BirdDog XL Ultra and O4: Next-Gen PTZ Cameras Redefining Indoor and Outdoor Production | By The Digital Insider

BirdDog unveiled two powerful PTZ innovations at IBC—XL Ultra and O4. The XL Ultra is designed for broadcast, XR, and studio environments, featuring a cinematic 4/3″ CMOS sensor, 20x optical zoom, dual 4K60 outputs, advanced AI tracking, and whisper-quiet movement for cinema-quality control. Meanwhile, the O4 brings unmatched durability outdoors, delivering professional-grade video and next-gen AI tracking for stadiums, city infrastructure, and live events in extreme environments. Together, these cameras expand what’s possible for high-end productions indoors and out. Check out the recap:

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Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us on a special IBC episode of Bird Dog Live Session. Hi, my name is Anthony Barcus as you can see right down here and that's going to stay there for the whole show because upgraded the studio to be uh it's a new studio uh built from scratch just for today's show and uh those won't go away but that is that is life in the live uh studio. You also notice that my background is different and it's because I am traveling for the next few weeks and uh we just really wanted to get you the news of BC. So, I am traveling. This is a makeshift studio, but uh I thank everyone for being there. So, welcome to today's show. I don't have a green logo shirt. I don't have a green screen behind me. This is actual like real uh location and that far from IBC, but I am not on the show floor. I'm hoping maybe somebody from the show floor will check in. Uh we will see if we can make that happen if there's enough cell cover at IBC in Amsterdam. Uh, speaking of Amsterdam, where everyone is watching from. So, feel free to chime in in the comments where you are watching from because this is a live show. You are here. We are here. The whole point of being here together for this live show is that we're we're here together. And as such, this is your opportunity to chime in. What questions do you have about the products? Now, that announcement was made early this morning. It is now 4:00 in the afternoon here in well in Germany and in central Europe time it is now 4:00 in the afternoon. So the big already been made. So uh we're going to just go over them if you haven't already heard. Um, but as always, one key another key reading us on the live show is that you have a chance to win a one year of Bird Dog Connect. And you do that by filling out this form. You can use uh your phone. If you're watching this on a computer or a laptop or iPad or something, you can use your cell phone, point it at this QR code, and that will take you to the entry form. And then uh you or you can type in bit.ly/bd entry bird dog entry which in another tab in the same browser of where you are and you can start to enter to win one year of bird dog connect. So it's day trial. It's not a 30-day trial. It's not the same thing everybody else is getting. This is this is one one full year subscription to Bird Dog Connect. And it does a lot of things. Uh, so if you had an opportunity to check that out, this is your chance to really drive it, see what bird dog entry can do for you. And uh, I can see that somebody has the QR code already for participating in the show. And again, in addition to being in Bird Dog entry, uh, one year of Bird Dog Connect, I once again remind everyone as we talk about today's announcements, feel free to throw your questions into the comments. This is a dialogue. You, this is your opportunity, basically have tech support on the line and answer your questions. And uh I will tell you right now that here I am um on vacation and I don't have the products with me. So I will not hold them up. But I do have someone I have Christian the product manager from Bird Dog will be able to really walk us through these products. So with that, let me bring Christian on to the show. Christian, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate you uh joining me on today's show. Oh, let's see. I don't hear you yet. And it didn't resize everything. Okay. No, I'm not hearing you. Did you unmute your mic? Did I Did I mute you? I don't think I muted you. No, it does not say that you are muted. So Christian's going to work on that. Uh if everyone I'm going to leave him on so I can hear it when that does click through. And if everyone has already heard the news, if you haven't already, uh we're going to need a drum roll. This is there. Drum roll, please. Uh what are the big announcements from IBC? announcements are the X130X. The X130X is that X1 that we all know and love the successful and people have been asking and I having done these shows several times, a lot of people when when it when I think we got one right here. Uh when will the X1 30X be available? Uh, I hear you starting to come in. The question is when will the X1 30X be available? So, when Christian comes back, uh, we will have him be that. I can't answer that, but we do know with Bird Dog 2.0 that the they do not want to announce things until to go. That was part of Bird Dog 2.0. And the fact that these they're being announced here means it should mean that they are ready to go. Oh, he's going he disconnected. He's going to try to come back in again. Let me try to bring you in here. Do I have you now? One, two, three. It's it's it's it's coming in. It's coming in. This is the magic of live. It's coming like I hear a little bit of static and then it goes away. A little bit of static and then it goes away. Hear consistent audio. All right. Am I better now? Wait. Yes, you are better. Great. Yeah. The X130X. Um because luckily I was able to hear while I was trying to uh get my mic sorted out. Um yeah. Yeah. There's not going to be a really long wait at all for the uh X130X. So, we already have them um assembled. We're just finalizing the firmware. So, it's just going to be um a matter of weeks um until we're able to get the logistics processed and get them uh out to warehouses. So, it's going to be a pretty quick turnaround from uh the announcement today to when they're going to be in hands. So, if you put in an order today, uh it won't be long until it it hits your hands. And I think uh just because there has been such interest in a longer zoom um this is going to be a hot product. But also one of the really interesting is this now has a filter thread which for people who are outdoors. A lot of people have been, you know, haven't really like talked about filter threads, but there's not a lot ofies with filter threads to put adapt, you know, different things on the front just because it's a balance issue. Yeah. So, we we saw in like the last like the first year that the X1 was out that there were a lot of folks that were using it in um in places and scenarios that were a little outside of like what we originally like expected people to use it for. So, yeah, just adding it on um we think gives it the ability to be more successful in in more places. Yes, definitely. because I know like if you're in a really bright area and you know you've got a lot of sunlight and everything, being able to like control the aperture so it's not closing all the way down to a pinhole um really does help the image quality. You know, being able to put on an ND filter on there can really make a difference for certain outdoor sports. