Transcript for:
Overview of Sony PDT-FP1 Transmitter

This is the Sony data transmitter or the Sony PDT-FP1 and this is a combination of the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V as well as the Xperia Stream cooling system and networking module with the model number XQZ-GG01. So it has some advantages and disadvantages in comparison to the Sony Xperia 1 Mark 5. So I'll go through them. So on the back, it has a HDMI input port, which means you can connect the... HDMI output from a camera or anything directly to it and then use it for streaming or recording or whatever else you want And it has two USB C ports. So one to charge it and one to do data transmission, which means you can connect them extra camera to it if you wanted through there as well as through the HDMI and the camera that comes with the device itself and you also have a network port and in addition to the network port you could alternatively use the USB-C port with a network adapter that way as well. So in terms of cameras you have this one camera and the cameras on this device is less than the Sony Xperia 1 Mark 5. The camera is not as good. neither. So that's a disadvantage that this device has. But you can connect a camera through the HDMI input port. And you can also connect the camera to the USB C port. So you have those options as well. And in terms of networking, you have the 4G 5G, which comes with any mobile device on this and you have Wi Fi and Bluetooth as well, obviously. But you can also connect a network cable to this. and connect it to another device. And you can also connect the network dongle to the USB-C port and then connect to another network through there. So if you're using this device for streaming, you have multiple options for networking and you can have redundancy or backup if one of the connection goes down. So you have 4G or 5G, you have Wi-Fi, you have Bluetooth, you have the USB-C port, which you can use for networking, and you also have the Ethernet port. So that's five connections directly there. And the main advantage of this device, and the main reason I bought this device, is because it has a better heatsink, and the heatsink has a fan as well, so it should keep it cool, whereas on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V, it tends to get warm, and if I'm streaming, then the frame rate would drop, for example, from 30 frames per second to 15 frames per second, which makes the live stream not look that good. or smooth. And in terms of the Xperia Stream device, this device, the USB port on this, you cannot transmit data through it. So it's only for charging. And it also blocks the cameras on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V, which means you don't actually have an option to use the phone directly in this for streaming neither. So the only advantage of the Xperia Stream is really to use it for gaming, but there's no real option to use it for live streaming because the USB port doesn't transmit data and the cameras are blocked so the only thing that you can really get out of it is the network port for live streaming video but if you're doing gaming that's a different conversation altogether but if you want to film from a camera or directly from the device itself then this is the wrong device for that but for gaming it's obviously useful because you don't need to record anything from a camera you can just record your screen and then it has a network port so it can also stream that way. So this device is a combination of the hardware on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V and the Xperia Stream device and in addition to some improvements that I've made on this. Also I thought it was obvious so I didn't actually mention that this device the Sony data transmitter actually used uses Android. So it runs on Android. So you can just go to the Google Play Store and essentially download any Android app that you want for it. So that includes the apps for live streaming or video recording. So if there's any particular third party app that you like, you can obviously download it and run it on this device as well. So the main disadvantages of this device in comparison to the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V is that first of all, it doesn't have all the cameras and the camera... and the sensors are not as high quality as it is on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V. And the second is The disadvantage is that there's no software on this device for directly streaming from the device. So what Sony recommends is that the camera for this can only be used for scanning QR codes, but the reality is this is just a mobile device. like the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V. So you can actually use the camera, but they haven't included the software for live streaming in there. So you have the external monitor app, which you also have on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V, but you don't have the... video pro app on there so you cannot directly stream from this device when using its own camera unless you get a third-party app for it and that works perfectly so you can get a third-party app and use that for streaming on the device directly itself but you don't get the video pro app which comes on the sony xperia 1 mark 5 what you do get is the xd cam pocket cinema app so this app you seems to be really good and you would think that you would be able to stream with it but the problem with this app is that it doesn't let you stream directly from it to an rtmp destination or srt destination So you have the option to choose three different services. So what Sony is doing is promoting their own services. So you obviously need their subscription and pay for all these different services if you wanted to live stream. So there's no direct option here to do RTMP live streaming or SRT live streaming. So that's the, I would say, the biggest disadvantage of this device in comparison to the Sony. Xperia 1 Mark V which you can directly just live stream from its camera and the VideoPro app