Now this is just too cool! Newtek launched a new product at DEMO!
Newtek has announced TriCaster, a new product built off their VT[4] editing solution. It looks like it is a complete portable live video production, broadcasting and streaming tool. Like the VT[3] and VT[4] it is a switcher (up to 24 video sources!), video production suite, video editing (comparable to Final Cut and Avid), 3D and 2D graphics creation and editing, titler, color correction, genlock etc. all in one package. I have built and used their VT systems for some time now and have found it to be a wonderful system. The only current downside is that it is SD only still, but I believe the bandwidth is available on the second generation of the VT card for a software only upgrade to HD. Unfortunately I am still using the now two year old, but very capable, VT[3] with a first generation card. I have been a user of Newtek’s VT products since the first 0.9 version came out almost 6 years ago. I just don’t do enough video to warrant upgrading, although I still would really like to make that a major portion of my work. The new TriCaster basically appears to be an evolution of what some clients of Newtek have been doing for a while — build up an Athlon or Pentium system, with the VT card, maybe an audio mixing board and some wireless controllers/receivers, and put it all in a mobile rack enclosure. Add in a pair of LCD monitors and the actual video cameras and you have a highly capable portable event production center. It can easily plug into house audio and video sources and output to them as well. Great for live bands at clubs, seminars, keynote addresses or even outdoor events.
While working a short stint for one of their resellers, I helped set up a luggable VT[3] solution that was really suite…er, sweet. It had enough umph out of an early Pentium 4 system and a 4 drive ATA100 raid to handle 3–4 simultaneous streams of video doing PiP and overlays pretty well. We used it twice while I was there for presentations, which was great. Video of the presenter ran in live from 2 cameras with 2 more on the audience. We could have fed all the video to record into the integrated virtual DDR’s with a fast enough machine drive subsystem. Video out ran to an XGA projector. We had additional video that had been pre-recorded cued up in DDRs that was fed into the presentation as needed. We pulled bottom third overlays — graphics and text — with transitions on and off screen for the presenters and were able to key in live text over screen caps of the programs and websites they discussed as the presentation progressed as well. Working with the virtual video switching panel and controls was dead simple and worked perfectly. The only thing easier would have been to use the external USB external switching control console. We didn’t really push the system, but it went over really well and was a joy to use. Especially as it wasn’t the good ol’ power point presentation. With a modern Pentium4, a PCI-X interface card and U320 SCSI drives this system must be able to handle around 8 video streams
When I was in Washington DC, with all the corporate, private and government possibilities, I was looking into doing exactly this for live coverage of events and then webcasting / streaming the event. Unfortunately with the move to Mystic the financial payoffs for starting this looked rather slim. Ironically what originally brought us to Connecticut was a job to set up a cable channel in the New Haven area that would use a pair of VT[3]’s to consolidate and broadcast a channel dedicated to horse & dog racing. I was going to be setting it up and then running the day to day technical and much of the creative needs for the new channel. It was a dream job, combining my satellite, graphics, computer tech, and video experience.
Advertising, schedule inserts and promo pieces would all be created on the offline system and put into the online system’s DDRs across the network. The offline system would also be used to record feeds from tracks across the country for delayed broadcast. Some of the races would be run straight through the online system with only no delay (gambling was involved here obviously). The only traditional deck involved were only there for pulling in commercials delivered by advertisers. At first the channel would only be live for 7 hours of the day. The entire of the 7 hour “broadcast” was recorded back into the online system’s DDR for replay a second time later in the day. Unfortunately the project was scrubbed (not entirely surprising to me considering the channel’s extremely limited scope and the issues involved connected to gambling. It would probably work much better as a webcast channel.) But it was such a beautiful setup that worked really well for considerably less than it would have taken to setup using traditional methods. It could have been just as easily done on just one system, and it was designed to actually work on that way, but the second added considerable redundancy.
I would love to use this system to create web broadcasts (and high quality videoblog) as well as sending a weekly show through the local cable system. Regarding webcast or videoblog I am thinking mostly along the lines of the SoundSeeing Tours podcasts that Adam Curry maintains and promotes, but obviously in video format. Maybe 3—6 minutes each. Heck it would take me at least a year to cover just the 50 miles around here not to mention special events, such as the Kalmar Nyckel. this area is a major tourism destination from Europe, Japan and the US, as well as having many very rich connection to American history.
Congratulation to Tim et. al. for listening to and learning from their customers and refining an already great product to meet those customers needs even better.
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