The 300.....

I'm going to get right to it.  Here is the Hollyland Mars 300.  Dare I say, a 'Spartan' wireless
video transmitter and receiver?  It certainly 'punches' (and kicks and stabs) well above its
weight/price.  I haven't had it long, and I've only used this wireless video transmitter and
receiver for a livestream of two basketball games so far.  Did it work?  Do slow motion
and speed ramped action sequences make every movie better?  Of course they do!
I mean......yes, but with a few caveats.

Transmitter on FS700 

It's pretty easy to set up.  Screw the antennas on both the transmitter and receiver.  Hook up an
HDMI cord from the HDMI output on your camera, to the input on the transmitter.  Hook up
an HDMI cable from the output on the receiver to the HDMI input on your capture card.  Turn
both units on.  They pair automatically.

                                              How to pair transmitter and receiver


 If you happen to have some shorter HDMI cables that I do, it might be nice.
Also if you have smaller Sony NP F batteries it would make for a smaller footprint.  I only have
the Sony NP F970's which last a long time but something like the NP F550 might be a good
footprint to use on this.  If you have a smaller battery and HDMI cable, and pair it with a little
mirrorless, it could make for a nice little roaming wireless cam set up during sports or events.

Hollyland Mars 300 on Sony A6500 with Sony NP F970 battery

One of the first questions most people ask has to do with latency.  Now it does appear to have
some latency, but it is quite low.....maybe as much as a quarter of a second...but probably closer
to 3 or 4 frames.  So how much of a problem is this latency? Well it really depends on your use
case.

                                                             Latency example

                

For me, I wasn't using it as a 'director's monitor or to remote pull focus.   I was doing a 

live broadcast of a high school basketball game.  I was the Solo Producer.  My idea 

was to have several unmanned cameras, providing different views of the court.  I could

then cut to them and give the 'illusion' of a much higher end broadcast.  However, I 

didn't have the time, nor was there any sort of budget to be stringing cables all over 

the gym to do this.  I tested my iPhone 11 Pro Max with Wirecast Go and that seemed 

to work much better than expected as a wireless source back to Wirecast.

But that only took care of under one basket....

                                              iPhone 11 under the basket 'mount'

Now with that basket taken care of, I needed a camera under the other basket.  That is

where the Hollyland 300 came in......

                                  FS700 with Hollyland 300 under the other basket

So now with just a few minutes until the game, up the ladder to my production post

I went. Then I took a quick look at my production setup.....

             My setup

My basic setup was 2 UltraStudio Mini capture cards (HDMI/SDI to thunderbolt) and 1 EZcap capture card (HDMI to USB 3).  iPad for controlling the onscreen NewBlue Titler Live scoreboard graphic....adding points and starting and stopping the onscreen clock.  Elgato Streamdeck for switching between cameras and calling up graphics.

Streamdeck with my custom controls

My stream deck setup has all 4 cameras on the bottom row with a 'clear camera' button on the bottom left.  'Take' and 'auto take' buttons and 'animate in scoreboard' graphic as well as 'turn all audio on' and 'clear/animate out scoreboard' in the middle row.  Controls folder (which has stream and record buttons as well as brightness controls) Media folder (for all prepackaged videos/interviews with players/coaches) FX folder (for starting lineups/stats, keys to game etc) Mute all audio and 'Clear all layers' buttons on top row!








One GoPro for a 'safety' wide shot. My FS700 with Hollyland 300 under 1 basket wirelessly to one capture card.  My iPhone 11 under the other basket wirelessly back to the computer.  And a Sony VG20 as a 'follow' camera.  

Follow camera with master audio

With their blessing, I also took an audio out line from the radio broadcast crew next to me and plugged it into my VG20's 'mic in' port.  I then edited each of the 4 camera shots in Wirecast to use the audio from the VG20 so that no matter which camera I switched to.....I'd have the audio from the play by play guys constantly going.

A couple awesome guys calling the game!

First night went great.  Hollyland 300 was flawless except for one time where the signal broke 
up for about 2 seconds when the camera wasn't on air (I had it in preview about to go to air.)  
It only did it that once time and never happened again.  Second night, I was all set up and 
about 10 minutes before the game went on, I glanced down and noticed the picture was 
FROZEN from the Hollyland 300 camera.  I climbed down and ran over the the camera.  
Power cycled the transmitter and unplugged and replugged the HDMI cord.  Ran back 
to 'production central' and everything was fine.  And it worked great the rest of the night.  
Just for fun, here are a few pictures from the show.

How many cameras is that?

That's right.....4 cameras!

Streaming, recording, 4 cameras, animated graphics......CPU handling it like a champ!

So what's the verdict?  From the amount of time I've used it, I'd say the Hollyland 300 is a 
solid performer.  A tiny bit of latency, but I never noticed it once when cutting to the under 
the basket shot.  Holds it's link great once connected.  Range seems quite good.  It did freeze 
up on me the once, (and scared the crap out of me!), but I was able to get it working using 
basic stuff (restart and reseat the plugs) and it never happened again.  So as of now, I'd give 
it a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars......subject to rescoring after I've used it more.  Of course if you
need to the frame accuracy, it isn't for you and you will need to pay 4 or 5 times it's price to 
get what you need. Anyways, here is a little bit of video from the game.  Keep in mind, these 
are 4 very different cameras so the color isn't going to match.  Also I am switching, doing 
the score and clock, panning the 'follow' camera,  trying to keep the audio in a good range, 
inputting animated graphics to bring in....and a host of other stuff, so I probably mess up quite
a bit.  You can't really get a fully produced basketball game with one person trying to do 
everything.  Even a Spartan can only hold the pass for so long......fighting in the shade can 
get a little tiring sometimes......

                          Here's what the game looked like   
                         'This...is....Sparta!'


Any questions, feel free to ask!

Gabe Strong

Cinematographer/Editor/Owner

G-Force Productions Digital Cinema

www.gforcevideo.com

www.facebook.com/gforceproductionsbusinesspage