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, it's a 52 millimeter uh filter ring as well. I think we have that on the our specs page which kind of digs into everything on the next slide I think. Uh yeah, let me go to the next slide. Am I ahead of myself? Amazing. Yeah. So the 52 millimeter filter ring. So that Yeah. So it should be pretty universal. Um just as long as you grab any 52 millimeter ring, it'll screw right on. And I think uh a lot of people are also interested you know people ask about portrait mode. So what is this now that you can do is is the sensor the sensor is not rotating in there is it? Nope. It's uh cropping the the native image to a 9 by6. Um so what I can do actually um I can show it uh right now actually. All right. Before talking about it, let me share my screen. Yep, I see it. Let me add to the scene. Yeah. So, I'm just in the our web UI for the X130X just like all of our cameras. Um, but in the cam control tab, there's the image ratio where you can toggle between traditional 16x9 or 9x6. And then you'll notice in the frame, it's a little hard where I'm zoomed in here, but you'll notice on the left and right that it's a little grayed out to help you frame what's going on. But on the actual NDI feed um you will just see the center portion. Oh, interesting. So that way if somebody is you know broadcasting vertical content just to Instagram or Tik Tok, you're able to like easily see what the framing is for that vertical crop and not be like, you know, oh that was a little too I you're not guessing where those edges are. Correct. And then here, let me change what I'm sharing real quick. So that's so this is the actual studio monitor of that same camera. So you can see that you just have the black bars on either side. So you're only showing out that 9 by6, not a faded view. Me ramp my speed down here. So you can come in. So what we're getting a lot of interest in was using PTZ cameras in like Tik Tok shop. And so now you can frame up somebody for portrait mode really easily. cap. It sounds really complicated, but at the end of the day, it's a it's I think it's a really straightforward feature that's going to uh be really dynamic for a lot of users. I think we lost Anthony. But I can keep carrying on in the in the dead space. Um, so the X130X is um kind of like the cousin of the the X1. It uh is a grown-up version of it being Zoom certified. Um, you know, it has the same color profile, the same feature set. Um, just gives you that 30x zoom. um but is also debuting some some of the new features like the 9x6 mode that's also going to come to um the pre-existing X1 and uh the X1 Ultra and uh Max I believe as well. All right. So that's the vertical crop there. Yeah, it still has the decoder and um the Wi-Fi available on it. Very cool. You can see the color is is still great. Um it's everything that we've uh grown to really love about the X1. Definitely. Definitely. And in terms of uh let's go back to the go away uh specification my web interface because I'm remote I'm I'm remoting into this uh the 9 by6 um mode is new and you were talking about the zoom certified And it keeps everything else, the Halo tally, the e- in display. There's nothing else. You're not losing anything. You're just sort of gaining the longer zoom if and the 16 9 by 16. And what I think we understate too is the multi-exposure HDR. So um the color is just going to be more uh dynamic than uh on the pre-existing X1's that we have. So go through that again. The multi-exposure HDR Yeah. So, HDR is going to give you a high dynamic range. So, it's going to give you uh my favorite way of thinking about HDR is like boxes of crayons where when you're going from a standard color space to a high dynamic range, you're adding more crayons to your box. So, there's more shades that you can work with. Um, and it's going to give you a more dynamic uh feel of color. Interesting. Interesting. Uh, we got a question come in. Um, the AI face as a focus mode on the X130 specs. Is this an update going to be coming to the X1 Ultra? Uh, yeah. So, we're really uh keen to a lot of the the features like this that we're uh debuting on the X130X uh will trickle along to uh the X1 and the X1 Ultra as well. Not very far behind at all. So, those firmwares as the X130X hits the market will have the firmware for the X1 and the the Ultra out as well. All right. And the 30X is just HD right now, correct? Right. So, if you like the X1, anyone? Yeah. Uh, form factor, but you want even more zoom. Um, we are really close to launching. So, we're announcing that we're bringing a teleconvert feature um to the X1 Ultra and to the Max where when you are in 1080p um you're able to double the zoom so that you can get a what is it a 40x yeah if you're basically doubling your 20 to 40 because it doubles your zoom. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I always get mixed up in my brain whether which one's the 12x and which one's the 20. So I think it's going to be like a 24x zoom. So, a lot of people who were not, it's like, listen, I've got the 4K if I need it, but then if I'm doing a show and I would rather have and it's going to be HD and I would rather have longer zoom, I could then leverage that additional sensor crop to come in and delivers still pixel for pixel HD, but now it's as if I had a longer optical zoom, which I think is uh a really really good uh feature enhancement without actually changing the way the camera operates, too. Yeah. So, that's that's coming along as well. So, it's it's what we've kind of started to hang our hat on a little bit is reinventing, you know, the products almost with pretty uh fundamental changes to what the products can do even after we've launched it. So, I think it's a real value ad to the entire X1 line in addition to having a brand new product available in the the 30X version. Right. Right. So, let's continue along with this. See if I can bring that slide deck back up. My interface is being a little sluggish today. Probably because of I don't know, I'm in German. The next one up is the uh 04. I saw this and I was like, "Whoa, this thing looks like a tank." It is. And it says built like a tank. Um and then when I started looking at the specifications for this thing, I was like, "Oh my goodness." Uh on the website it's like minus40 degrees to uh plus60. Yeah. Plus that is designed for all conditions. Yeah. And then of course I and um it doesn't have a windshield wiper but no but what it does have um you know since it is our brand new standalone outdoor unit uh the really modern and kind of spacey looking you know glass on the front is actually hydrophobic so dirt water all runs off of Right. Um, so we thought a lot about our pre-existing series, so like the A series, like the A200 for instance, that had a wiper and there were a lot of folks that had issues with a wiper, whether it was something hit it or just, you know, mechanical things that happened over time. When you have a a part, a moving part up on something that's mounted up, you know, wherever is it's a lot harder to access and to maintain and it's another, you know, risk factor. So, we opted to go with the hydrophobic glass rather than a wiper because we wanted to reduce the maintenance aspect