Canon PTZ Case Study

Humdinger is a production company in Melbourne with a focus on comedy. What makes us stand out from other produciton companies is our spaces - we have a large video production studio downstairs featuring LED video walls that we hire to clients and use for our own productions. Upstairs, is our most popular studio - our video podcast studio.

When we built the third iteration of our podcast studio in 2021 we knew that video was going to be integral to it's success. Having built our first podcast studio 10 years earlier, we couldn't have predicted how much video would become part of what was originally an audio medium.

But in 2025 - does a podcast even exist if it doesn't have some form of video?

Fool proof studio design

It was important for us to make the studio simple enough to use so that even podcasters with very little expertise could create high quality audio and video without much chance of things going wrong.

Our studio is used most heavily by comedians, not professional audio engineers and videographers after all.

 Humdinger Managing Director Evan Munro-Smith explains;

"When we initially started putting cameras in the podcast studio, we were just using little mirrorless cameras on little tripods and just sort of putting them wherever they fit. But it was a pretty cumbersome solution because people would sit in different places or you would set it up and then they would move around and we didn't want to have camera operators in there all the time operating the cameras."

That's where the Canon Remote PTZ Camera CR-N500 comes in.

A seamless solution

Integration of Canon Remote PTZ cameras was easy to do with our existing set up. We already used NDI for a number of other purposes, and as the cameras have NDI HX built into the system, we were able to plug them straight into the network to give them power, video and control over one cable. 

A hit with podcasters

A simple to use studio with great video capabilities was a boon for Broden Kelly and Tom Zahariou from Australian comedy group Aunty Donna.

Aunty Donna and their production company Haven't You Done Well had been operating out of Humdinger Studios for a number of years.

In addition to the regular Aunty Donna podcast, the team have launched a number of new podcasts including The Footy with Broden Kelly and Mish and Zach.

" In the past we've made video content because our audience wanted to see it, (but)we've usually had to bring in high level cameras and shoot on," explains host Broden Kelly.

" For a lot of our content, it took a lot of time, (and it) took a lot of work to...do it. (Now) the ability to just walk into here and have 1, 2, 3 cameras that are shooting premium, 4K quality content that's just ready to go - that's downloadable, that can be shared out to our socials team, edited and put up - It's so valuable."

4K for any format

Producer Tom Zahariou says that the ability to shoot their podcast in 4k means flexibility when it comes to their output.

" The benefits of shooting in 4K is one, it's super easy to cut in. Secondly, you can shoot for landscape, but you can cut in for verticals and you can make the footage work for any of your platforms or any social media. It has a one inch sensor, which gives you that nice sort of shallow depth fulfilled look, which even in a small space is, is just a nice effect to have."

Automation excellence

Evan Munro-Smith who is a podcaster, videographer and editor himself with many years of experience is impressed with Canon's specs and ability to automate.

"It has Cannon's dual pixel auto focus with face detection, which works really, really well. It just locks onto people's faces and it focuses...on that. We never have to worry about whether a shot's in focus or if people are moving around,"

 "The coolest thing for me is the remote" he adds,.

"Move it left to right, move it up and down, zoom in and out and Auto focus. The footage that the cameras actually capture is just naturally quiet, beautiful and really nicely balanced with color."

The studio has also been able to level up what it provides to clients as well as cutting down worktime.

"A system like these remote PTZ cameras allows us to do all sorts of things we just couldn't do before. For example, we can set up presets, so if we have the same podcast coming in every week to record, they can all be sitting in the same seats and we can just load up a preset to have perfectly framed shots ready to go," says Munro-Smith.

A key to success

Broden Kelly says the success of The Footy podcast has been about not only great hosting and content, but about the edge they are able to have by putting out great video every week.

"We're about six months in now (and the podcast) is averaging about a hundred thousand downloads per month. It's charting in the top five for sport podcasts across Australia. Podcasting is such a competitive market, and if you have really high quality videos that you can share out, not only does it make you reach more people, but when putting yourself out there for brand alignments or for advertising...it's a really efficient, modern clever way to stand out."

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍

‍