Director components

The director decides when and where to move a camera. If a director component is attached to a device together with a controller component, it will send commands to the controller to move the camera. There are two types of directors: Head Tracking Director and Auto Move Director.

Head Tracking Director

The Head Tracking Director uses several AI models to find and recognize people in the input image. It then tracks the selected person by moving the camera accordingly. Different target shot sizes (wide, medium, close) can be selected.

Available settings:

• Shot size: Use the three large buttons Wide, Medium, and Close to select the target shot size.

  INFO

  You can configure what Wide, Medium, and Close mean in the Settings view under the Control tab.

• Sensitivity: When the sensitivity is high, the director will correct faster when the person moves. With a lower sensitivity, the camera will move more slowly and smoothly. You can choose the best setting for your production - does the person move around a lot or will they only move slowly?

  INFO

  If the camera often overreacts to movements, the sensitivity is too high. If the camera loses the person during normal movement, the sensitivity is too low.

• Positioning: Define the behavior of the director.
  • Rule of Thirds: Move the camera such that the target person's face is aligned with one of the thirds. Also accounts for the direction the target person is looking.
  • Target Point: Move the camera such that the target person's face aligns with a selected target point in the frame.
• Target location (only for Target Point positioning): Select the target point for tracking by dragging the image around.
• Panic behavior: Defines what the director does if the target person is lost. Note that if tracking mode is set to manual, the director cannot find the target person again, so the director will not resume tracking automatically.
  • Slowly stop and zoom out: Slowly decelerate pan and tilt movement and start zooming out until the target person is visible again. This is usually the most natural behavior.
  • Return to home: Return to home position.
• Learn border limits: Click the buttons to learn the left/top/right/bottom border based on the current camera position. Camera movements outside the border limits will be blocked. Click the delete icon to remove border limits.
• Steady radius: When larger than 0, the director will switch to steady mode if the target person stops moving for a short while. While steady mode is activated, the camera is kept entirely steady until the target person moves out of the steady radius. The tracking resumes when the person moves outside the radius. Use this in scenarios where the target person usually stays in one place for most of the time to calm the eye of the viewer.
• Focus assist: When enabled, the director will automatically set the camera's focus point on the target person's head. Currently only supported by Canon cameras.

Auto Move Director

The Auto Move Director is used for automatic camera movements without any tracking capabilities. Movements can be triggered by applying presets or manually. There are two types of auto moves:

A random move will move randomly in one direction. You can configure the speeds under the Advanced tab in the component.

A preset move will move the camera towards a nearby preset. You can configure how the presets are selected and the speed of the movement under the Advanced tab in the component.

INFO

This component is useful for scenarios with multiple presets where you want to add some movement to otherwise static shots. It can also be used to cycle between different preset positions (e.g. for a moving wide shot).

The following settings are available:

• Perform move: Click one of the buttons to perform a move.
  • Random move: Move the camera in a random direction.
  • Preset transition: Move the camera towards a nearby preset, if available.
  • Stop: Stop the current movement.
• Automatic movements:
  • Random: Trigger a random move after a preset is applied.
  • Preset: Trigger a preset transition after a preset is applied.
  • Disabled: Do not automatically trigger movements.
• Delay: Trigger the automatic movement after a delay in seconds.
• Advanced:
  • Random: Define the max speed for the random move in frame sizes per second for every axis
  • Preset: Define the min and max angle distance for selecting a nearby preset. The camera will move towards a random preset within this range. This selection can be filtered by a metadata key. Only presets with the same value for the key will be considered. You can also define the speed of the movement.

WARNING

Preset moves only work with MiruSuite's own preset system. It is not possible to automatically move towards a PTZ camera's internal presets.