of it. We didn't want people to have to get, you know, the scissor lift out to go and, you know, take a look at the camera. We wanted fix you put the camera up and you leave it alone. And if you go back a slide too, actually, um, I had, uh, I made sure we included these really great pictures of the mounting experience of it as well. Um because it look we we tried really hard to give it a really clean look like that's the actual mount uh for it that you can either do upside down or um a traditional where the camera head would be up. Yeah. Um where it looks really clean. All of your cables run through the back. You don't have things uh hanging out. And then for the O4 actually we have a corner mount available as well as a pole mount also. Nice. So three different mounts. Wall mount, pole mount, and corner mount. Correct. And I think one of the big things that people will like about the '04 is if they used our uh any of our A series cameras, they had like what we called a tail where it was like this black wire that came out of the back that had a bundle of cable connections at the end of it um that you plugged everything into. But the O4 um is really similar to the rest of our PTZ cameras where all of your ports are directly um on the camera itself. And we have three little ports. Do we have a picture of it? I don't think I have one pulled up. Let me see. I got one on the website. There's one on the website, I think. Um I'll pull it up as I talk about it. But uh what's really great is you're able to uh just connect what you need and not expose anything else. so that you're able to have it look really really professional and clean without uh sacrificing the install experience um or risking the uh weather exposure. So, here we go. So, and then you have um it talks about how we're going to bring up your slide here. You have the 30x optical. Yep. And that like we just talked about with the teleconvert. So if you're running all of a sudden you're talking 60 in HD. Yeah. So these So those are like little grommeted uh entry points for the cable. Exactly. Exactly it. Um, so depending on where you're coming from from or how many um connections you're you're hooking it up to, you're not uh going to want to slam your head into a concrete wall when you're trying to install it. And I think uh a few of our uh us on the team really like the idea that you can now just set the O4 on a tabletop or you can install it on a tripod. Um, it's not, you know, exclusive to being mounted anymore, uh, like previous outdoor cameras that we had where you had to have it on a mount or it was as heavy as Earth is [Laughter] what is it? It's only like 7 and a half kilograms. So, it's not small, but it's there's there there are definitely, you know, situations where it's like, listen, it, you know, not every outdoor camera is going to be mounted permanently. There are people who want to do live events, but you also need to be weather ready. So, it's sort of like, hey, we're going to, you know, we're going to do this game. There's a chance of inclement weather, so it's going to be on a tripod. The tripod might get wet. it's going to be, you know, you know, mounted to a a a genie boom lift, you know, up in the air. And if it gets wet, we're not worried about it because the camera is designed to work in an Yeah. And so many of those outdoor events, like I think of like outdoor concerts, um, where your tech booth is all the way in the back. So now if you just want to leave the camera, you know, in the sound booth with the 60x zoom you can get in teleconvert mode, you can zoom in and have, you know, close shots to the talent on stage without having to have dedicated cameras on stage. And then also the fact that you're able to export dual NDI. Yeah, I think this is huge and we've gone a really long time without mentioning it. uh but this is a reintroduction of high bandwidth NDI to our portfolio and it's not exclusively high bandwidth uh but you can also do NDIHX3 simultaneously right and and that's what I think one of the interesting things is because um the silicon 2 update for the older cameras took the HX cameras high bandwidth and enabled them to also do HX3 and thus far the X series and I guess the O4 is not necessarily an X series per se but it it's you know the core thinking technology is X it it's now that's reintroducing the high bandwidth. Yeah, it it is it's a really powerful camera and that second encoder that you can use the HX3 on. If you're using, you know, high bandwidth NDI and you're like, I don't need the HX, um you could also simultaneously encode, you know, SRT, RTMP, or uh RTSP um out of it. Um, do you want another So that second encode doesn't have to be NDI. Yeah. So this one's also going to answer um another big question that people have had for a really long time. If if you comb through the tech specs on the '04 and you look at the network protocols, you're going to see Dante AVH, uh, which can be unlocked in, uh, your Dante activator. So, it's Dante ready. Dante AVH ready. So when you connect it and hook it up, um all you'll have to do is go to your Dante activator and then activate uh that license and you know take care of the your fiduciary things with Dante and then um you can use it just like any AVH Yeah. source. So, we're talking, you know, uh Bird Dog has been all in on uh NDI, but now uh I think I lost you, Anthony. Yeah. So, like we we've been really forward with having NDI as a primary, you know, IP protocol that we've been using. Um, but we're really diversifying the portfolio that we're using from high bandwidth NDI to NDIHX3. Um, to now bringing Dante AVH to the table. Um, so no matter what video over IP or bassband workflow you're doing, we have a product that can really fit in any of those environments across uh the fleet. So, as we round out, you know, our whole lineup of of PTZ cams, uh, we really complete, um, the full workflow for for multiple different types of solutions and environments, um, and budgets. All right, it looks like Anony's going to work on rejoining us. Um, so I guess I'll dig into uh more of the technical end of stuff uh with this while we wait for Anthony to come back. Uh, we do have a large sensor on this. So it's a one over 1.8 Sony sensor uh similar to what we have in the X4 Ultra. Anthony is now back. It is great. It's It's I'll stop my boring rant through tech specs. I apologize for that. that it is uh I'm remote. I'm on a trip and that is the nature of trying to connect through whatever internet is available wherever you're at. So I have to refresh the the my browser connection and uh hopefully yeah uh the Dr. NDI cut Anthony off. No, thank you. Thank you very much Niels Niles for the comedy. Yes, I apologize, but uh doing the best I can with the connectivity that I have where I am. Uh and I'm going to agree with Randy. Dante AV availability availability is great news because you know there's competition in the market now and I think competition is great and Bird Dog is showing that they are um they're out. They're they're in it, you know, for real. And you know, Dante is a wellestablished protocol and them adding video to this wellestablished audio protocol uh is going to bring a lot of people over to video over IP that might not have already come over just because of the reliability that Dante has shown