Live Streaming on a Shaky Floor? My Pro Setup

We stream graduation ceremonies at East Texas A&M in an old gymnasium. Six months earlier we had visible camera shake in the program feed, and the cause wasn't the operators. It was the floor: creaky, flexing, with a full crowd moving in the stands.

The fix

• Two RigWheels vibration isolators, one under each PTZ tripod
• Canon CR-N500 PTZ cameras on top
• Stacked mounting: a Manfrotto quick-connect plate plus a standard video head plate, so you can get a hand in there to twist and lock it down
• LAN and 3G-SDI out of each camera back to the control position behind the curtain

Did it work

Eli's verdict: absolutely worth it. They don't eliminate shake, they suppress it. Instead of continued diving-board bobbing you get one initial jolt and then it settles. Every PTZ preset stayed accurate with no re-adjusting.

Two things to know before you buy

• Treat it like a gimbal and balance it. Front or back heavy and it flops off level. We used a slider plate to shift the camera fore and aft.
• Some assembly required. We had to cut an inch off the outer cables to stiffen the unit for our camera weight.

For comparison, the venue's own PTZ was on a simple light stand acting like a diving board. Night and day difference. And you can't fix wobble in post when it's going out live.