When I walk in to film a sporting event at the University of Nottingham, I'm greeted by a massive reception area with natural lighting pouring down, even on cloudy days in England.
The marketing posts of star athletes sprawling the height of the indoor climbing wall and the countless championship banners hanging up make quite the scene.
I've seen hundreds of people walk into that building for the first time, and their jaws often hang open.
What those players and students don't see are the behind-the-scenes efforts to optimize sports performance with tech. The £40 million sports complex is wired throughout the building to provide Gigabit Internet connectivity to hundreds of PCs.
Add in a full 3G pitch, which normally costs around $1 million on its own, plus poll-mounted cameras, and you end up with the most expensive streaming setup I'll ever touch.
But despite that price tag, the best controller for the system is arguably a $50 game controller.
This isn't a full review of the GameSir Super Nova — though I've used the controller extensively for several weeks, and a full review is on the way.
A first look at the GameSir Super Nova
Spoiler alert: The GameSir Super Nova is excellent. For $50, you get a gamepad with Hall Effect sticks and triggers, a 1,000Hz polling rate, and a charging base.
It's quite customizable, especially for an option in this price range. The GameSir Super Nova supports button swapping, control mapping, customizable RGB lighting, and features a swappable face plate.
RELATED: What is a Hall Effect controller anyway?
Perhaps most importantly, the GameSir Super Nova feels great. It's lightweight but not so light that it feels cheap.
The rubberized grips of the controller, in particular, make it comfortable for longer sessions.
The GameSir Super Nova stood up well in my testing with games, but I wanted to see what else I could use it for. So, its Hall Effect sticks and triggers inspired me to use the Super Nova as a camera controller.
Disclaimer
This article and an upcoming review were made possible thanks to a sample provided by GameSir. The company had no input nor saw the contents of this piece prior to publication.
Filming football with a million-dollar setup
I've filmed American football in some capacity for around a decade. I've used everything from a smartphone while standing on top of a shed to the million-dollar setup at the University of Nottingham.
The primary focus of filming at the university is for the team's coaches and players to be able to study gameplay and scout opponents. But we realized early on the potential the setup had for streaming.
The angles and shots needed for film analysis aren't as photogenic as the sideline camera, but they provide a great canvas for commentary and let the friends and family members of the players watch the games live.
"We now have the opportunity to capitalise on the groundswell of interest in American Football in the UK by showcasing the sport and the quality of our athletes on a regular basis," said Mark Bullock, Marketing Manager at the University of Nottingham.
"More practically, the ability to film from multiple angles has elevated the quality of performance analysis and improved the coach-player feedback process by providing quality footage for tape sessions."
The setup at the university includes two pole-mounted cameras that are wired to a network. I then control those cameras with a single computer (a separate PC is used to power the stream).
The university actually has 14 PTZ (Pan, Tilt, Zoom) cameras across three campuses that can film a variety of pitches and courts in 4K, but I use the American football ones primarily.
The stock accessory for controlling the cameras is a joystick, but stick drift has been a serious issue over the years.
Stick drift: The silent killer of controllers
As much as I initially tried the GameSir Super Nova as a camera controller for fun, I had another reason to upgrade the setup: dealing with stick drift. Several joysticks I'd used to record games and practices developed stick drift.
In addition to the sticks drifting left or right, they also developed a zooming drift that made it nearly impossible to get good footage. During one session, I had to stop filming from two angles so I could focus on keeping one camera steady.
To the University of Nottingham's credit, they quickly replaced any defective units and have invested in backups in case stick drift shows up again. But the Hall Effect sticks of the GameSir Super Nova mean stick drift isn't an issue.
Bullock, who is the main person who has to deal with replacing defective joysticks, shared his experience with stick drift at the University of Nottingham:
It is perhaps one of the more frustrating parts of gaming or using console controllers. From a sustainability perspective, as a known fault or product lifetime issue, it is frustrating that it is not easier to replace thumbsticks or analog sticks.
Mark Bullock, Marketing Manager, University of Nottingham
He continues, "Currently, there is so much waste in this space, with consumers landfilling replacement controllers due to stick drift and simply opting to buy a new controller rather than fix. This should be a far simpler process for replacement and recalibration and would save a ton of electrical waste."
The first time I used the GameSir Super Nova as a PTZ controller, it felt like when you remove a splinter. My mind had gotten used to the constant nagging of stick drift and just felt quiet and stress-free after swapping.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the program we use for controlling the cameras already had support for game controllers with standard drivers, including access to the pan, tilt, and zoom controls. I can even switch between different cameras with the LT and RT buttons; no button mapping was needed at all.
Most importantly, the Hall Effect sticks on the GameSir Super Nova don't suffer from stick drift. That means no random panning, tilting, or zooming while filming.
Game controllers: More than just for gaming
I'm not the first person to use a game controller for something other than gaming. The U.S. military has used Microsoft hardware and Xbox controllers for various devices for decades.
Sometimes, the military will use Xbox-like controllers, while other times, they will literally use an Xbox controller. For example, the U.S. Navy uses an Xbox controller for the photonic mast on certain submarines.
Wired has an excellent piece that goes in-depth about the use of controllers, both gaming and gamelike, to control military equipment.
It's easy to see why an organization would use a gamepad to control equipment. Millions of people have grown up playing on Xbox controllers or similar accessories.
Much like driving a vehicle, using a gamepad feels natural over time, and much of that time investment has been made before people show up to control part of a submarine, remote control car, or in my case a PTZ camera.
I occasionally need to train other people to use the cameras at the University of Nottingham. The two aspects of the setup that have the largest learning curve are the joystick and the filming software.
Handing someone a game controller and telling them to play around is a lot easier than teaching shortcuts and controls on a proprietary device.
A game-changing upgrade
What started as an experiment to see if using a gamepad to control cameras was even possible turned into a genuine upgrade for a million-dollar streaming setup.
The Hall Effect sticks of the GameSir Super Nova avoid the dreaded stick drift that plagued several joysticks I had used previously while at the University of Nottingham.
Beyond fixing the stick drift issue, the GameSir Super Nova made the camera setup more intuitive and easier to teach. It’s amazing how much a $50 game controller can improve a million-dollar setup, but more than anything, it's proved the benefits of Hall Effect sensors to me first-hand.
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