Description
Product Description
TONGVEO 3X Optical Zoom USB Video Conference PTZ Camera
TONGVEO Conference PTZ Camera is equipped with 3X Optical Zoom with HD 1080P@30fps resolution, Silent PTZ movement with 350° Pan & 90° Tilt, 128° wide-angle FOV, 0-9 Position Presets via IR remote control, USB Plug & Play, RS232/RS485 Interface, easy to setup.
PTZ Camera with 1080P 3X Optical Zoom
(0-9)10 preset positions can be saved with the IR remote control: just set the PTZ camera to the desired position, then press [PRESET], then press one of the numbers 0-9, and the setting is complete! One IR remote control can control up to 3 PTZ cameras.
Multiple Installation Options
Suitable for desktop, ceiling mount(Only ceiling bracket and screws included), wall mount, and tripod mount. Compatible with many popular video conferencing and live streaming software such as Zoom, Skype, OBS, Facebook Live, Polycom, Microsoft Lync, Cisco, WebEx, BlueJeans and more.
Fitting in Different Scenarios
Professional for Video Conferencing, Church Livestream, Remote Meetings, Distance Education, Remote Consultation, etc. Recommended for Small and Medium Meeting Rooms.
ERM-FW –
Tongveo 10x Camera – So far so good. A good deal for the moneyTongveo Camera – So far so good. A good deal for the money.BACKGROUNDI had helped set up a small church for live streaming using a SMTAV PTZ camera. I had paid $919.04 at that time (HDMI, IP, SDI, no USB output – requiring an adapter to USB). While it had a lot more features than this one, they weren’t really necessary for our purposes; we just needed a USB feed into a Mac computer running OBS Studio as our switcher software. 30x zoom was more than we needed. Picture clarity was great and the ability to set up preset location was nice for audience shots and then back on the main speaker. It compared well to a PTZOptics camera which was over $2k at that time. So the person complaining about these Tongveo cameras being expensive hasn’t really worked with these types of PTZ cameras over time. This is not a webcam for solo zoom meetings (see below) or broadcasting gameplay.Later I ordered a Tongveo 20x for my own small company’s needs ($506.22), but the colors were way off (purplish) and the camera was returned.With the Black Friday specials in 2022, I revisited the Tongveo line and thought I would give them another try. (The 10x was less than $240 on sale including sales tax)OBSERVATIONSI just finished setting up the camera and playing around with the usual PTZ functions and presets that I’m familiar with. Color and focus were reasonable, panning was smooth and quiet, yet a bit slow (frankly I prefer the slower pan for live panning) and overall, this is a much better camera than the last Tongveo which I returned. The base / footprint is rather large (may have some mounting issues) and it does have a ¼-20 female thread in the bottom with which to mount it to a tripod or other conventional camera mount.One critic is right in that the camera doesn’t move quickly between preset locations, but then one can use it for slow live pans (which I prefer). The instructions state that one can hold down the directional arrows and get faster PTZ action. That didn’t work for me. You hold the directional arrow buttons to pan or tilt, then release when you have the desired frame. Not a deal breaker.Upon booting the device, the camera will rotate all the way clockwise, then all the way counterclockwise, then vertically facing down, then up to the neutral position, then it goes to its default position, which if you have it programmed, is Preset 1. It takes about 35 seconds to do this.To add the camera in OBS Studio, create a Scene (name it Tongveo Camera or whatever); add a Source (+, Video Capture Device, Create new (Make source visible), select “UVC Camera” from the Device pulldown list (rename it to: Tongveo USB camera or whatever); press OK. The video feed should be visible in OBS.If the camera is rebooted while connected to the computer or a USB cable was unplugged / replugged, to reestablish the video feed in OBS, Deactivate, then Activate the source. Click on the Camera source, toggle the Deactivate/Activate button above it. Your video should be back.If you attach the unit upside down to the ceiling, press the Down button on the remote control and it will flip/rotate the image. While you can also “Flip vertical” in OBS, it’s better to do it in the camera to reduce the workload on your computer’s CPU. That way the pan/tilt controls should work as you expect.USB 2.0 or 3.x? While the item description says, USB 2.0, my 10x camera came with connectors for USB 3.x and a USB 3.x cable. It worked well plugged into my