Recording Presentations with Keynote and PowerPoint using Wirecast

Posted by Derrick on April 23, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Recording presentations with Keynote and PowerPoint using Wirecast is simply amazing.  The folks at Telestream have an amazing tool on their hands and the way that Desktop Presenter works is really cool.  If you have Desktop Presenter on your workstation with Keynote or PowerPoint, your presentation can be brought up on a separate computer running Wirecast.   What’s nice is you can have several Desktop Presenters going within your Wirecast application.  So if you wanted to have 5 different presenters speak during a Webcast or Video Recording you could have all 5 PowerPoint or Keynote presentations displayed at the appropriate time.

Wirecast Supports Live Encoding to QuickTime Streaming Server

Posted by Derrick on February 27, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Telestream’s Wirecast supports Live Encoding to QuickTime Streaming Server. This is a good thing if you’re going to be delivering you Live Webcast to Apple’s QuickTime Streaming and you have a PC for your Live Encoder.  You can easily send your Live Stream to the QTSS in the H.264 flavor and customize the frame size, datarate, key frame interval, fps etc.  Since QuickTime Broadcaster is not available for the PC Wirecast provides a wonderful solution for Live Encoding to QTSS with many other added benefits.

Wirecast provides a more advanced level tool for Webcasting.  Not only does it support Live Encoding to QTSS but Wirecast (for PC) also sports Live Encoding to Windows Media Server, Flash Streaming Servers and many CDNs. With it you can encode from Fireware cameras attached via Firewire.  If you have separate Firewire cards installed you can switch between multiple Firewire cameras.  Multiple Live Streams can be sent to the same server/different servers and you can create an archive for on-demand viewing later during your Webcast. Wirecast also provides a full production switcher in software.  You can switch seamlessly between multiple cameras, multiple video sources, and Powerpoint presentations.

Lower thirds (name keys) can also be included during your Webcasts.  So you could have 10-15 or more lower third graphics called up as desired during your production.  Wirecast comes with many pre-made lower third templates saving you a tremendous amount of time in design.  Wirecast can also do nice transitions and dissolves between sources.  You can even do Picture-N- Picture. Wirecast is not free like QuickTimeBroadcaster but you will definitely get a superior tool for Webcasting along with the ability to solve the issue of Live Encoding to Apple’s QuickTime Streaming Server from a PC.

Archiving Presentations for Flash Streaming without Streaming Live

Posted by Derrick on January 16, 2010 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Archiving presentations for Flash Streaming without Streaming Live is a workflow that you can use with Telestream’s Wirecast tool.  For those of you that are not familiar with Wirecast, it’s a software-based Live Encoder available for Mac and PC.  The live encoder lets you perform tasks that you’ve only dreamed of.  For this post I wanted to shared Wirecast’s ability to Archive your PowerPoint, Keynote or .PDF presentation along with a Web Cam or Video Camera.

Under the Broadcast Settings if you click the + button to add a new destination, instead of choosing a streaming server for the Destination you can choose Record to Disk.  You can customize you output location and filename of your file to archive.  For Flash you have the option to record files with the .f4v or the .m4v wrapper.  Once you adjust your settings you can then turn on the Record to Disk mode without Streaming Live by clicking the Broadcast button. Click stop Broadcasting when you presentation is done.  You’ll have to be sure to use the Desktop Presenter to display your PowerPoint, Keynote or .PDF presentation in Wirecast. When you finish recording your presentation you can upload your .f4v or .m4v video to your Flash Streaming Server.

To learn more about Recording to Disk and other features of Wirecast make sure you attend one of the FREE Episode Encoder, Wirecast and Sawmill Professional Trainings in your area.  Training sessions are coming up in Orlando on Jan. 22 and in Ohio on Feb. 19 in 2010.  You can also attend in Chicago, Las Vegas and New York.

Wirecast Live Streaming Great for Churches

Posted by Derrick on September 3, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression | Read the First Comment

Wirecast Live Streaming is a great option for Churches.  With limited budgets Churches can get the benefit of having a full video production studio on their desktop. Usually when you do a full scale production a video switcher is needed but Wirecast actually becomes that switcher.  This gives you a very inexpensive option to switch from videos for playback, camera sources, and presentations.  Wirecast includes a Preview and Program window so you can see which sources are in Preview and which ones are in Program (Live).

Now with using a tool such as Wirecast for Live Streaming you can think about your production for your Live Streaming event in a more professional way.  You need to plan on having a Director to switch your event and you should have a Producer that maps out all of the activity happening during your event.  Next, the Producer should create a script that has all of the speakers that will participate in the Live Streaming event.  He/She should also document all the cameras and sources to use during the production.  Lastly, the easy part is to follow the script and use Wirecast to do your switching.  If you’d like to get up close and personal with Wirecast make sure you attend one of our Wirecast Live Streaming Trainings or one of our Wowza Media Server Trainings. Call Freeman Compression Inc. at 407.477.5837 or E-mail us at info@freemancompression for more information.

Wirecast Training Available at Freeman Compression Inc.

Posted by Derrick on April 11, 2009 under Video Streaming and Compression | Be the First to Comment

Wirecast Training is Available at Freeman Compression Inc.  Live Streaming with Wirecast is important for those streaming to Content Delivery Networks, In-house Streaming Servers and Dedicated Streaming Servers. The training is a 1-Day course and covers the following topics:

• How to set up Live streaming to Wowza Media Server Pro
• How to set up Live streaming to QuickTime Streaming Server
• How to set up Live streaming to Windows Media Streaming Server (PC class only)
• How to set up Live streaming to Content Delivery Networks, Ustream and Mogulus
• How to Delivery Live Streaming with PowerPoint or Keynote presentations
• How to set-up Publishing Points
• How to set-up Live streaming using RTSP, MMS and RTMP Protocols
• How to perform Live encoding from video files

The training is available on-site or on-line.  Call Instructor Derrick Freeman at 407.477.5837 for more information about this training class or email him at derrick@freemancompression.com