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NewTek TriCaster 850 Extreme User Guide

1. VERTICAL POSITION HORIZONTAL POSITION AND PHASE Locking all devices to house sync is important but this alone does not actually ensure a perfect downstream match Consider an army marching along each step the soldiers take occurs at precisely the same moment so we could say their timing is synchronized Even so problems result if one soldier leads with the left foot while everyone else is on the Tight Or perhaps everyone is evenly spaced and perfectly aligned but for one misfit who tailgates the soldier ahead of him and keeps stepping on his heels uu carta This is essentially why TriCaster provides several adjustments in its Genlock section The Horizontal and Vertical Position settings pin the image in the proper space in the frame and in doing so could be likened to making sure each marching soldier is in position relative to his fellows as viewed from above The Phase setting ensures proper color alignment corresponding to making sure everyone is on the left or right foot at the same time Figure 134 Thus the Vert Position Horiz Position and Phase settings allow you to tweak synchronization to arrive at an optimum match between devices Typically these settings are fine tuned with the aid of a downstream Vectorscope and Waveform Monitor A discussion of these adjustments goes beyond the scope of this manual but a quick online search for the keywords genlock and adjust turns up a num
2. gure 132 The file pane is much like a spreadsheet table listing al files in the current export batch in its first column then the current settings for each file in other columns A Status column shows the current export status or progress for each file in the list TOOLS The Duplicate feature is very useful for cases when you wish to export a file to multiple target file formats to be used for different purposes or in different applications Note that Export Media s file list pane supports multi selection When a file or group of files is selected you may use either the Duplicate and Remove buttons to clone or delete selected files fram the list fire 13 Hint To mulie Kar Cri cick techniques Tiles you can use the familiar Shifr Figure 114 TARGET PRESET amp DESTINATION Having prepared the file list click the triangle button in the Target field to open a drop down menu listing categories of device or application targets to choose from Then select a specific encoding Preset in the next column Export presets vary according to what is appropriate for a given session format Nate When presets that do nat natively support HD are selected during an HD session output is automatically scaled as required to fit the selected file format This is a convenience but be sure to selecta Preset suitable for your ultimate needs A similar Destination button opens a system fi
3. Restore Last Transition Shift Ctr f Transition Siow Medium Fast asc Transition Increase Speed Shift e Transition Decrease Speed Shift 2 Toggle Reverse Transition On Off e Ping Pong Transition offon Atte 0 2 T BAR Take Retum Key Take T Bar Back to Top Shift Return Transition Go Pause Spacebar Auto Reverse shift Spacebar Adjust T Bar Down Up t Shift t faster add Alt Halfway T Bar Take h 0 3 VIRTUAL INPUTS Activate Zoom Preset 1 for Virtual Input selected on Program Alt FI Activate Zoom Preset 2 for Virtual input selected on Program Alt F2 Activate Zoom Preset 3 for Virtual Input selected on Program Alt F3 Activate Zoom Preset 4 for Virtual Input selected on Program Alt F4 Activate Zoom Preset 1 for Virtual input selected on Preview Alt F5 Activate Zoom Preset 2 for Virtual input selected on Preview Alt F6 Activate Zoom Preset 3 for Virtual Input selected on Preview Alt F7 Activate Zoom Preset 4 for Virtual input selected on Preview Alt FE D 4 RECORD AND GRAB Record on off Tahir Grab stil image D D 5 TABS Show DDR 1 tab Show Vi Vx tab Show External Audio tab Show DDR 2 tab Show Still tab Show Title or Graphics tab Show Sounds tab Show Internal Audio tab EG Cir F2F9 Cubs F10 Ctr Shift FL ctrl Shift F2 ctrl Shift F3 ctrl Shift F4 Ctr Shift F10 D 6 DDR 1 Sop Play Go to previous playlist item
4. A L4 COLOR CORRECT MISMATCHED CAMERAS TriCaster permits the use of sources that do not match the current session format You might connect an SD camera during an HD session for example The official broadcast standard for SD Video is Rec 601 but HD video conforms to Rec 709 and TriCaster output color space is governed by the session format When the natural color space for a connected source does not match TriCaster s current output specification in this example Rec 709 TriCaster automatically attempts to compensate but as always it s good to refer to the scopes for critical accuracy As required TriCaster s Waveform and Vectorscope displays can be used to monitor corrections made using the Proc Amp tools Scope calibration automatically conforms to the broadcast color specification for the current session HD or SD and is appropriately labeled as a convenient reminder ALS CONNECT MONITORS COMPUTER MONITOR With the power off connect an external computer monitor to a DVI port on TriCaster s backplate using an adapter if necessary For TriCaster 450 use the DVI connectors nearest to the Video In group for the interface DVI connectors located at left below the power supply are normally capped and should not be used MULTIVIEW MONITOR OR PROJECTOR TriCaster supports the use of its secondary output connector by means of its Multiview output feature This output can serve as a supple
