[Craig Seeman]

[Chuck Pullen] “I was absolutely floored when I learned that the only way to use new Livestream is by using their equipment, and you “cannot” use Wirecast.”

Or anything else for that matter. Not even Adobe FMLE. Their software is a resource hog as well. This limitation is the biggest reason I’m not happy with New Livestream. Add the lose of their online “Studio” and the requirement that free accounts, although ad free, forces the viewer to sign up and, in my experience, MANY people do NOT want to offer that information.

There are workarounds regarding software though.

[Chuck Pullen] “My thought is that I upgrade to 5.0, take an SDI out, convert it to HDMI, and feed their portable encoder?”

That would certainly work. Even Wirecast’s External Display Output can work if you have HDMI out and can patch the computer’s audio out separately.

Wirecast Virtual Camera Out has worked as a source for their free software but recently some are reporting issues with that as well.

I’m just plan not happy with New Livestream.

If you stick to their free Livestream for Producers or buy their switching software I’m sure it’s fine though. Their switching software, last I checked, I felt was far more limited than Wirecast. You can use Tricaster with New Livestream as they have a plugin for that.

[Craig Seeman]

[Chuck Pullen] ” am doing everything at 720p, maybe I should scale down what I am sending to Livestream?”

Free Original Livestream doesn’t support HD. That means your video is being downscaled. 640×360 should closely match their player I believe.

[Chuck Pullen] “This is the first time I tried importing slides into Wirecast. Even then, usually when we have bandwidth issues,”

Perhaps the slides are too large or in a codec that’s causing issues on the switch. You may need to downscale the slides. Make sure they are 72dpi as anything higher is a waste and possibly a stress, Frame size should be such that there isn’t much downscaling to fit into the encoder. Canvas should match either input source or the encoder depending on which scales better.

I’m not sure what you mean by bandwidth issue since I thought your first post implied there should be none. ALWAYS test before streaming.

Speed
https://www.speedtest.net
Packet loss
https://www.pingtest.net

[Chuck Pullen] “I am thinking it is the 720p image being sent to a free Livestream account limited to 500k.?”

I believe free accounts not using their own software are limited to 500kbps. That would mean your encoder should probably be 640×360 at 500kbps combined for audio and video.

[Craig Seeman]

After seeing the Barefeats tests I’m very tempted to feel safe getting 6 Core and D500.
My gut feeling is that technology is moving so fast that in about 3 years or less I’ll be replacing it anyway.

Obviously what’s best for me isn’t necessarily good for anyone else but for my work I don’t see pushing the system extremely hard at the moment and in a couple years as 4K and HEVC take hold I suspect current system might feel a bit constrained.

The 6 Core D500 systems are available at B&H, in stock. Apparently no wait.

I’d love to see something that gives me a compelling case for the D700 so I’m hoping to see more tests. A Colorist might find a compelling reason though.

Interesting Barefeats did post a short Resolve test and FWIW it seems a MacPro with Dual G680 has the edge. They only had a D300 MacPro though and it was OK but it wouldn’t be a compelling reason to get a new Tube Tower just for grading. The 700 would have to be compelling and they well be testing an 8 Core D700 model.
https://barefeats.com/tube06.html

[Craig Seeman]

Impossible to know without technical information. I can probably think of a dozen reasons for your issues.

Describe as if you wanted a blind person to build a matching system including hardware, software versions, settings.

If it’s only on transitions it might be related to the format of the stills requiring a sudden radical change in the encoder when cutting for example. It could be too low a data rate. The transition would have impact on what’s happening in the GOP. It could be you’re not current with Wirecast version. It could be the driver for your camera input device and Wirecast accessing it on the switch.

I’ve been using Wirecast with Original Livestream (I have premium account) for years and haven’t had anything like this. This is across multiple computers, multiple input devices (webcam, DVCam, BMD Mini Recorder, MXO2-LE). Usually streaming at 640×360 at 500 to 800 kbps depending on content. I’ve used recorded clips but don’t use stills much so I suspect the issue is related to stills to live video and your settings or equipment.