is on there so you can use it for streaming but if you're streaming from a camera then you can use the external monitor app and connect the HDMI to it or USB or whatever source you want from another camera into this and if you have a Sony camera then that would be even easier because Sony would have its own protocol that it uses. to communicate with this device but I've used it with non-Sony cameras and that works fine so you can use the external monitor and you can also use third-party apps. Another thing about the PDT-FB1 in comparison to the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V is that this device doesn't actually have any form of image stabilization or lens stabilization optical stabilization at all whereas the phone actually does have stabilization both optical stabilization so the lens element moves to stabilize the footage as well as digital stabilization which essentially crops the image and stretches it out in order to get a more stable footage so in that sense the phone is superior but again when you're live streaming you cannot use the stabilization because if you do use the digital stabilization the phone will overheat quite quickly and then it will shut shut down your stream. So you can still use optical stabilization on this device, but you don't even have that option here. So since you have the HDMI port on... on the data transmitter if you're outputting the video footage from your camera your camera probably has better image stabilization anyway and it can probably do both sensor stabilization as well as digital stabilization and then the output will get fed into this and the stabilization that's available on proper cameras are obviously much better than any stabilization that you can get from a phone So that's just another point to keep in mind when you're thinking about using one or the other one for live streaming. So overall I would say this device is a little bit of a compromise. The big advantage is that it has a heatsink and a fan which keeps it cool. And the obvious disadvantage is that the cameras are not good and the camera app has been excluded from this device which is a real shame. And the app they've included on it which is the XS. the cam app doesn't allow you to stream so you have to pay for Sony services in order to stream to a destination so you can't use this app to directly stream to YouTube or Facebook or anything like that so if you're using it to Connect the camera to it, it's good, but otherwise if you want to use it directly then I think the best option is to use a third-party app. So if I wanted to connect the camera to the Sony Xperia Mark 5 I would need a capture card and then I would need a cable to convert the USB a to USB C to plug it into the phone but the problem with that was that I couldn't keep the phone charged at the same time so I looked at a few USB hubs so this is one USB hub the problem with this one was that it was too small so if I inserted it I couldn't insert the capture card so I've got another USB hub and as you can see I can use this one and what we'll do is have the capture card in this USB hub and also have a source of power plugged in to this and then have this plugged into there Phone. for transmission and then I will have the HDMI from the camera connected to the capture card. So this is a lot of connections and a lot of things which is fine if you're working in a studio but in a run and gun situation this is really awkward in my opinion. So when it comes to something like this device the advantage is that you essentially just have one HDMI cable which is running from the camera to this device and this sits on this would sit on top of your camera or camera cage. So in that sense, it's actually quite good. So if you're live streaming from a camera, as opposed to from the device itself directly, then this is a lot more convenient than using a phone and trying to get everything to work for that phone. Since it has two USB ports, you can continuously keep it charged as well quite easily. On the back here it has a 1.25 inch 20mm with two pinholes which you can see I've inserted a QoL 2 type of device here so I can mount it on my camera cage. But one of the disadvantages of this is that I would expect to have a quarter inch 20 with two pinholes on this side so that I could mount it on a camera similar to a screen that you would have on a camera a monitoring screen or recording screen so it doesn't have that which is inconvenient so it means that you need to have something attached to your camera cage that fits with using this Another disadvantage of this device is that these buttons here are quite easy to press whereas the button positioning on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark 5 are a lot better. And you have the volume buttons and the power on button. here so it's quite different to the Sony Xperia 1 mark 5 where you have the volume buttons up there so you don't really press them by accident and here you have the camera button quite low so you don't press that neither so this is typically where your hand would sit So there's a little bit of changing in the positioning of the buttons. This is actually where the SIM is. So the SIM card and the micro SD card can still be inserted here as opposed to the bottom which is the case on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V. And here you have the volume buttons and the power button as well. