OBSBOT Tail Air Review – PTZ 4K Streaming Camera with AI Auto Tracking and NDI

Camera Review

by Francesco AndreolaNovember 21^st, 2023

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The OBSBOT Tail Air is a small PTZ camera that is designed mainly for live-streaming applications. For just $499, you get 4K video up to 30fps, manual exposure controls, some pretty advanced AI-driven features with subject tracking and gesture control, plus support for NDI-based workflows. But is it any good? Let’s try to find out.

Even in post-pandemic times, live streaming is here to stay and only destined to grow. Whether you’re holding a corporate meeting, covering a sports event, or teaching an online class, you might be looking for a simple solution that transcends the capabilities of your smartphone or laptop’s webcam.

OBSBOT is a Chinese company that focuses on developing camera tools aimed at facilitating your life when streaming content. Their new Tail Air PTZ 4K streaming camera recently landed on my desk and I was able to test it for a few days. Let’s take a look!

OBSBOT Tail Air – camera and image settings

The OBSBOT Tail Air essentially combines a tiny 4K UHD camera with a 2-axis non-removable gimbal that can be controlled remotely in many different ways. The device comes in a nice carrying case and, while it’s not the tiniest gimbal-mounted camera on the market, it’s still relatively light and portable. Indeed, the whole camera system weighs 350g and measures approximately 7×7.3×13.3cm.

The camera module packs a 1/1.8” 8.4MP CMOS sensor that is paired with a 23mm (equivalent) f/1.8 lens. A fixed lens with a fixed aperture equals two things: a) the “up to 4x” zooming function is performed digitally, and this has a strong impact on image quality; b) if you want to use the camera outdoors without compromising on your shutter speed, then you have to purchase OBSBOT’s optional ND filters, which I didn’t have for this review.

The camera offers both automatic and manual exposure modes, and you can manually adjust your settings using the OBSBOT Start mobile app (available for both iOS and Android), even while recording/streaming – which is nice. Tunable parameters include essential settings such as shutter speed, ISO (100-6400), EV, and white balance. You can also customize your picture style, although I think it’s just better to leave it on Standard.

Additionally, you can toggle between manual (MF) or autofocus (AF-S or AF-C) modes. Focus distance can be adjusted manually using a virtual control wheel inside the app if needed, but I have to say that continuous AF works reasonably well in most situations, although it sometimes struggles a bit in dimly lit environments. The camera can also focus on pretty close objects, as you can tell from the picture below.

Gimbal, power options, and build quality

The camera gimbal can pan ±150° and tilt ±90°. Unfortunately, 360° horizontal range of motion is not natively supported, although it can be achieved using an optional 360° Rotation Charging Base.

Talking about power, the back of the unit has a USB-C power port that can be used to connect the camera to mains power or a portable battery. On top of that, the Tail Air has a built-in 1500mAh Li-Po battery. According to OBSBOT, the battery takes about 90 minutes to fully charge and can keep the camera running for about 2.5 hours when shooting in 1080p30. I found these figures to be pretty accurate in my own tests.

This means that you can stream from pretty much any location on Earth, as long as you have access to the internet and… well, your event is shorter than 2.5 hours. As a workaround, you could use the optional 360° Rotation Charging Base, which is claimed to extend battery life to around 7 hours.

The camera is decently built and has a 1/4”-20 threaded hole at the bottom that makes the Tail Air easy to mount on a small tripod or a light stand. Moreover, its front-facing LED status indicator proved to be extremely useful, especially when I was trying to film myself using AI-based tracking and gesture control (continue reading for more details).

Recording and streaming content

Although the Tail Air is mainly designed to be a live-streaming device, it can actually behave as a traditional, standalone camera, if needed. Indeed, it can shoot 4K UHD videos at up to 30fps or 1080p up to 60fps using the H.264/H.265 codecs (up to 80Mbps) and store them internally on a Micro SD card (up to 512GB in size). One note: these recording settings are slightly hidden inside the menu system of the app, and I wish they were more immediately accessible from the main UI.

On top of that, the camera also has a robust set of connectivity features that allow you to include it in many different types of live-streaming workflows. For example, you can:

• use the Micro HDMI port on the back of the camera to connect it to an encoder or live production switcher;

• connect the camera to a laptop using the USB-C port on the back of the body – which supports the UVC (USB Video Class) protocol – to connect the Tail Air to a switcher, or use it as an external, remotely controllable webcam;

• stream content directly to YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and other popular platforms via the OBSBOT Start App;

• use the optional USB-C to Ethernet Adapter to incorporate the camera in an NDI-based environment.

While this is quite a lot for a consumer camera, I soon found out that you can only use one of these modes at a time. So, for example, enabling UVC over USB-C will disable NDI and the HDMI output, and vice versa.

Controlling the PTZ camera

When it comes to remotely controlling the Tail Air PTZ camera, you have two main options. The first method is pairing the camera to the OBSBOT Start smartphone app via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. I found the app to be well-made, stable, and pretty straightforward to connect and use.

From within the app, you can monitor the live image feed, manually adjust camera settings, playback clips and save them to your phone’s gallery, manually control the gimbal using a virtual joystick, or enable/disable the AI tracking and framing features (more on this later).