over so many years. Uh Randy has a good question though. Uh, love the dual encoding, but does it also have NDI decoding? The O4 does not have a decoder built in, but what it does have built in is a SFP port on it. So, if you're mounting it in a really remote location and you don't want to run a 300 ft, you know, RJ45 cable, you can run essentially an infinite length of SFP to wherever it's at for your uh connectivity and power it locally if you want. That's that that can be very handy too because sometimes um running fiber is a lot easier than running coax or Ethernet. Absolutely. Uh so what did somebody say? He says, "Is this going to be able on the Machis?" Uh the Oh, does this go back to the nine n 16? Um so we have it on the we either I can't remember off the top of my head if we've launched it on the Maky Live or if we're if it's launching really soon. It'll come to the uh Maky Live and then we're uh looking at it on the Altrris. Wow. So the portrait mode is something that is going to be is is is definitely an initiative. we could say it's it's not just coming out on this one model. It's going to be growing. Yeah, that is very cool. Uh Randy says, "Really happy about the 30X, but he didn't see SDI in the list." And I'm guessing he's talking about the um the 30X on the X1. Yeah. So the X1's um don't have the SDI port. So just a part of like how our uh lineup is built. So, we introduce the SDI port on our X4 Ultra. Um, so our X4, X5, 04, and then what we'll see next with the XL will all have SDI. So, um, kind of our foundational lineup in the X1s um, don't have SDI, but when you're looking for that, uh, we do have models available that do have it. And speaking of models with SDI, the X1 Ultra XL XL Ultra, it's covered over by some graphics I have in the producer view. The XL Ultra um 43 sensor. That's not That's not a That's not even a one inch sensor. It's that's a big sensor. It's It's huge. Um it's technically also a 5K uh sensor well as well. So is are you guys doing windowing or are we doing a down sample? Um I'll defer to Dan. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. No, you're good. You're good. I I just don't know the answer off the top of my head to that one. Yeah, because with a 5K sensor, I mean, there's there's a lot of capability there because I just saw a demo of Apple's new phones that the selfie camera has center stage and it's a square sensor. So, it can pull vertical, it can pull square, it can pull horizontal because it's taking one big image and then just giving you whatever you decide to want. and and and similarly if you've got a a large 43 inch sensor in a camera you have the ability to do a lot of flexible things. So you know I can't promise anything down the road now because we're not announcing what you know isn't ready to ship but this definitely does give a lot of future capability to this camera. It does. Um, we really like I feel like we've talked for the last year and a half uh since we launched the X series on like we've listened this is all the feedback we've gotten and here's how we've incorporated it and the XL is really the crowning jewel of that. We wanted to check as many boxes as possible about uh what people have been looking for and what they ask for um so that we can have a camera that meets um nearly as many me needs as possible while still performing at a really high level and uh not going to cost you, you know, an arm, a leg, and a kidney. And and one of the key questions, especially with something cinematic, I know because Sony has, you know, full-frame sensor DSLRs that they've made into PTZ cameras. Um, this is a PTZ camera now with a larger sensor. Now, it may not be, you know, full 35mm frame, but still a 4/3 sensor is a fairly large sensor. Um, in terms of shipping, John asks, "Um, is this is this one the XL going to be shipping? What's the timeline on the XL?" Um, so the XL will be shipping, um, in October. Um, and the the timeline is early October that it'll be shipping. So, we're talking next month. Yep. And then the O4 is right behind that as well at the uh, middle to end of October. Uh, UNV asks, can you show what you mean when you say independent control of the camera? What control is available for the secondary cam? I don't understand the question. Oh, I do. So, uh, I think what's an important thing to point out is so we have the the main camera head, the the PTZ head, that's the 4/3 sensor. And then down a little bit below the little power light, we have our secondary camera. So there's two cameras. Oh, right. Right. In the XL. Um, so our little wide angle 1 over 1/8 lens at the bottom. You can actually get a feed out of each camera individually. And you can set the resolution of each of those cameras individually. Um, you can set your exposure, your white balance, um, you know, your color settings to each of those individually. Interesting. Okay, that's that's what you that's what it means. Now, unfortunately, that little camera in the base is also not going to rotate, though. It's not going to pan. It's not going to tilt, but um we do have a little recessed screw on the bottom of the camera where you can, you know, tilt up or down, um that lens to be able to get the the view that you want, the angle you want, depending on, you know, where you have it positioned. So technically, like in in a church, you could utilize that as a wide view of the whole sanctuary, the whole hall. that's always there. It's just there. And then, you know, you got a little bit of adjustment to get that framing just right when you mount it. It's like, okay, that's my wide shot. It's always there. It's always available. And then this one, I can zoom around and get my other shots. Yeah. And what's really dynamic about having the two cameras is um using like the the house of worship example, having the camera in the back, the wide angle lens um can actually inform uh the AI tracking of the main camera head. So, it gives you that wider profile to know where people are at, you know, who to switch between on stage. Um, what your zone positions are on stage. Um, so if you've really grown to to like and to have more interest in the some of the advanced um AI tracking features that we have on the X1's and the X4, uh, the XL and uh, the O4 for that matter have taken those to another level. Uh they're smarter. There's way more options um that you can do for customization. Um and like I kind of said, I know it's kind of like cliche, but it I think it checks a lot of the boxes of things that people have been asking for. It it definitely does because I think with the release of cinema PTZ cameras, people have been, you know, I having done these shows, I've have heard several times, is Bird Dog going to release a larger sensor camera. And even with that, I think people were thinking 1 in sensor as a larger sensor because, you know, most of the PTZ camera sensors are very small and understandably so. But to go all the way to a 4/3 sensor is is is a big jump forward. So I think that's going to please a lot of people who have been asking about that. Yeah. And it's a big camera, but it's not, you know, immovably large. Um, so I think a lot of people are like, how big is it? Pan over to it. Um, here maybe. Did my preset take? The preset did not take earlier. So, we'll do it. We'll do it live. All right. What