Guide · Production
Control the cameras. Send no video at all.
Streaming is only one of the things the protocol does. A camera can connect for the control channel alone — nothing but commands and state on the network — while it records locally at full quality. For shoots that are not live, that is a better rig than a live one.
The mode most people miss
Among the protocol's control commands is setDeliveryMode, with two values: videoAndControl, which is what a live multicam uses, and controlOnly. In control-only, the connection stays open, the camera keeps reporting its state, and it keeps accepting commands — but it stops sending pictures.
That sounds like a smaller feature than it is. It separates two things that are normally welded together: directing the cameras and receiving from them.
What you get by separating them
- Full-quality recordings. What lands on each phone is its local recording, not a stream that has been encoded for the network. For anything edited later, that is the file you actually want.
- A network with nothing to carry. Control messages are tiny. A rig that would strain a venue's Wi-Fi as four live video feeds becomes trivial when the video isn't moving.
- Cameras that match each other. This is the real prize. Set ISO, shutter, white balance and lens from one screen, across every phone, and they agree — instead of four operators each guessing on a small touchscreen.
- Less heat and more battery. Encoding for the network is work the phone stops doing.
Where this is the right rig
Multi-angle shoots
Interviews, panels, music sessions, courses — anything with several fixed angles that will be cut later. Match the cameras before the take, roll, and collect the files afterwards.
Long or awkward days
Full-day events, outdoor work, venues where the network is a rumour. Nothing depends on the link staying up, because the recording is on the device.
It is also the honest answer for rooms where streaming several cameras simply isn't going to work. Rather than fighting the Wi-Fi, stop asking it to carry video.
Setting it up
- Connect each phone to your receiver as usual — Bridge, or your own.
- Put the connection in control-only. The channel stays live; the picture stops.
- Match the cameras from the Mac: white balance first, then exposure. The values the protocol exposes are device-accurate, so what you set is what the hardware does.
- Start recording on the phones and shoot. Adjust from the Mac as light changes.
- Afterwards, collect the recordings from each device. They are clean — the watermark only ever applies to a live stream.
What you give up
- No monitoring. This is the big one. With no video on the wire you cannot see what the cameras see, so framing has to be set before you switch modes — or on a camera you leave in full mode.
- No live output. Nothing is going to a switcher or a stream, by definition.
- Sync is your problem in the edit. Separate files from separate devices need lining up. A clap, or a common audio track, still works exactly as it always has.
- Audio comes from elsewhere — the protocol carries none, and for this kind of shoot you would want a proper recorder anyway.
The hybrid that usually wins
You do not have to choose per production, only per camera. Leave one phone in full mode as your monitor and reference — it shows you the room, and you can frame against it — and put the rest in control-only, recording at full quality. You get one live view, four clean files, and a single place to control all of them. For a shoot that is edited rather than broadcast, this is close to ideal, and it costs nothing to try with the phones already in the room.