MCVSAID turns spare Android phones into a synced, self-healing camera rig for OBS. One Mac or Linux computer runs it. Cut the show by hand, or let a vision model on that same computer choose the shots, and steer it in plain words as the show goes. No cloud, no subscription, and no footage leaves the building.
The demo is the real dashboard running in your browser with six simulated cameras. Nothing is connected.
Most phone multicam tools stop once the feeds reach a switcher. MCVSAID covers the whole chain: setup, health, sync, colour, shot choice and edit-ready recordings.
Every picture below is from the demonstration manager: made-up cameras and drawn pictures, not a real show.
The Show page arms, starts and stops every camera together, and one readiness line checks the computer, OBS, the network and every phone, then says what needs attention and how to fix it.
A factory-reset phone taps its welcome screen six times, scans a code and joins, with no cable. From then on it revives a frozen picture, rejoins Wi-Fi and holds its battery short of full by itself.
A vision model on your own computer rates every camera from the phones' own pictures, a few seconds ahead of the programme, so it can tell an empty or blurred shot from a good one before cutting to it.
AI is optional: choose none at all, the model alone, or the model plus recognition of consenting performers.
Give the director a brief ("stay on whoever is singing; the drums for fills"), then steer it mid-show with Scene Chat: "less on the drums". The log explains every cut.
A host can call shots aloud, "cut to the overhead", with speech recognised on the computer and nothing heard sent anywhere or kept.
The cameras laid out as they stand on the stage, by what they show. Press one to put it on air, or two for a split screen. A room map places each camera and shows the wedge it sees.
Share it with a phone in the crowd behind a passcode, or run it from a tablet.
Put a phone on a Hohem iSteady X3 or MT3 and aim it from the dashboard, or press Follow and it keeps a face in frame by itself. Save targets such as the pot or the guitar stand and send the camera there by voice.
Or take over from a tablet with an Xbox controller.
For an audience camera, a congregation or a school event, the phone blurs every face before encoding, so no unblurred copy exists anywhere. The computer can back it up, covering faces the phone missed.
It can still miss faces, so don't rely on it to hide anyone yet.
Each phone's temperature, trend and forecast against the planned show length, with runs compared side by side. Clip-on Black Shark coolers are controlled over Bluetooth Experimental, and the hubs that charge them can sit on Tapo smart plugs.
A hidden timing strip lines every feed up to the frame, and Calibrate sync lines each camera's sound up with its picture. One page sets white balance and exposure on every phone and builds a LUT for each camera.
Every programme recording comes with a file per camera, the cuts as an EDL for Resolve, Premiere or Final Cut, and each camera's LUT. Recordings made on the phones are copied over and verified after the show.
Each kind of event has its own camera roles, pacing and way of choosing shots, and a set of its own on the room map.
Prep for the show turns a long recipe into short steps the cook can call out, and the recipe card goes on screen always, at key moments, or only when asked.
Guests sign up from their phones with a QR code, the host calls up each singer, and the words go on a screen facing them, lit as they are sung.
Phones stream picture and sound to OBS on one production computer. The MCVSAID manager on that computer keeps them in step and chooses or takes the shots. Everything is run from a browser.
Factory-reset spare Android phones, scan a code, and the signed app installs itself and joins the camera network.
On stands, rigging or gimbals, out of reach if you like. Arm, update, colour-match and repair them from the dashboard.
Cut by hand on Stage Shots, or let the director cut and steer it as you go. Record, stream to OBS, or both.
Said plainly, before you set aside any phones.
Why MCVSAID: what it does that others don't, and how it compares →
If you film live events with phones, at a church, a theatre, a school, a venue, a band, a podcast or a kitchen, email beta@mcvsaid.com with:
Testers get the manager, a tester guide and a direct line for feedback.
Please tell us privately at security@mcvsaid.com, never in a public issue. Say what you found, how to make it happen and what it would let someone do. We reply within a week and say when a release with the fix is out.