Multicam monitoring and control

[erik-sutton95]

Goal

Monitor and control multiple compatible Nikon Z cameras from one OpenZCine session.

Why it matters

Small crews and solo operators increasingly manage more than one angle. A shared view of feeds, record state, battery, storage, and warnings can reduce missed takes and repeated trips to each camera.

Proposed experience

• Discover and connect to multiple cameras with clear identities
• Show a low-overhead overview grid and a focused program monitor
• Group or individually trigger recording and selected safe controls
• Surface per-camera link health, storage, battery, and warnings
• Degrade preview quality intelligently to protect device heat and bandwidth

Success looks like

An operator can confidently monitor several cameras, identify any unhealthy unit, and control recording without confusing one body for another.

Open questions

• How many simultaneous feeds are realistic over current transports and devices?
• Which controls are safe to group?
• Should synchronization be best-effort or pursue time-aligned command dispatch?

[erik-sutton95]

Additional production demand from Reddit reinforces the grouped-record portion of this request. The operator currently uses multiple physical trigger cables routed through a master hardware switch and would like OpenZCine to trigger several camera angles together.

This makes command timing and acknowledgement especially important: the UI should report per-camera roll confirmation and any partial failure rather than presenting a group trigger as perfectly frame-synchronous unless hardware evidence supports that claim.

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