5. 15 2 WEB BROWSER A simple set of navigation controls Figure 227 is provided above the Web Browser viewport gure 227 Easily recognizable Backward Forward and Refresh buttons operate just like those on a typical web browser The URL field allows you to type in a webpage address and access it using the Go button at right The operation of the Home button varies a bit from familiar usage and bears a little explanation Figure 228 It helps to understand the distinction when you recall that this is not a general purpose web browser The purpose here is to access the main account page you use far a specific Connection as opposed to a landing page you like to use for more mundane browsing Thus you very likely want the Home Page for one custom Connection to be different than the one you use for another Connection you configure for a different end use The URL field above the viewport is always the current URL Uniform Resource Locator or simply web page address A second URL field labeled Home is located below the selected connection name at left The address shown in this field is the assigned Home Page for the current Connection To copy the address for the currently displayed webpage into the Home field for the Connection simply click the Return button at right of the Home field Figure 229 intel 38 e gure 229 Afterward clicking the Home button in the navigation control group at upper center will always
6. DSK CHANNELS Figures Tricaster s DSK layers support dual channel downstream keyed or alpha overlays Assign any Switcher source or a dedicated Frame Buffer to either channel DSK channels can be displayed in tandem or independently or swapped again with independent custom transitions You might use the Graphics or DDR modules to overlay title pages including scrolls crawls and lower thirds or delegate a Camera input or Network source as an overlay using the Switcher s Utility row Alternatively use the Frame Buffer feature to assign a specific title or image to any overlay channel and even update it in realtime over a network using external graphics or titling software Independent Crop Position 3D Rotation and Scale controls for each DSK channel permit you for example to configure two live sources as Picture in Picture elements using the DSK channels freely switching them on and off with or without individual custom effects with or without changing the BKGD Background video layer using the Program and Preview rows on the Switcher 2 4 10 RECORD AND STREAM Record your live switched production at full resolution to a multi platform compatible format Recorded MPEG 2 files have embedded timecode Choose how far below OdB FS the maximum digital level to set nominal level record files with headroom levels of up to 20dB Store approximately 20 hours of 1080i video or 155 hours
7. 15 6 3 STREAMING MEDIA PROVIDERS Using a commercial streaming media provider sometimes referred to as a Content Delivery Network or simply CDN bypasses otherwise high bandwidth requirements for the encoding computer When you have made arrangements for a streaming media provider to distribute your stream the encoder only needs enough bandwidth to get a single a v stream to the provider All end users connect to the provider to view the stream Most streaming providers have access to massive bandwidth and often with a few hours notice they can scale up your allotment on demand to meet a temporary need Since your local bandwidth is really only used for uploading a single stream you can send a high quality stream secure in the knowledge that it wil not degrade as soon as a second viewer attempts to see it Hint A helpful way to find a good streaming service provider is to ask other TriCaster users for recommendations in NewTek s online discussion forums 15 6 4 OTHER RESOURCES If you re still struggling with the differences between Push and Pull streaming methods you can find lots of online resources in addition to excellent information available in NewTek s user forums The popular web resource Wikipedia hosts many articles on the subject notably these two http en wikipedia org wiki Push technology http en wikipedia org wiki Pull technology Microsoft even hosts an animation on the subject a