The second method for controlling the camera is by using a dedicated remote controller. However, connecting the two devices requires you to follow a very specific pairing process outlined exclusively in the user manual. Once that’s out of the way, you can remotely control the gimbal via the controller’s physical joystick, use its side zoom rocker to digitally zoom in/out, trigger record, activate auto tracking on humans and pets, or turn the camera on/off. The remote charges via USB-C, works in the Bluetooth range, integrates a laser pointer for presentations, and can be used to control up to 3 Tail Air units.

AI-powered tools – Auto Tracking, Director Grids, and Gesture Control 2.0

Ok, it’s finally time to talk about the most interesting features of the OBSBOT Tail Air, which are also the ones that impressed me the most: its AI-driven tools. At first, I was afraid that the brand relied on Artificial Intelligence as a buzzword to steal their audience’s attention. But after playing around with the camera for a while, I was really surprised by the performance and utility, especially for a solo shooter.

• Auto Tracking: The camera can automatically detect and track humans and pets, but you can also manually select an object by drawing a box on the screen. Unfortunately, my dogs weren’t very collaborative, so I ended up being the only test subject. At first, I wasn’t really happy with the results I was getting – especially in terms of image composition – but then I found out I could adjust tracking speed (slow/standard/fast) and even tell the camera where I wanted to be positioned inside the frame.
  
  After making these changes, things got much better. Especially, since the maximum controllable speed of the gimbal is 120°/s, I was impressed by how quickly I could move in space. However, this also revealed the other side of the coin, which is a pretty bad rolling shutter.
  
  There are still situations in which the tracking system can get a bit confused. That happens, for example, when a large obstacle gets in the way, or your shot includes multiple human subjects. Still, the performance of a product in this price range is quite remarkable and should provide satisfying results for most users, even in dimly lit rooms.

• Directors Grid: Using AI, the camera automatically creates multiple angles of your subject. These can be monitored from a dedicated tab within the app, and you can quickly select which angle goes “on air”. Essentially, it’s like having a virtual live switcher at your fingertips.
  
  The biggest limitation of this tool is that some of the angles are so cropped that they become pretty much useless unless you’re OK with low image quality. Sometimes “content is king”, as they say.

• Gesture Control 2.0: Now, this is where things get interesting. Do you remember I said there are two ways of controlling the gimbal – app or remote? Well, “good things come in threes” and, in truth, you can also control the gimbal remotely using only… your hands.
  
  Hence, by performing specific gestures in front of the camera, you can start/stop recording, engage Auto Tracking (this can also be done by double-tapping on your subject in the app), or zoom in/out on yourself. Depending on the command, the front LED indicator changes color and the camera emits a specific sound.
  
  This worked very well in my experience, and it can be very useful for streamers and presenters who need to shoot content on their own, but don’t want to have a smartphone or remote controller on them.

USB-C to Ethernet Adapter for NDI workflows

The NDI protocol allows you to share video sources over a local area network (LAN) via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, and the OBSBOT Tail Air is fully ready to support it. However, this comes at a price. Indeed, you will need a paid activation key to enable NDI on your device. Additionally, if you want to rely on a more secure wired Ethernet connection, you also need to purchase the optional USB-C to Ethernet Adapter.

Once you’re all set, you can share a clean, low-latency 4K video feed over your network – the 4K image looks pretty crisp. As usual, activating NDI mode will disable the HDMI output. The NDI video source can then be detected by live streaming software like OBS Studio, for example. This type of workflow is particularly useful if you’re planning on including the Tail Air in a multi-camera live streaming production with other NDI sources.

Although I don’t often rely on NDI technology for my productions, connecting the camera to my LAN using the adapter was fairly easy.

Audio recording

The OBSBOT Tail Air can record audio out of the box thanks to its dual built-in microphone. Nonetheless, I found this solution to be barely usable, since the internal mic also picks up a lot of undesired sounds generated by the camera and gimbal. This is particularly true when tracking subjects.

Luckily, you can easily work around this by connecting an external microphone to the camera via its 3.5mm jack input. For my tests, I used a SYNCO G2 (A2) wireless microphone system and I achieved much cleaner results. I think this is the way to go if you want your live streams to sound professional.

Audio levels can be easily adjusted via the app, and there’s also an option to apply noise reduction to the signal. This can come in handy to improve the sound coming from your internal mics, but in any case, I wouldn’t set it beyond 1 on the 3-step noise reduction range.

Conclusion

So, should you buy the OBSBOT Tail Air? As usual, the answer depends on your specific needs. If you often need to shoot yourself walking around your space during live presentations, and you don’t have high expectations of image quality, then I think the AI Auto Tracking and Gesture Control features can help you tremendously in your job.

Overall, the system can be a valid option if you’re just starting out with live streaming and you’re looking for an end-to-end solution that doesn’t require too much effort to set up and use. The camera produces a nice 4K image (you can see a comparison with the built-in FaceTime HD camera of my MacBook Pro M1 Max – 2021 version – below), although image quality rapidly degrades when you zoom in. Also, by using an external microphone, you can still deliver professional audio.

However, if top-tier image quality is a concern and you often need to zoom in/out on your subjects or stream from a low-light environment, then I’d probably look somewhere else.

Price and availability

The OBSBOT Tail Air is now officially available to order for $499. Pricing for the accessories and NDI activation key is as follows:

• Smart Remote Controller –
• 360° Rotation Charging Base –
• ND Filters –
• NDI Activation Key –

For more information, please visit OBSBOT’s website here.

Do you often produce live-streaming content? Do you think the AI tools of the OBSBOT Tail Air can facilitate your work? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!