What direction is what? So, those two cameras. So, that's uh the XL on I think your left and then right next to it, that white camera is the uh X130X. So, it's significantly larger, you know, than the X1, but it's not, you know, a monolith of of a camera. And for And what's the weight difference of the two? So the XL is uh is 4 kg where the X1 I'm relying on other specs is um one and a3 kilograms. Okay. So it is it's also distinctly heavier too. Yeah. But we've built the box to be sturdier. Yes. So, uh, a larger sensor needs larger glass. Larger glass needs bigger motors. Bigger motors. Everything everything sizes up. And that's why, you know, it it has been a thing to create a large sensor camera because everything has to get larger. You can't just put a large sensor in a tiny uh zoom in body because it just doesn't work. big you you need big glass for big sensors which is why panovision lenses are so big and you know that's one thing you know to to relate that um you think how big a panovision lens is and that could be for a super 35 sensor which is not that far off from uh micro four thirds and to be able to get a long zoom with a big sensor is a real challenge. Yeah, it was a really exciting uh task to be able to take on. And I think uh like I've been really blown away with my experience with the XL and what um the image can do in uh really close-up scenarios. You know, it's one of those things where when you just have a camera on your desk and you're testing it and you um zoom it in on yourself and you're like, "Oh my god, is that what I look like?" because it it's like it's better than what my eyes are. Uh, speaking of that, FK Mobile says, "What does the cinematic image look like?" I'm sure you guys are going to have a properly done demo. Not we're not trying to do create a cinematic, you know, either in your office or on my travels. Uh so I I'll I'll wait till the team produces a properly made uh demo of the of the sensor capability in terms of being cinematic and delivering a nicer a shallower depth of field. Yeah, that's not something we're going to be able to uh cover in a live show. But as always, thank you for the question because you know if you have questions about the stuff we're talking about today, throw them into the comments because that's the whole magic of being here for the live show. In addition to wait it wait for it wait for it. You have the opportunity to win uh one year of bird dog connect. You can just go to bit.ly bird dog entry or if you're watching this on a laptop or a desktop. I gota it's it's going to be a fun show today. Um you could use uh your phone scan this QR code fill out the form and enter to win. And let me go just double check that. uh see how many entries we've got. We've got seven entries so far. So, you have whoever enters next has has a one in eight chance of winning. Uh but I can see the entries come in live on this form. And then what we'll do is I will put them into the uh wheel of names that we use every show just so that we have an opportunity during the show to give away uh one year of Bird Dog Connect. So that's how you would do that. Bit.ly bird dog entry if you want to type it in on your device you're using or you can use this the code to scan. So continuing on with the announcements, uh we're going to continue past that one. And you'll notice on this one that the mounting looks very similar to the '04. Y because it is. We kind of took the same, you know, design theory of the ' 04 um mounting hardware and applied that to the XL as well. Um so where your wall mount like that, how it's mounted uh flipped um or you can mount it traditionally vertically um is very clean, your cables are all hidden um as well as um having the pull mount. Um is it pull mount or a coin? Um, I think those are just the '04. I have to double check my list, but the the the shroud that covers everything to the wall, is that metal? Yeah, it's a metal um mount. Yeah. So, that also can be important in terms of security too, you know, keeping people from getting access to the cables to mess with them. Uh uh I'm trying to not All right, there we go. This way. Uh FK Mobile says, "Can't he win the XL Ultra?" Um I think you're able to win an XL Ultra um by placing an order for one. I think it's a really exciting uh uh winning opportunity for when it shows up at your doorstep. That is the ultimate. Um Oh, Amazon just showed up. What is it? It's my XL Ultra. Absolutely. Yes. Uh that is not what I'll just be clear. No, the XL Ultra is not part of the giveaway during the live show. Just being clear. You enter to win uh a year of Bird Dog Connect. That's what it is. you know, just for the sake of, you know, putting it out there, which will work with your XL Ultra that you purchased. Oh, let's just see. I love XLR ports for analog. I wish more cameras would use them or neutri. Yeah, that it was a big thing that we got. We we noticed that a lot of folks weren't using the um adapter for the for the mini XLR that we did on the P240 um and just having the accessory was uh a larger barrier than a lot of folks uh were comfortable with. So, putting the the full XLR with phantom power directly on the camera, uh, I think is going to allow the XL to fit in more pre-existing environments where, you know, there just needs to be a small upgrade, you know, piece by piece as well as for, uh, you know, more professional environments. Right. Right. Continuing, let's see. 4/3 sensor, dual stacked sensor, 20x optical zoom, 40x in HD, dual 4K 60 outputs, two times NDI. It just it's just like ticking the boxes of everybody's wish list. Buzz word. That was the goal. Um I think my favorite aspect of it is the PDAF, the phase detection autofocus. Um, so we're sometimes you go through with cameras with autofocus and it breathes a little bit or it get um it's hunting to find the focus. Um, the phase detection autofocus is a much more advanced version of it where when you move the camera and you, you know, stop moving it and you land on your target, it immediately just snaps into focus. um instead of taking you know those those moments to breathe or to find the object, it is a near immediate focus. Yeah. Yeah. And and we've all we've all been there, especially at the the further end where it's like, is it is it here? Is it there? And it's just looking around and it's just and as a director, you're sitting there waiting for it to stop. Okay. Now, so it's nice to have something just just snap on. And like you know if people watch this show normally it's like normally I have a camera that can do that just it just grabs that focus super fast and that is a very very handy thing especially in a fast-paced show. You just you don't want to have to like wait for it to like double check itself triple check itself and everything. Just stay there. Oops. Sorry. Don't knock your microphone down. So, continuing along, we also have uh I mean, I think the key word for today's announcement is big. It's a big announcement. You know, not just are the cameras big, but the zoom is big, the sensor is big, the the capability like the O4, the capability is big. I mean, you know, trying to find a place where that thing isn't going to work is going to be pretty darn hard. It is. And here, I'll I'll do one last share here, Anthony. Actually, um, if I can figure out