Multicamera event breakdown

[Josh Chesarek]

Just recently did an event for the City of Orlando where we mixed 3 cameras, graphics and media into a live stream that went to their main website along with Facebook live. We also provided IMAG for the house audience as well as providing a confidence monitor down on the stage. The recording can be found here:

State Of Downtown 2016 - YouTube

Setup was pretty straightforward and used the following:

Datavideo HS-1200 mixer
Datavideo ITC-1000 Intercom/tally
Yamaha Mg10xu Audio Mixer
3x - Canon XF-305
Laptop running Wirecast with HDMI out to power the graphics and video playback
Laptop streaming over RTMP (Wirecast) and recording an MP4
BM HyperDeck Shuttle 2 recording the pgrm out

Each camera operator had intercom and tally. We also ran intercom to the stage manager so they could queue the show flow as people entered and exited the stage. From the production side there were 5 people. 3 Camera, 1 Graphics, 1 Director.

Attached an image of the setup before and during the show. Happy to answer any questions if there is any.

[Seth Bloombaum]

That's a lot on one laptop! Specs?

How do you like Wirecast's local output to screen - if I understand, in this setup the local projection is the same as the webcast content?

Did you send slides from the laptop as well as video roll-ins; no other computer for powerpoint?

[Josh Chesarek]

There were two laptops. The Mac was only sending out the image to the HDMI feed with the green and graphics (or full screen video) and was not actually encoding over RTMP so the CPU utilization was never about 20% from what I recall. It is an i7 macbook pro with 16gb of ram and I believe around a 2.6 ghz processor.

The Dell was the one encoding out to the world and was only using about 25% cpu. It is a 2.6ghz i7 that runs at 3.1ghz when plugged in with 32gb ram.

I actually have a hardware encoder that I am going to start using but I didn't have enough time to test before this event. The liveshell can do 3 streams at various bitrates and seems very promising.

I have also run two copies of wirecast on the mac and done the graphics thing with an SD broadcast and it stayed around 50% cpu. Outputting over HDMI seems to user very low resources.

The 2nd monitor is as you described. It is an output of the prgm feed from wirecast.

The mac ran anything type of graphics or video that needed to be inserted. In this case they did have a powerpoint they wanted me to loop at the start of the event so I exported those slides to PNGs and loaded them into wirecast. In some cases I have people who have animations or sound with their power points in which case I will run the power point in presentation mode and output to one of my scan converters over HDMI. That will then convert the output into the proper format for my vision mixer. I then split the audio out to the sound mixer so I have control over it.

[Bruce Dempsey]

If it's the cerevo livewedge you mentioned (there is a liveshell too) you'll be amazed that you can lose all that other stuff except for the cameraman intercom/tally
I have had one for a while and it's just too simple lol

[Josh Chesarek]

Not their switcher just their LiveShell X. I looked at that switcher but i needed SDI and intercom/tally. Some of the installations I do are HDMI based and I would love to try that switcher for the next setup that it would fit into.

[Kevin Walsh]

The Live Shell X is awesome. I got one in October and have been streaming weekly with it without a single hiccup.
I still have my Vidiu Pro which I keep in case I need to use sharelink, but it really can't compare.

[Josh Chesarek]

I am still doing my testing. I was going to email support to see if it was possible to configure the device without using their website/service. I don't feel too comfortable relaying on their site to stay up when I may need to change to a new RTMP url for facebook etc. Most of the other encoders I have used had a local webserver on the device.

[Kevin Walsh]

That has been a concern for me as well, however it has not been a issue. I like the Live Shell X because it is the first device that I have owned that hasn't been plagued with bugs. Both the Vidiu Pro and the Live Shell 2 were problematic for me right out of the box.

A built in web server would be really nice, please let us know what you find.

[Bruce Dempsey]

have had 2 sd hdmi liveshells and currently use the livewedge. Must be 6 yrs and all the time thru their service. Its just there all the time I'm not worried about that aspect at all. I worry thruout an event of the local internet connection breaking down.
Those guys in Japan are on the ball
The dashboard on my devices only require the cerevo connection for configuration and once that is running the device will boot to that config after the fact

[Josh Chesarek]

I know once it's set we are good and usually I will configure it before the event. When using my own servers the info doesn't change but when it's a Facebook or YouTube stream that someone else controls I get a bit nervous

[Bruce Dempsey]

no youtube live or face book streaming for me - thank you very much. I would be more than nervous but I dont know why they prolly real good. I use a private unbranded cdn
I was hoping that when IBM bought Ustream that we would see some move towards reasonable pricing for the small operator but no sign of that yet. Cerevo dashboard goes live with your show on Ustream its fully supported but the free version of ustream is plugged with commercials showing up at the wrong time and the paid versions of ustream don't fit in the budget

[Josh Chesarek]

Haha I am with you but nearly every event wants me to simulcast to social media. I stream to a couple dedicated servers running wowza and overflow to Highwinds CDN if needed.