Lecture Director Education

The lecture director is used for switching between lecturer tracking and steady blackboard shots in a university lecture setting and allows for the following configuration options:

• Tracking: Settings that affect the lecturer tracking only
  • Sensitivity: When the sensitivity is high, the director will correct faster when the lecturer moves. With a lower sensitivity, the camera will move more slowly and smoothly. For lectures, a larger shot size with a lower sensitivity is recommended.
  • Steady radius: When larger than 0, the director will switch to steady mode if the lecturer stops moving for a short while. While steady mode is activated, the camera is kept entirely steady until the target person moves out of the steady radius. The tracking resumes when the person moves outside the radius. Recommended for lectures, particularly lecturers who typically don't move around much. The steady radius is visualized under Target Point.
  • Shot size: Use the slider to select the target shot size, i.e., how much of the frame the lecturer's head should take up during tracking. The shot size is visualized under Target Point.
  • Target Point: Select the target point for tracking by dragging the image around.
  • Learn border limits: Click the buttons to learn the left/top/right/bottom border based on the current camera position. This will prevent the camera from moving outside these limits. When you, for example, want to setup the bottom border, move the camera so that the audience is just out of frame and click the related button. Click the delete icon to remove border limits. We recommend leaving some room at every border, as lecturers sometimes move outside the stage area.
• Scenes: Settings that affect static shots (blackboards, stage shot) and the switch between modes.
  • Stage preset: Select the preset that the director will fall back to if the lecturer is lost. If no preset is selected, the default behavior is to return to home immediately.
  • Blackboard presets: When the lecturer stands inside one of the blackboard presets and turns around to write on the blackboard, the director will switch to this preset.
    • Default mode: Select one preset per blackboard. Blackboards are automatically ordered from left to right.
    • Continuous blackboard mode: Select two presets, one for the leftmost and one for the rightmost shot that captures your continuous blackboard. The order in which you select the presets does not matter. This is useful for rooms with one very wide blackboard instead of multiple blackboards.
  • Continuous blackboard: Select to enable Continuous blackboard mode. This is ideal if your lecture room has one long blackboard instead of multiple blackboards that can be captured with single shots. If enabled, continuous blackboard mode interpolates between the left and right blackboard preset and adjusts the shot continuously.
    • Tracking border width: Width of the tracking border in continuous blackboard mode on both sides. The camera is adjusted when the lecturer enters this zone. Larger values mean quicker adjustment.
    • Tracking acceleration: Speed of the camera adjustment when following the lecturer in continuous blackboard mode. Larger values mean quicker adjustment, but can lead to overshooting.
  • Tracking (de-)activation time: Time to wait before switching between blackboard and tracking mode based on looking direction. When the lecturer turns around to write on the blackboard, the director will wait this time before switching to the blackboard preset. Similarly, when the lecturer turns back to face the audience, the director will wait this time before resuming tracking.
  • Scene change time: Time to wait before switching between blackboards or to the stage scene after the lecturer disappears. This can happen when the lecturer leaves the stage temporarily (e.g. to pick up something), is occluded or when he moves to another blackboard.
  • Transition speed: Transition speed of the blackboard and stage presets. A faster speed means that the camera moves quicker when moving to a blackboard or stage preset.
• Advanced:
  • Auto Shot Size: The director can automatically adjust the shot size based on how much a lecturer moves around. If the lecturer moves a lot, we typically want a wider shot that moves less. If the lecturer stands still, we can zoom in for a closer shot. Enable this option to activate automatic shot size adjustment. A chart will visualize the movement score over time.
    • Zoom out at movement score: When the movement score (visualized in the chart) exceeds this value, the director will start zooming out to a wider shot.
    • Zoom back in at movement score: When the movement score (visualized in the chart) is below this value over the full time window (Minimal time in wide mode) the director will start zooming back in to the default target shot size.
    • Minimal time in normal mode: Minimal time to wait after zooming in before the director can decide to zoom out again. Increase this value to avoid frequent zooming.
    • Minimal time in wide mode: Minimal time to wait after zooming out before the director can decide to zoom back in again. During this period of time all movement scores must be below the configured threshold (Zoom back in at movement score). Increase this value to avoid frequent zooming.
    • Shot Size: Target position of the lecturer in wide mode.
    • Wide Target Point: Target point of the lecturer in wide mode.