ePTZ or PTZ? Educate your choice.


The new Q-SYS NC Series collaboration cameras, like the Q-SYS PTZ-IP Series before, solves the traditional limitation of USB video conferencing solutions by putting IP streams from the camera onto the network, and decoding, scaling and bridging them to the host PC with a device on the edge. However, the NC Series extend the native Q-SYS portfolio by offering both PTZ and ePTZ camera options.

For those who’ve never used or specified an ePTZ camera (aka Electronic Pan, Tilt, Zoom), or are wondering where they fit in compared to the PTZ cameras, let’s explore them a little bit more.

ePTZ Cameras

An ePTZ camera offers a motorless PTZ experience, allowing a user to zoom into an image or field of view, crop that image and move it around the frame. Because the image is digitally manipulated, different location presets can easily be recalled without participants seeing any camera movement, a feature that pairs nicely with the Q-SYS Automatic Camera Preset Recall control plugin.

The Q-SYS NC-110 specifically offers a 110º Horizontal Field-of-View (HFoV), making it ideal for wide rooms with a relatively short distance between the lens and the furthest participant. It also features a 4K image sensor outputting a 1080p IP stream, allowing a user to zoom in 2x digitally while still maintaining native resolution. Further, the NC-110 is a fixed focal-length camera, so there are no manual focus controls. For both of those reasons, it is recommended that the furthest participant is no more than 20’ (6.1 m) from the camera lens.

Traditional PTZ Cameras

NC Series also offers two new traditional PTZ cameras that offer an updated look and feel, along with a superior imaging platform compared to the PTZ-IP Series. Like the NC-110, the NC-12×80 and NC-20×60 both offer a 4K image sensor with the ability to output a 1080p stream, allowing it to produce a better, clearer and crisper image. Each PTZ camera offers an optical zoom lens (12x on the NC-12×80 and 20x on the NC-20×60) which provide for a clearer image when fully zoomed in (compared to digital zoom, like in the NC-110). For rooms which are long and narrow, like a boardroom, a PTZ camera can be ideal, moving to capture all participants and offering a higher quality image when the camera’s lens is further away from the participants within a room.

Native Q-SYS Difference

Collectively, NC Series offers three options for your choosing, letting you select the HFoV and zoom capabilities to meet the needs of your space. Like all native Q-SYS devices, these cameras integrate seamlessly in a design while taking advantage of Q-SYS full-featured control engine to deliver a holistic AV experience. Lastly, we’ve also built a handy camera calculator to help you visualize each camera capabilities.

Have more questions? Feel free to reach out to your local QSC representative and we’ll be happy to walk you through it.

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