the PTZ network cable from the switch, wait 15 seconds or so, reconnect the cable, wait for the PTZ camera to complete its power-on sequence, confirm that is now back online, turn off the Mevo overlay, and turn on the PTZ overlay. All is well for the rest of the service, but this is a pretty crappy workflow.

Incidentally, the same problem has occurred when using a picture-in-picture overlay. It’s simply unpredictable.

Incidentally, the PC is a gaming model with 16gigs of RAM, a dedicated nVidia graphics card, and a fast AMD Radeon CPU so I don’t think it’s the problem.

Any suggestions are appreciated. I have also contacted Avkans for their advice but am waiting for a reply.

Thanks

It may turn out that the problem was a combination of unclear instructions and user error.

The camera supports several video connections - HDMI, SDI, USB and NDI and I needed to use NDI. The web app has an NDI CONFIG section so I turned it on. That was a mistake. This configuration option is for. NDI-HX which is not supported by my model. It installed an invalid NDI license key which the manufacturer says caused the “freezing.” I’m unclear why there was any video output with an invalid key but they did turn off the NDI-HX option and re-installed a valid NDI key.

I will find out if their troubleshooting and fix were correct when I stream our church service tomorrow.

Incidentally, AVKANS support is NOT 24/7 (only 9/5 M-F) and is located in China GMT+8 so arranging a support session may be difficult for North America.

Will add an update tomorrow.