powered Anker USB 3.0 SuperSpeed 10-Port Hub.USB 3.x signals are limited in the distance they can travel. The frequency is also similar to that of a wireless mouse, so keep those apart. If you have a longer run, get an extension cable with repeater/amplifiers in the cable. In the church setting, I successfully used the MutecPower 32 Feet Active USB Extension Cable 3.0 Male to Female with 2 Extension chipset Signal Booster – Active Extension/Repeater Cord 10 Meters / 32 Feet. With the 10’ USB 3.x cable that this camera comes with, 42’ total was adequate for our needs. Adjust for your distance needs.The widest zoom of the 10x camera is somewhat narrow at less than 70° Field of View (FOV – I’ve seen several different values). The FOV varies between models (see the photo of the manual giving the FOV for various models). Choose according to your needs.You’ll have to physically move the camera back from your object/presenter. I wouldn’t recommend using the 10x model as a webcam for personal Zoom meetings (I use an OSBOT Tiny for that with auto tracking mode – very cool – go with the 4k unit if you are looking for an auto tracking webcam, not that you’ll be streaming in 4k, but the 4k allows you to digitally zoom in halfway and still have FHD quality).The 10x Tongveo model comes with adjustable focus (other lower models may have fixed focus). Autofocus works well so far and manual focus buttons allows one to override the autofocus, for example to focus on a nearby musician and have the background out of focus (bokeh).You can create 10 locational presets with the remote, more with a keyboard/joystick controller (set the DIP switches on the bottom of the unit for the address of the unit). When you have set these 10 presets for your church or meeting location, if you have a newbie assisting with running the cameras, let them know NOT to push the Reset button (in the Presets section of the remote). If they inadvertently do (“hey, what does this button do?”), you will lose all your presets, and then have to scramble during the service (happened at least once to us, perhaps twice to us). Switch to a different camera source, then reprogram the presets – viewing the camera feed via OBS’s View > Multiview previews).I found the IR Remote a little temperamental (it seemed unresponsive after it had gone to sleep – pressing the right or left arrows seem to bring the remote out of suspend mode more efficiently rather than pressing a Preset number). If you have a service that you are streaming and find that you have similar issues (as other reviewers have noted), you may wish to consider a RS232 or RS485 connection to a keypad / joystick controller at your control booth. Match the communication protocols on the camera (set DIP switches) with that of your keypad / joystick device.Graininess. Under very low lighting conditions, the video output may be a bit grainy and blurry (this is to be expected based upon the aperture and gain the camera’s processor uses). Increase the lighting level and the graininess should diminish and depth of focus improve.IR Control. The camera base appears to have IR sensors both on the front and back of the unit. To control the camera with your remote, it must have a clear line of sight to either sensor. If your control booth is off to the side of the camera, turn the camera base so the IR receiver faces the control booth and then use presets to face the camera to the front (Set Preset 1 for the default position after booting) and to frame other shots.In answer to a few other people’s questions, yes, you can control 3 different cameras with one remote. On the bottom of the unit (see photo), there are two DIP switches SW1 and SW2. If you leave the 3 cameras at their default IR address of 0 (both SW2 DIP5 and SW2 DIP6 are off), all 3 cameras will operate simultaneously (not what you want). Set SW2 DIP5 and SW2 DIP6 to the values you desire for your camera using the table in the photo and on the bottom of your camera. Then the remote will control the camera that you press the camera number for. If you have a joystick / keypad controller, set SW1 to the address that you want for that camera (between 1 and 255 in binary -use an online converter to minimize mistakes).White balance. These cameras have auto white balance, which work fairly well, and the input can be adjusted/color corrected in OBS to give a more saturated, warmer or cooler tone. If you are looking for fixed white balance so that colors don’t change as service participants walk in and out of the camera’s view, you may be out of luck. However, you can create multiple scenes/instances for the same camera (changing the white balance in OBS – Filters > Color Correction), with one source being adjusted for one lighting situation and another for second lighting situation. Toggle between the two as needed.The camera’s manual states that the output frame rate is NTSC (29.97 Hz) or PAL (25 Hz). I cannot confirm that the camera’s output won’t do double that, i.e., 59.94/60 fps or 50fps for reduced blurriness due to speaker movement.I set the OBS video record frame rate alternately to 59.94 fps and 60.00 fps (File > Settings > Video > Common FPS settings), recorded short samples, and didn’t notice any difference in the outputs. Looking at the file properties shows that the frequency of the files are respectively 59.94 fps and 60.00 fps. For live streaming at 30 fps, this should not be an issue.Please note that these cameras do not have HDMI output, so you cannot monitor the feed on a separate monitor (only in the OBS preview window which is fine for my needs). They also won’t work with HDMI switchers such as the ATEM, RGBlink, etc. If that is what you need, look elsewhere. Personally, I like the simplicity, the price point and not having to buy HDMI to USB adapters which add potential failure points.Overall, for the price, I see this as a promising camera. I would love to buy another. However, OBS on a Windows PC has trouble differentiating between two identical cameras, a known issue (see forums). OBS on a Mac seems to have less of that problem even if a USB hub is used (at least in our setup at our church for which we had 5 sources, 2-3 with the same adapter names). One almost has to go with a different brand of camera if one is using a Windows PC. Since a number of these seems to have the same manufacturer (look at the shape and features), it may be possible to order one that offers a different camera name for OBS purposes. Best to ask that question via the product page.If anyone has been able to get two identical cameras to work successfully with OBS on a Windows 10 PC (i.e., not having to Deactivate/Activate each camera when switching between them), please provide the details. Running multiple different cameras/sources is not the issue). Lots of users are asking the same question.Sorry for being so long, but I hope you found the above write-up helpful.If so, please press the HELPFUL button.
J. S. Spence –
Nice productThe M50 is a great camera. I was encouraged through YouTube to use this for multi-camera streaming. I still use two of them for “locked down” shots. What I fell in love with is an HDMI PTZ camera. As a still camera or even a movie camera, the M50 is a great camera but for streaming, they are a challenge to set up.
Amazon Customer –
Zoom Church.This has been a great camera for zooming our church service. After all most one year and it has started shutting down during our service. Know I must look for another camera.
Johnny INC –
Impressive and awesome cameraThe 20x optical zoom quality is so sharp & crisp. We have our PTZ camera set up around 50 feet at the back wall of our church for when we do webex services and we are very impressed of the zoom quality. Also love how it has multiple preset camera zoom setup. Just an awesome PTZ camera all around.
Amazon Customer –
Great conference camera. We are loving it.Great conference camera. We are loving it. The pictures are awesome too.
Linda –
Make sure you are standing directly in front of camera to make remote workI love the quality of the picture but using the remote unless you are directly in front of the camera is impossible. Setting up the presets was difficult.. I would set one up and another would disappear. I am looking for some type of software or if all else fails a joystick or keyboard – although that means running another cable to the camera. Think hard where are placing this camera and if you have direct line of site to the front of the camera to control it.
gene foose –
Good camera but limited to being located near the laptop to use itI was unaware of the limited distance a USB cable requires to live stream a video signal and this camera does not provide a menu in order to make adjustments for the camera operation to my knowledge.
Unitarian Church of Barneveld –
Remote control is not very sensitive and slow in reacting.I like the quiet operation, the image and working with Zoom Meetings. Also like the Presets, in principle, but in function, there are too many times that the camera does not react to the preset buttons. I don’t like the remote control feature and wish I could control it with an App on an iPad.
Nelson McAllister –
recommendedThis meets our needs for streaming church services, picture quality is great.
Amazon Customer –
ExcellentThe quality is perfect.