ALWAYS test before you go live using the sources and setup you plan to use. This is something that should be caught in advance, giving you time to tweak settings.

[Craig Seeman]

Two GPUs on 2008 MacPro would be an inexpensive yet likely significant improvement for FCPX. Barefeats tested with later model so there’s no confirmation on 2008 specifically or FCP7. Relatively speaking two 5770s would be a “low expense” experiment. At the very least one would certainly work with FCPX and FCP7. So at worst only the 2nd GPU would be the “risk” expense.

Here Barefeats includes two 5770 on 2010 MacPro as well as 7000 series vs 2013 base model with dual D300s
https://barefeats.com/tube05.html

[Craig Seeman]

I have a 2008 8 Core MacPro and updated the GPU to the ATI 5770 when FCPX came out.
I also have 2011 15″ MBP and late 2013 15″ MBPr. FCPX is faster on both. I think the primary reason is that it takes advantage of features in the i7 architecture not found in Xeon CPUs.

That said, I’ve heard that you can install two 5770s or even two 7950s and FCPX will take advantage of them. I haven’t heard or seen tests with the 2008 model though, only more recent (Barefeats did this).

I’m not sure how FCP7 will handle the two GPUs though.
There 7toX though if you need to move projects.

Personally I’m headed to a new MacPro though.

[Craig Seeman]

[Lance Bachelder] “Sam Mestman is NOT Walter Murch”

I’m not sure that workflow design and implementation is the same profession as feature film editor.

[Lance Bachelder] “he’s just another starving LA filmmaker trying to find a niche.”

From what I understand he’s a consultant who does workflow implementation although he’s certainly done other things.

Seems that’s what is background has been a lumaforge.
https://www.lumaforge.com/styled/index.html

Perhaps starving people like to eat and he sees unexploited opportunity.

[Craig Seeman]

[john mahoney] “Looking at the exported H264,
Audio data rate is 1.5M/sec”
[john mahoney] “Can I lower this? And how?”

H.264 is the video codec. What’s the Audio Codec?
You can target the audio data rate just like you can target the video data rate in virtually any encoder. Even the preset based encoders wouldn’t use a data rate that high for audio.

Of course if you chose PCM or some other “uncompressed” audio codec with your video codec, that would be a problem. The solution being chose a codec such as AAC for audio and set the data rate.

[Craig Seeman]

Posts as such from the OP (and a few others) are so far out in that they air their own personal failures assuming the entire industry is in agreement, that I can’t help but think they’re being “encouraged” from other sources to spread FUD.

I guess one would have to believe Sam Mestman has never used or helped install FCPX anywhere and that Alex Van Hurkman really wants to waste his time at an event for FCPX based services in Los Angeles, where everyone resolutely refuses to use the FCPX “toy.”

Surely these are misguided people opening in a city that despises this NLE.

Or maybe they have some idea of the functionality and potential market for FCPX the OP can’t fathom (and the OP tries to persuade others of it).

https://www.fcpworks.com/special_event/

[Craig Seeman]

I’ll start by questioning the premise. Why would someone need FLV when H.264 .mp4 is currently more common in Flash. Granted some might put H.264 in FLV (which really should be F4V) but that’s not standard and, as far as I know, serves no purpose. There’s still some motive for VP6 FLV if one needs alpha channel support. H.264 is more efficient (better quality at same bit rate or equal quality at lower bit rate) than VP6 is generally. H.264 in FLV is something I’d avoid given potential metadata issues (if this is what they mean).

Clients generally aren’t technicians so I never assume the client knows what they “need.” If they can articulate a sound technical or workflow reason, of course respect that. Often they’re just reciting something they heard years back and have little understanding about the changes in technology.

That said, you can certainly do a VP6 FLV (and determine whether VP6-S or VP6-E is more suited). Any settings though should be based on intended target so I’m not sure what your suggestions are based on.

BTW using FLV means you’ll lose the iOS market and a good chunk of Android as well (as Flash support was dropped in recent Android builds). All the more reason why it doesn’t make sense (depending on intended use) to use FLV. MP4 can be used both in Flash and HTML5 (mobile).