looking for new system

[Charlie Steiner]

We've been using Livestream to stream from a Tricaster (in studio) and Livestream Producer (for remotes on a laptop). We embed the Livestream player on our home page and simulcast to Facebook. Thinking to try Vimeo Premium for CDN (way cheaper than Livestream Enterprise). And looking for a replacement for the sometimes-buggy Livestream Producer - which would be VMix or Wirecast. We use Magewell dongles, up to 4, plus up to 3 NDI sources. I'm interested in any thoughts from real world experience with all the programs and services mentioned. I see on one thread that only Livestream has the ability to create events ahead of time, which is very useful for us so that the web team can prepare the events and embeds before the event. We sometimes have several events in a row, so it's great to have them all ready to go. Is this true, that no one else has this ability? Very interested in comments regarding Vmix vs Wirecast, or another I should consider, as well as an alternative CDN.

[Gary Huff]

vMix, you're probably looking at stronger NDI with that over Wirecast, though admittedly my Wirecast experience is quite limited. I do a lot in vMix, however, and a good 70% of it with NDI sources.

[David Barnett]

I use a Tricaster Mini setup with work, and have Wirecast on my own. I would say Tricaster is a more stable setup overall, just less quirky than Wirecast, although some of that could be attributed to maybe a not powerful enough laptop, or just streaming connectivity locations. Wirecast does have some great features tho, such as Rendesvous (for remote people/PIP type stuff), Desktop Presenter, (for screen sharing/screen grabs), and Twitter & FB integration (Posts & tweets appearing real time). It's overwhelming what it can do, but, kinda like Photoshop whereas Tricaster is more like a MSNBC or ESPN2 type production environment, or capable of a sturdy production of such programming.

I would check into Dacast. Good rates & great customer service. Pretty sure I asked about embedding urls beforehand and they confirmed it can be done. I was looking to do a 3 day tournament and wanted all 3 pages ready to go ahead of time, and I'm pretty sure they said it can be done. They even mentioned things such as selling VOD of the program afterwards for cheap, things like that. You can stream to them & they will relay it to your FB page, so you're not 'uploading' 2 feeds if you have slower internet connections (upstreaming 2 HD streams).

They charge for viewing time only, rates were affordable. It's alot of math involved as to how much 1 person viewing per hour costs tho, because they show it as GB & TB, and per 1,000 people. Defiitely cheaper than Livestream & the others I price shopped. I think someone doing a comparable event used Twitch, but I didn't see much documentation on their site about livestreaming video as they're mostly a gaming site.

[Charlie Steiner]

thanks gary and david.
yes tricaster, all models, is rock solid. been using a 410 for almost 5 years and I think there was only once when we had to reboot during a show, 4 years ago. in October we did 18 concerts in 3 days (from 60-90 mins each) and then over the next week streamed 27 half-hour concerts - all without a glitch.
but this post was for about a separate much more portable system on a laptop. guess I'll just have to try both Vmix and Wirecast out during live events. I'll check Dacast also.

[Donald McPherson]

I'll throw another in the mix to look at. Xsplit might be all you need. But I'm guessing you need something more professional.

[Craig Seeman]

I use Wirecast regularly and am very happy with its extensive flexibility. Supports NDI of course. Wirecast Pro can even send NDI out. It's cross platform so you can move back and forth between Mac and Windows as needed. Mac version can do local Apple ProRes recording. Number of sources only limited by your resources. No limits in software.

[Craig Seeman]

And Wirecast can stream to Livestream but I believe you need an enterprise account.