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions about this device or if you want me to demo any particular aspect of it or demonstrate something in more detail So to summarize the main disadvantages of this device in comparison to the Sony Xperia 1 Mark 5, it's bigger, it's heavier and it doesn't have the Video Pro app and the positioning of the buttons are worse so it's easier to press them and it doesn't have as many cameras or good quality cameras here and it doesn't seem to have as many speakers and microphones but some of those disadvantages are minor the Main disadvantage for me is that it doesn't have the Video Pro app and that it's bigger and heavier. To summarize the main advantages of this device is that it has a good heat sink with a fan so it shouldn't heat up to the same level that the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V does and you also have way more options in terms of connecting to different networks so if you're using this for live streaming that's really good so you have the 4G 5G 5G connection, you have the Ethernet port, you have the USB port, which you can use as another network connection, and then you have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. So you have the 4G and 5G connection, you have Wi-Fi, you have Bluetooth, and you have the Ethernet port, and you also have the USB-C port, which you can potentially connect to another alternative network. So at least five direct. internet connections that you can get from this one device without requiring significant additional accessories. Whereas on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark 5 you obviously don't have the ethernet port and you don't have additional USB ports for charging and data so you need to use that one USB-C port that's available for charging it while you're live streaming. And in terms of cameras, even though it doesn't have that many cameras, it has the HDMI input port, which means you don't need to use a capture card if you want to take footage from a camera. And you also have the two USB-C ports. If you wanted, you could use one of these USB-C ports, which is for data, to input a stream from a camera, as opposed to use it for networking or whatever else. So I would say if they add the VideoPro app to this device... I would say it's definitely not even worth thinking about it. It would definitely be substantially better than the Xperia phones. But without the Video Pro app, I think it's a little bit debatable because that means you're kind of relying either on third-party apps. And I've used a few different third-party apps, and none of them have been good, even though there are some good reviews for them online. Anyway, so those are just some things to keep in mind if you're... deciding to use one of these devices for live streaming and whether it fits with what you're doing with a camera or whether you want to record directly on the device itself so in my experience there's advantages to recording directly with the device itself without any communication with the camera because then you know you have two completely separate isolated devices and you have one for example doing the recording and one for streaming and if you need to change the battery or the power runs out on one of them you don't You don't need to worry about the other one or if there's a problem with one of them, the other one can still continue recording and you're just streaming from this. So if one is affected, the other one is not affected. But the disadvantage that comes with having two separate units to film something is obviously that you need to keep track of what's happening with the stream and the camera. So you're essentially managing two devices at the same time, which is more work than just managing the camera. So when you have this connected... to a camera. If you zoom on the camera, you will have the same zoomed image on the live stream. Whereas if the two are not interconnected, then obviously this would not be zooming in and out. So you would have a wide angle, for example, and that's the fixed view that you would have for your live stream. Another use case for using the USB-C port for transmitting data is to actually connect the wireless audio transmitter to it. So if you want to have wireless microphones then you can connect one of the devices. devices here and use it for a form of microphone input. And I know there are microphones that allow Bluetooth connection so you don't even need to use that if you have those type of microphones, but you could use this for wireless microphones. as well and I've seen wireless microphone adapters that allow you to also have a USB-C charging on them so if you were to use such an adapter you could also use the same thing on the Sony Xperia One Mark V. So I think the two USB-C ports on here provides a lot of flexibility. You can use it as an additional network connection for additional internet bandwidth. If you're doing live streaming, you can use it for microphone or you can also use it for an additional camera input. I haven't tried to make phone calls with this device so I don't know exactly what microphones and speakers it does support but if anyone is interested in that I can I can find that and try it out with this because I've mainly bought this in order to do live streaming without the device heating up. That was my primary concern. I didn't want the device to heat up. And since it doesn't have the Video Pro app and the cameras that are available on the Sony Xperia 1 Mark V, I've started using it. using the HDMI port to connect it to my camera. So I record the video footage on my camera and I stream it through this device. And I don't have any concerns about this overheating and I also don't need to use additional cables and small USB hubs and all the peripherals that comes with trying to essentially make it work with the phone. So what I'm doing right now is I'm connecting it. ethernet cable from here to my phone and then i'm using my phone as an additional network connection to internet so i have 5g on this device and 5g on this device from two different operators and i use them both in a redundant fashion and if the place i'm going to also has wi-fi then i connect to the wi-fi there as well so i have three connections without any concerns and if the place i go to doesn't have wi-fi then i have a third phone and a hotspot the Wi-Fi for that. So I would have three 5G devices, so the device itself, this phone and another phone which would connect through Wi-Fi. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions or if you want me to talk through exactly how I do my live streaming and anything in particular that you're curious about.