which tab I have. Here we go. Thankfully, the internet issue seems to have cleared up a bit. All right. So, this is our web UI for the XL Ultra. Um, so you'll see it looks uh remarkably just like all of our other uh cameras. Yeah. Uh so what's cool is having the uh your close-up and your panoramic camera. Uh you can view the stream uh information independently um as you can have them uh configured differently. So you can just tab through right on the dashboard. Yep. and view them in uh your AV setup tab. Uh we have them tabbed out here as well where you can configure your streams independently of each other. And then also in cam control, you can see both cameras them as you're going through and setting your your image settings and your white balance and your color matrix and to rotate between which one you're you're setting. You'll notice this red box. So the image parameter control um the one that has the red border is the one that you're configuring. So, if I switch over to this one now, I'm controlling the the main head. So, if I making it very clear which one you're adjusting, I think that that right there being able to have them both on the screen at the same time. And again, you're not taking up um this is somebody who's you're using the web interface, right? Yep. So this way you're not taking up production. You know, who'sever switching, whoever's got the multiv- view, you know, that's somebody else and you can sit here on a web interface on a laptop, you know, like, you know, a new Mac with a new retina display that's, you know, super stunning. You could come in here and really dial in those colors side by side independently of what the production is doing. Yeah, it's we because we've I think as as users as much as anyone else have uh been frustrated with when you click through and um with the web preview and be like, "Oh, let me go back to look at it to see the changes that I've made or I need two windows open." So, right, trying to improve the the user experience, you know, as we're evolving uh to make it more dynamic and and especially with this one, I want to say camera that has two cameras, but one device that has two cameras in it, you're definitely going to want, but these two cameras to match. So being able to like toggle back and forth between them and see, you know, your changes live in real time, side by side on the same monitor, not two different monitors, but this one single screen, I think really does make it easier for end users to be able to like know that they've nailed it. Absolutely. And because there's also so many so many options uh that you can do in the UI as well. Uh, I think one thing, uh, that's pretty nifty that I didn't touch on at all was, uh, you know, area management. So, if you're, um, doing AI tracking on, you know, like a house of worship stage, but you don't want the camera to ever go to uh, the steps of the stage on, you know, the far left and the far right, you can block those off um, as like no-go areas so that the the tracking will never go to those areas. So you keep the camera um defined to the space that you set up. Definitely. Definitely then see we do have the auto framing here that um gets asked about. And then um a really cool thing that's going to be brand new um with the XL because there's so many options that you can do um as far as protocols having the two different cameras and you're like oh my gosh like what can I actually like use together um so if you click this configure button um it is almost like a little interactive game um where you can uh define out and configure what camera you're using for what video format and to actually know which ones can be used together. Wow. And to make sure that your configuration works. So if I reset my matrix here, I'll turn off that. We'll turn off that. And so I see that I have four processing units that I can work with and that I can do two output formats per camera. So if I want to use NDIHX on the main camera and let's say RTSP on the wide camera. So I see now that I can't do HX on the wide camera with having these configured together. Um, but what if I also want to do RTMP out of the main camera? Okay. It's it's it's like a very visual way like you said, it's it's gamification, but it makes it easy because the CPU is only going to be able to do so much. And you know, this this allow shows you, okay, you've used up all the CPU resources. This is what it's going to be able to do. I see a lot of tools out there in this space that try to be super simple, but then people run into um problems where they ask the device to do too many things. And what this does is this basically visually indicates you've hit the limit. That's all it's going to do. But these things that it is doing are going to be done reliably. It's just that it can't do anything more than these things because everything else is disabled. You're not going to be able to you're not even going to be able to make it try and do those things and then you get dropped frames and every's like Yeah. While you were showing that uh somebody wrote in uh about the they had a a question about the cameras themselves. When the e in screen is off, it turns white. Could you make a feature to change it in settings white to black because in a dark room it's really frustrating feature that we've definitely like looked at and we um are working on road mapping into the cameras to be able to do right because one of the neat things about e in is you know when when you set it to be a certain thing and the camera powers down that's just how it stays. It doesn't use any power to stay that way. Yep. So yeah, thank you uh Martinez Martins Martins, thank you very much for that. And like we said, this is definitely an interactive show. So if you had questions about the today's announcements, feel definitely throw them into the comments if you're watching. And uh I'm going to throw this up one last time. is if you were also uh late to the show and you didn't see me put this up at the beginning of the show, you could uh enter to win a chance to win Bird Dog Connect. And again, it's not a 30-day test. It's not a 15-day trial. It's not a limited time. It's a full year to use all the features of Bird Dog Connect. So, you can try it out, you can test it, and then a month from now, you can say, "Oh, you know what? There's this tool. let me go see if this will if it'll do this and then a month after that, oh wait, I heard this thing has a built-in switching capability and you know format conversion and all this stuff and you can really spend a full year digging into this. So BD entry bitly bird entry or uh just scan the QR code with your phone or other mobile device and that will take you to an entry form and that will enable you to give you a chance to win. Not everybody wins. Just want to be clear, you know, fill in this form and you will win. No, fill in this form and you have a chance to win. So, you shared your screen and let me throw it to show a little feature that uh I think can go a little understated. Um I don't have it set up in a great spot because you'll see it's kind of blocking, you know, our wide view camera. Uh but I've enabled uh picture and picture um in the NDI feed where I have you know the wide view camera picture and picture to the main camera head. So as I you know move interesting so it's