![]() What's cool about Desktop Presenter is that I can run an instance of it on another Mac, capture a screen, and send that to Wirecast Pro on my iMac. Likewise, I used to use CamTwist to "pick up" windows on my iMac screen (for instance, video from an external camera or Skype) - now I can do this with the free Desktop Presenter app from Telestream. Those filters are like what are found in CamTwist, which means that they are applied in the app instead of needing to run CamTwist. There are fine controls for just about every shot - you can adjust position and opacity of a shot or add a matte, crop a shot, add titles (many with colorful frames designed by Telestream), set up chroma key shots (green screen - useful with the virtual sets), set builds for different sources (like fading in and out), set attributes for playback of pre-recorded video, and add video filters. For example, if I want a logo to appear on screen regardless of what else is currently showing - video of me, a demonstration screen, or a running IRC chat - I can put that logo in a higher layer and then turn it on so that regardless of what's showing in a lower layer, it's visible. Layers consists of a number of different shots that can be transposed on top of each other. Shots consist of live or pre-recorded video, sound, logos, or static graphics, and Wirecast Pro provides a simple way to gracefully transition between the shots. The primary display can show a preview of shots that are about to go live as well as the current live stream, and then lists different layers and the shots on those layers in a logical layout. Wirecast Pro presents a very streamlined and compact user interface to the producer. The differences in Ustream Producer and Wirecast versions are found in this document. If Ustream is your primary streaming service, then you may wish to look at Producer Pro ($149) or Producer Studio ($549). Ustream partnered with Telestream in 2010 to make Ustream-specific versions of Wirecast available. There is a less expensive but almost equally capable standard version available for $449 - the Pro edition adds 3D virtual sets, audio controls with sync delay, integrated scoreboards for people who are livestreaming sports events (which could be useful for a head-to-head Apple trivia contest!), and support for additional cameras including wireless IP and HDV cameras.įor those of you who are familiar with Ustream Producer, Producer Pro, or Producer Studio, you'll manage Wirecast or Wirecast Pro very quickly. It's not an inexpensive application by any means. Wirecast was the answer, and now I'm a happy owner of Wirecast Pro (US$995). During the broadcast and recording of a podcast a while back, he did some tricks that totally amazed me, so I asked what he was using to produce the show. That's when I heard about Wirecast from friend and ace blogger Rene Ritchie of iMore. I needed something that would ease my duties while still offering video that was as good or better than what had been produced earlier.īy subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. Since it's a one-man show, I don't have the luxury of having a technician running the software - I have to do it all by my lonesome. ![]() On occasion one of the apps would decide to crash (usually just as the show was going live), necessitating a quick "please stand by" tweet and a reboot of the iMac. Sure, it could handle it, but I often had issues switching gracefully between applications, cameras, and demonstrations. ![]() The YouTube upload gives the show a wider distribution, while Castfire is used to feed the podcast of the show.Īs you can tell from the second paragraph in this post, there were a lot of apps running on my iMac. When I have guests, they'd join me via a Skype video call and were brought into the video mix through CamTwist.Once the show went live, it was streamed through using Live Media Encoder and recorded locally to disk for upload to our CDN (Castfire) and to YouTube. I used the built-in FaceTime camera on my iMac for face shots and an IPEVO P2V low-resolution cam for shots of iPad and iPhone screens. In the past, I launched LineIn (sound), Soundflower (sound), BoinxTV (video), CamTwist (video), Adobe Flash Live Media Encoder (video), and a number of other apps that were used to capture video from other devices. In this review, I'll describe some of the features of the latest version (4.1.3) of Wirecast Pro, and how it will be streamlining the production of the show.įor those of you who don't watch the show either live or in recorded form, let's start with a description of how it used to be done. ![]() Over the past few weeks, I've been getting up to speed on using Telestream's Wirecast Pro for Mac to broadcast the weekly TUAW TV Live show.
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