From workaround to workflow: OBSBOT Tail 2 at Redpinata

OBSBOT × Redpinata · From the studio

This partnership did not start with a sponsorship deck. It started with a camera we had bought ourselves, and with a question we actually needed answered: can its motion data go straight into Unreal Engine?

The first Tail 2 was already in the green-screen set when we wrote to OBSBOT. A second one followed soon after. That is when a very specific problem showed up. Unreal Engine saw both cameras as the same ID. Our tech team built a workaround, we sent OBSBOT what we had found, and a technical exchange turned into a partnership.

For us, that was the right order. A system has to work on a real production before anyone talks about it. Today there are three Tail 2 in tracked virtual production and three more in the Video Podcast Studio. Other cameras go out on live and IRL jobs.

Virtual production: less calibration, more room for light

Our previous tracking was optical, with trackers and lighthouses. It can be very precise. In our set it also created a standing conflict: a clear line of sight for the tracking, or a free position for lights, monitors and people. Every production started with a reset, reference points and calibration on top of that.

The Tail 2 reports pan, tilt and zoom itself. The data travels over Ethernet into the control room and from there into Unreal Engine. All three cameras stay where they are and share the same lens, so we do not rebuild the tracking before every shoot. The camera cannot dolly through the room, and we are not going to pretend it can. It can follow a person, pan and zoom while the virtual background stays in perspective. For seated shows and moderate movement, that is the range that actually matters.

The rest of the chain stays classic broadcast, on purpose. Picture runs over HDMI into the control room, is converted to SDI ahead of the Ultimatte keyers, and is then routed through a Videohub, HyperDecks and vMix. The Tail 2 does not replace that infrastructure. It removes the part that used to cost us time, and light positions, on every setup.

Four looks behind the finished frame. Swipe sideways.

Video Podcast Studio: same control room, less friction

The starting point here was different. The workflow was already lean: three cameras, one person in the live control room, a finished video at the end of a two-hour slot. To get there we used to rig three Sony A7S III before every production and take them down afterwards. During the conversation, the framing stayed fixed.

The three Tail 2 are meant to stay installed: one wide and two tracked close-ups. The crew does not get smaller. There is still one person in the control room, on purpose. What goes away is the camera rigging that came back with every show. If a guest leans back, or comes forward in the conversation, the close-up stays usable without anyone riding a camera by hand.

In the studio, picture runs over short HDMI paths into vMix. We record program and the ISO feeds. NDI stays out of this room on purpose. Outside, it flips. NDI and PoE are useful there, because picture, audio, control and power can share one network cable. SDI or HDMI remains the second path when the run has to be robust, or redundant.

Format is where we pick up extra room. In the app, the camera can switch from 16:9 to 9:16. Presets and zoom steps turn three cameras into more than three frames we can repeat. That pays off when one recording has to feed the long episode and the vertical clips.

From the set and from the control room. Swipe sideways.

Then the camera left the studio

The Tail 2 became properly interesting once it worked somewhere other than the setup we had planned. On an IRL production, one person ran three cameras from the control room. On a livestream in a storm, a Tail 2 stayed up through a short power cut on its internal battery. When the production network dropped, the camera was still reachable on its own.

That is why Kim Dormann and Maxime Billon do not talk about spec sheets in the third film. They talk about the jobs: long runtimes, night shoots, remote control, and the plain question of how many people you actually need behind the cameras.

Three documents, if you want the detail

The blog tells the story. Signal paths, the Unreal integration and the efficiency numbers we can stand behind are in three English documents. All three are available here as PDF downloads.

After the install

The Tail 2 does not replace a large camera with prime lenses, and it does not replace the people in the control room. It does not have to. What it is good at is narrower, and more useful: it makes certain productions repeatable. Fixed positions, presets you can call back, tracking that does not need its own setup, and a camera that behaves in the studio the way it behaves on a live job we had already built for bad weather.

The partnership did not happen because the first attempt was perfect. It happened because we had a real problem, built a fix, and found people on the other side who wanted to talk about it. That is how a collaboration becomes more than a logo in the credits.

Based on our productions on 21 and 22 October 2026, the three video transcripts, and the tech papers and case study we handed to OBSBOT.