actually doing like a little video mixing in itself. Correct. And I can move it. So, that is pretty cool if somebody wanted to have uh a picture and picture of both the wide and a closeup of someone talking. And it could be a concert, too. You get a close-up of the person singing and you've got the wide shot of the crowd responding at the same time in this shot from the camera before you even get it to the video mixer. Absolutely. Very interesting. So, but there's a lot of cool things like we, you know, we've been talking about all the new cameras for, you know, an hour. Um, you know, we could probably spend, you know, over an hour on each of the cameras going over the things that it has. There's so many things to cover. Yeah, there's so many things. There's um it's really really exciting. If you're out in Amsterdam, I would, you know, highly encourage you to run by the booth um and check it out. Um they have both all three of them on display with, you know, our entire fleet um you know, with KBDs connected for control. We didn't even talk about that, but you know, all three of them are integrated with the KBD um and work just like the rest of our fleet. Um, so there won't be any uh delay or you're like, "Oh, I need an update for the KVD to be able to use my new XL." Now we've taken care of, right? Let's see. I do this. And what I wanted to do was also just reiterate for people that uh what we've been talking about today is IBC. Uh we talked about the XL Ultra uh coming out to audiences. Oo, look at this. I can dynamically scale the image. The XL Ultra uh really delivering uh image quality. You have the O4 again. People were saying, "Well, when's uh Bird Dog going to have an outdoor camera again?" Here it is. It's out right now. And this one takes all the learnings from the original camera and improves on them. more mounting capability, better connectivity, and um you know, is it I I it seems like it's definitely able to do new colors, but also able to handle more heat. Yeah, I think I think that mentions two things about the O4 that we didn't even talk about. So, the O4, our last series of outdoor cameras, we only had available in white, but the O4 is available in gray and white. and the mounts correlate in color. Um, so if you have it, you know, in an outdoor environment against a concrete wall, you can go with the gray one and kind of have it disappear more into your environment and not stand out like a sore thumb, right? And then we talked about the the water uh resistant, not water resistant, water phobic, the glass. And then it has an integrated heater to uh prevent uh like lens fog up as well, right? And then being able to the the new feature of being able to use 4K capability for a longer zoom. So you're giving it up to 60x zoom. And when you do that in tandem with the 500 meter IR laser, um, especially even if you put it into black and white mode and you have it on the outside of your building, if you want to use it more in like, oh, what would it be like if I started using like an NDI camera for the security at our building or you're able to get really high, you know, quality imagery from a really far distance in really extreme conditions. So, it a little outside the box of, you know, traditional environments, but it'll still fit into traditional, you know, ABM broadcast environments extremely well. Right. We talked about uh connectivity is in it and you just run whatever cables you want into it and it's got the tracking NDI like you said and it can be it looks good. It it can be set upward you know vertic how do you say upwards and downwards traditionally and flipped. There we go. I thank you very much. And then the last one we covered is or the first one we covered was the X1 30X. I love this phrase. We've got the zooies. And I think this this camera is going to be a a really hot product because people have been asking about 30X for from Bird Dog, you know, cuz you guys had a 30X in the first series and looking for it to come back. And this includes all of the other advancements that have been put into the X series, you know. So, it's not like, oh, we got you the 30X back again. But, but there's no butts. That's the thing. There's no butts. There's like everything that you liked about the X series and now in 30X. And then, of course, you know, and lens threads. And lens threads. Yes. And and lens threads. And you know, not new for IBC, but if people are looking at the bird dog, you know, the new uh control surface for Maki Studio, the new we do have a really cool new partnership with the Maky Studio that we're announcing um with New Captivate software with when you purchase uh Maki Studio, you'll get a Maki Studio version of New Blues Captivate uh to be able use to be able to um do more advanced NDI titling. And so it's really cool. We're trying to make it um as accessible as possible to use all of those dynamic uh production features that you can get on the Maky Studio. So, uh, trying to really bring, um, the NDI titling and more advanced production to, uh, areas and workflows that don't really have it because it is, you know, at a really economical price at $6.95 to be able to start really high level productions for not a lot of an upstart cost. And then uh for those who don't know the new blue titlers, they've been that's been their new blues thing is titling and it is professional titling software. So it's not just like oh there's a titler built into it. Now you're basically saying you get to like hook into this other professional titling software into your you know live production studio with the same purchase price. Bird Dog Connect where you get, as I mentioned with everyone watching, you have the opportunity to win Bird Dog Connect. One last entry opportunity right here. And as I was mentioning, it does everything with in terms of conversion, uh, routing. It can uh switch, it can record, it can uh take an NDI feed and stream it to a destination, multiple destinations. Um, it includes the retransmitter, the bridge, connect audio, and connect presenter. So, there's there's a lot of different pieces to this software. And it might even take you a full year to try and figure out how to use all of the different tools to their full potential. And I really don't want to leave out the 4K converters. guys have been doing a ton of work with Silicon 2 in terms of birectional capability, 4K capability with all of these converters. It's almost like breathing new life into hardware that's been out for how many years. Several four or five. Yeah, they they've been out for a while. So being able to say, "Hey, those c those converters that you bought because this they were able to accept four signals, well now you can do two and two. Well, now you can do all these other cool things, too." So just building in new capabilities into the hardware that people already own. Yeah. And at the show, um, they're demoing a new feature that we're going to be bringing to the, uh, 4K HDMI and 4K SDI really soon called fast switching. or if you've used like our central pro or uh software or NDI router where um you're you know changing your NDI sources uh really quickly without you know the effect of you know like unplugging a device and plugging it back in right um so really that's actual switching experience um so that way when you switch on uh