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Okay to leave in Standby?

We have recently acquired a PTZOptics 30X NDI camera for live streaming church service.  We use it about 2 hours on Sunday mornings and turn it off the remainder of the time.  We have now mounted it to the wall and it is out of reach without a tall ladder.  My questions are is it is okay to leave it in standby mode for the 166 hours that it is not in use every week? Also, it is powered via POE. Is it safe to pull the ethernet cable from the router to power it off without damaging the camera?


Hi Aaron,


You've made this pretty easy on me... the answer is definitely "yes" to both questions.


You should have no concerns leaving the camera(s) powered on 24 / 7 via outlet or PoE power.

If you want to save some electricity you can simply pull the network cable providing the camera(s) with power to disconnect.


If you have any additional questions about your new camera please don;t hesitate to come back to the forums.

I'm in the same situation. I have a 30x PTZ camera and a 20x ZCAM. Both are POE/NDI with only the ethernet cable running to the camera. We only use the camera a couple hours a week on Sunday morning. Is there a way to put the camera in standby mode with the web interface of each camera? Or do I leave them running all week? What is best?

Yeah leaving them running all week is generally best. the cameras are designed to be left on 24/7. 

With the answers I read above about leaving on 24/7....  is there a "auto" standby mode that can be set so that it turns off after X hours? ?  

Hi Warren,


There are not any settings on the camera that can be adjusted so the camera will enter Standby after a certain amount of time.

Currently the only way to put the camera into standby would be by using the IR remote or by sending a VISCA command. 

I'm sure I read somewhere that the auto-focus motor would suffer reduced life if the cameras were left on permanently, especially in low light, as they'd be permanently "hunting".


Is that a myth, or true, please?

I have not heard of that as something affecting the lifespan of the camera, but it does make sense. You can always use a preset with a manual focus set to avoid the autofocus from hunting when not in use while still leaving the camera on.

Sorry to jump in here and post on a older thread but we have just started using one of these cameras. I've noticed that when I put the camera in standby it's still streaming video. Is it really in standby? If it's still streaming video how can it really be in standby?


Thanks in advance.

Hi Glen England,

I would be curious which model camera you are using and then the current firmware present on the camera?


If the firmware is not currently up to date I would start by updating the cameras firmware and then re-testing to see if the issue has been resolved.


Here is the firmware download page with the downloads inclusive of software, instructions and the firmware... just make sure to select the right firmware for your specific model.


https://ptzoptics.com/latest-firmware-files/


I just tested this to confirm on our in-house cameras and found that they were responding as expected when placed into [STANDBY]


Of note, this was tested with respect to the RTSP, RTMP and NDI IP based connections.


To test the functionality I utilized the IR remote first and then confirmed with the IP based control commands.


Once placed into [STANDBY] all of the feeds noted above ceased operations.


We will look forward to hearing any additional information to assist in getting to the bottom of this odd issue you have uncovered.




Hello and thanks for your speedy reply.


This is the camera we are using:


https://honeyoptics.com/product/honey-ptz-optics-12x-live-stream-camera/


The first steps I did were to install the finder tool to locate the camera on the network and assign a static IP address once I found it.


The next thing I did was a check for updated firmware. The camera reported that it had the latest firmware.


We are streaming to vMix over NDI and also monitoring the camera over the IP address using Google Chrome.


When I press the standby button on the remote the standby light on the front of the camera comes on but the video is still visible in vMix and on the Google Chrome window, however, the camera no longer responds to our PTZ joystick controller.


Does this help?


Thanks again in advance.



Hi Glen England,


Unfortunately, that is not one of the cameras that we make so I am really not sure why it is behaving as you described.


I would recommend reaching out to Honey Optics and check with them to see how their Standby option should be functioning. 

I put the camera in standby using the remote... the standby light on the front turns on.   It seems like whenever I return to the camera in a few days, the standby light has turned off.  Not sure how long it is staying in standby?

For our PTZOptics cameras they should stay in Standby until taken out of Standby with another command. If yours is coming our of standby maybe it is rebooting? Maybe it is getting the standby off command as IR interference. But really it should be staying in standby until you take it out. 

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