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Activity Forums Telestream can telestream help realize a dream??

  • can telestream help realize a dream??

    Posted by Matt Rice on November 2, 2009 at 3:36 pm

    Hey, horribly new to all of this and aiming to remedy that asap.

    So here’s the project: I’m wanting to live stream a series of Chicago improv shows via a three camera set up. I’ve done a little research into, well, seemingly all possible directions (software switchers like telestream vs real hardware like the MX50).

    In a perfect world, I’d love to use 3 Canon XHa-1’s for this but don’t know my limitations regarding telestream. Can this be done? If not telestream, how??

    Thanks in advance, cows

    matt

    Craig Seeman replied 15 years ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • Craig Seeman

    November 2, 2009 at 5:05 pm

    Do you have any reason or resources to do an HD stream (larger than 640 with a data rate of over 1000kbps for example)?

    Wirecast on desktop computer (Quad Core or better) with 3 firewire cards (actually two if the computer already has one built in) will work fine.

    It’s a bit tougher with a laptop as usually you have one built in firewire bus with the ability to add one more with an Express port firewire card. Of course the 3rd cam could be USB. Keep in mind that 3 camera on a Core 2 Duo can push the CPU hard so the laptop really has to capable.

    Some have tried with more than 1 camera on a firewire bus but often the camera’s firewire port control is at issue. Wirecast can handle it but the camera may not so this would be risky.

    In short, the best bet is to use a quad or octo core desktop with firewire cards and that’ll work like a champ. Make sure you have enough upstream bandwidth on location. BTW some “nifty” about this is that you can have a 3 camera shoot, a fourth camera (it can be simple USB Webcam so you can cut to you as host, take incoming Skype video calls for call in interviews, set these combinations up as picture in picture.

  • Matt Rice

    November 2, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    Craig, thank you.

    So say I have a budget of 6,000…I have my three xha1’s locked as well as my mic (which I assume I’ll hook up through my xh and have that translate to telestream? can I select one audio [out of three camera feeds] to rule them all, so to speak?]). With that budget, I should be looking toward upgrading my current duo core mac to something a little more beastly? This is something we’ll be doing (initially) once a month, looking toward more productions as we get a handle on the tech.

    No, I really have no reason to push for HD other than I’d love as high quality stream as possible (two of the three cameras will operate as medium/close up cams) to evoke a Saturday Night Live 2.0 feel.

    matt

  • Craig Seeman

    November 2, 2009 at 6:11 pm

    [Matt Rice] “can I select one audio [out of three camera feeds] to rule them all, so to speak?]). “
    Absolutely!
    [Matt Rice] “With that budget, I should be looking toward upgrading my current duo core mac to something a little more beastly?”
    With three cameras I’d say yes. You could get a base 8 core, go to 8GB RAM, add 3 firewire cards and, you’d have a pretty killer stream station.

    The core 2 duo could be OK for one and two (with Express card) firewire camera shoots and iSight for the “person behind the production” MC look. In other words the core 2 duo is fine for smaller shoots.

    [Matt Rice] “I really have no reason to push for HD other than I’d love as high quality stream as possible”
    The issues with HD is that HDV is very CPU intensive (and requires the HDV plugin purchase) and really is only good for one camera. HDMI cameras are another story so people are looking at how to do that. The other concern is the bandwidth both upstream to send and downstream to view.
    BTW with SD at 640×480 or 640×360 you could stream to iPhone as well.

  • Matt Rice

    November 3, 2009 at 9:18 pm

    Craig, this’ll probably brand me an uber-noob…but the Mac pro I’m looking at has two FW400 and two FW800 ports…is this all I need?

  • Craig Seeman

    November 3, 2009 at 9:32 pm

    Actually that question about firewire ports is very good since one wouldn’t be able to figure out what’s actually going on inside the Mac just by looking and every the cursory specs aren’t clear.

    Unless something has changed in the internal design recently, all those ports are just on a single firewire bus. Thus only one camera can be “trusted.”

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