the 4K HDMI or SDI um it is faster like it is a video switcher um like that effect instead of what it is now where you know it's killing the source that you're using and then booting up the the next one. It is a much faster experience. So it it is bringing some of that uh video switching um experience um to the product as well which is another you know huge upgrade um to these converters. And then last few things on this page, KBD. Don't forget about KBD. A whole new experience with the built-in screen, the built-in capability. Uh being able to access the bird dog device capabilities without even having to go into a web page on a laptop. I I think that that those features alone make it worth it. let alone the better build, um the the new fine-tuned control and things like that. Those those are things that really do set this one apart. Yeah, it's one of my favorites by by I literally have a KBD connected on my desk like 247. And then you got the Max, which is your little boardroom buddy. It's like the X1, but you know, if you're not going to you don't need the Wi-Fi and you don't need the return feed capability, the Max is this nice little thing that just does its job in the corner of the room and also gives you a bit wider field of view, especi which is especially important in in small meeting rooms. 4K 30 with a 90 degree field of view. And then it's also going to be getting our teleconvert update where you can get now a uh 24x zoom when you're using 1080p 30. There you go. There you go. So, it's it's the best of both because you know you can you know if it's a 4K camera but you're only web conferencing in HD now you've you've got that increased reach in terms of the zoom and pod. Tell us about pod. Pod's really exciting. I think we all know about pod. Um I don't have a date uh for anybody that's asking, but um no, like we're just uh we're testing and rounding out and the final version of the firmware so that way when it hits your hands, you don't bring your pitchforks out for us. Um, but you know, it it works and we're using it and we're really really excited for it and once we, you know, have it in the warehouses and and shipping, we're going to tell you as soon as we have that date, we'll let you know. And I think there's been a lot of excitement for POD because it's something that has been on its way for a while, but also because other companies, I just saw another company uh release one and there was Hubhub because you it's like, oh, you're able to convert NDI into USB. And I'm like, yeah, but you can't switch between four different sources. I'm like, this is gonna be like, you know, well, here, let me show you the laptop. Click. Now let me show you this camera. Click. Now let me show you that camera. Click. And I think that just takes that capability, you know, I would say to the next level, but four levels because it's got four inputs. Yeah, it's it's really dynamic and I'm really really excited for once we're able to get it in uh everyone's hands. All right. Well, Christian, I do thank you for your time. I think you have you and I have spent uh the better part of the day um talking about all the different announcements from IBC, the other different products, answering questions. I did see something else came in. Uh are we any closer to the Wi-Fi wireless adapter shipping? Um it's in QA for uh running out our final firmware. Um, you know, similar to what I was saying on the pod, you know, once I have a shipping date for it and and it's going out the door, we'll we'll give you that date and that timeline exactly once we have it. Yes. And I and I think you know as someone who does use NDI wirelessly and I have experienced the same thing and I you know I am very keen just like you know on screen creations here I am very keen on the uh Wi-Fi adapter for NDI because not every wireless adapter is created equal. I mean I have a pro router in my home office um my home office studio and that pro router does not handle a and an NDI stream very well at all, let alone two. So, um, you really need hardware that is designed for NDI and to handle these bandwidth streams and just get the frames across as fast as possible. So, this thing is going to be huge in terms of delivering what the cameras are built to deliver, but when people pair them with subpar wireless hardware, they think it's the camera's problem when it's not. It's the wireless adapters problem. Yeah, there's the whole the path of that it has to walk down. It's the whole path. Uh Niles asks, "Does the studio app do transparency?" And yes, it it has uh m multiple uh I think it has titling and transparency layer that you can bring in uh other graphics and things like that as well as a web source. So I believe that's how um the uh new blue titler is going to be used. is going to be coming in via web source, right? Yeah, it'll come in. Yeah. So, you'll put in your the NDI address, the IP, and um you can also even do like HTML graphics um through Maki Studio as well. Yes. UNV also recommends the Netgear Orbee series. And and that's the thing, you know, because while the other problem with the consumer's hardware is I've had hardware like for years I used to use uh a Google Wi-Fi puck and then Google, you know, went through an update and then the next day it didn't work as well. And you know, you can't go into those, you know, consumer hardware and tell it not to update. They're designed to be able to be remotely updated for security reasons. And that makes sense because they're wireless routers. They're they're they're a whole lot more than just access points. And I that's the thing I I look forward to a dedicated piece of hardware to do this task that only does this task, but it does it really well. Yeah, it'll be good. All right, Christian. Uh we've answered all the questions. You've helped me walk through all of the latest announcements. I thank you very much for your time and uh I will wish you a a great weekend today. And I want to get uh to the audience and give this give this um copy of connect away. Thank you. Amazing. Thank you so much. So thank you to all of you have watching the show. Let us come over here to our bird dog entries. Uh you will click on this screen right here which will show that the entries are right here. We have uh two through nine. I'm going to copy these live in front of you so that you can see me copy these names. I will go over to the contest wheel, the bird dog contest wheel for IBC. I'm going to paste these names in and then I am going to click to spin the names and we will see who wins. And the winner is Olaf's. Congratulations, Olafs. Uh, you are the proud winner of this show's copy of Bird Dog Connect. I thank you all for being here for the show today. Uh, I especially everyone who persevered through the internet issues at the very beginning of the show. That's part of doing a live show on the internet is that you don't have control of the internet itself and producing in the cloud. I'm at a new location. Christian's at a different location. Uh, I thank you all for being patient with us as we went through that and thank you all for being here for today's show. I look forward to talking to with you next time on Bird Dog Connect. [Music]

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Published on The Digital Insider at https://is.gd/AHgZzs.