Re: Setting up a new system

Those motorized pan/tilt systems are a neat idea, but you'd need to try them out first. I was at a church a couple weeks ago that had three Sonys on Fujinon automated pan/tilt heads. They worked great most of the time, but if the speaker started moving quickly on stage they couldn't always keep up smoothly. I can't imagine that those little Panasonics are the greatest quality for $8K either.

Jake, it looks like you need to balance some of your needs with your budget...

If you NEED HD and NEED live streaming ability, it's probably not going to happen on your budget.

If you NEED the streaming but can live on SD, just get the Tricaster setup, it'll do fine.

If you NEED HD but can live with editing the show together after the fact (so nothing truly "live"), I'd go with something like what Bob Zelin suggested earlier. Get some Panny HVX200s or Sony EX3s as the budget allows, iso record to cameras, and put together a nice edit system with the Mac you already have. The finished show will look better than the other options and you'll be within budget.

Before you blow any money though, you should find some professionals in your area to help you put this all together... you can't learn everything from a free web forum, even if it is the COW.