8. Restore TriCaster to original as shipped condition Registration and Tech Support Register TriCaster Access Technical Support Find TriCaster s hardware firmware revision numbers Miscellaneous Access Windows 300 300 301 301 301 302 302 302 302 303 303 304 305 305 305 306 306 306 Return to TriCaster from the Widows Desktop 306 Add A Custom Streaming Profile to the Configure Stream Connection Panel 306 Supplement Does TriCaster support multi bitrate streaming profiles 309 More Questions and Answers 309 Can do anything to improve latency audio sync 303 Supplement Why does latency seem higher for certain video formats i e 24 310 Why is my power supply beeping 310 Supplement Where can obtain replacement or spare Power Supply modules 310 Why do some thumbnail icons look wrong 311 A 1 CONNECTIONS Add i CONNECT CAMERAS Connect video sources to the appropriately labeled BNC input connectors on TriCaster s backplate according to your camera s video output connection type see Section 3 4 Because of the busy nature of the backplate you may find the BNC removal tool provided with Tricaster helpful for this purpose Open a Tricaster session or create a new one from the Home Page of the Startup Screen Click the Live icon on the Session Page of the Startup Screen and press Enter or click the Start Live Production link Click the Ail Monito
9. There are three sets of numeric sliders in the Position group in this panel one with a four pointed arrow button above a rotation group and another identified by a magnifying glass button Experiment with these controls a bit to see how they work Hint Shift double cli You can drag the mouse over the top buttons in each group to freely adjust Position Rotation or Size on multiple axes at once or use the numeric sliders below to adjust just one property As currently configured Program output displays the result of changes you make of course during alive production you d likely use Preview to set this up instead Hint When the Lock padlock button for the Size controls is Iit vertical and horizontal adjustments are lacked together adjusting one affects bath When unlocked the vertical and horizontal scaling factors are independent 2 Click Reset Positioning to restore default Position Rotation and Size 3 Drag the horizontal upper Position minislider to the right locating the foreground talent shot as seen in Figure 76 Figure 76 Without having moved the physical camera we have changed the apparent position of our talent relative to the virtual backdrop 4 10 2 ADDING AN UPSTREAM OVERLAY Figure Just above the Input A row you ll see a control area labeled Overlay with its own source row along with other controls The Overlay feature in Virtual
10. As well streaming and recording features are located here along with keying and virtual set tools This chapter provides a top level A view leading into the detailed information in subsequent chapters TriCaster s Live Desktop is launched by creating or opening a session in the Startup Screen s Home Page then selecting the LIVE icon and clicking Start Live Production 6 1 DISPLAY REQUIREMENTS The Live Desktop requires a minimum screen resolution of 1440 x 900 1 Monitoring 3 Tabbed Modules gure 136 amp 2 OVERVIEW Tricaster s Live Desktop provides visual feedback for operations including monitoring live switching and so on Itis divided into three horizontal bands From top to bottom these are 1 Monitoring All Monitors tab all ive inputs and internal sources such as DDRs etc External Monitors tab Camera monitors Internal Monitors tab Media Players and Network sources Scopes tab source monitor along with Waveform and Vectorscope Look Ahead Preview and Program output monitors 2 Live Control Switcher rows Utility Program and Preview with Delegate buttons Transition controls Delegate buttons T bar video layer configuration and control 3 Tabbed Modules I Media Players DDRs et Virtual inputs Audio Mixers 6 3 A FEW HINTS You will find various types of user controls in TriCaster s Live Desktop Some exam
11. 24 15 Graphics BADE Mispa 247 Optional Control Surfaces 3 Setting Up 3i Command and Control 32 Activating amp Authorizing Windows 3 3 TriCoster License and Registration 331 Online Registration 33 Registering by Telephone 34 Input Connections 341 Connect A V Sources 3 5 Genlock Connection 3 6 Timecode Connection 3 7 Output Connections 371 A V Output 37 2 HDandSD 373 Supplemental Video Outputs 38 Tally Lights 3 8 1 External Connections 39 Starting a Session 3 10 Configure Video Output 3 10 1 SD Analog Configuration 3 11 Configure Aux Video Output 3 12 Configure Multiview Output 3 13 Configure Video Input 344 Configure Audio 3 15 Configure Genlock 3 16 Configure Timecode 3 17 Networking Live Production Walkthrough 44 Creating a Session 4 2 Importing Content 20 21 2 2 23 23 24 25 25 25 25 27 28 28 29 31 31 33 33 33 35 37 38 39 al 42 43 Monitoring 431 Program and Preview 43 All Monitors 433 External and Internal Monitors 434 Scopes 44 Audio Mixer 441 Mute Mono and Balance 442 Pan 443 Talk 444 Follow 45 Network Sources 45 1 VGA Clients 45 Apple AirPlay 453 LiveTex 4 6 Live Switching 461 Switcher Rows 462 Transitions 4 Record and Grab 471 Record 472 Grab 48 Media Players 481 DDR1and2 482 Graphics Still am
12. A Yes you can as follows 1 From TriCaster s Startup Screen Home Page click Shutdown and then click the Exit to Windows link confirm the exit decision in the pop up warning dialog 2 Follow the installation instructions provided by MainConcept GmbH 3 Following installation you must create a new Streaming Profile to appear in Tricaster s streaming configuration options This process is described in a bit later in this chapter in Section A 7 3 under the heading For Flash 4 Note that at step 7 modifying the settings for the profile in Flash Media Live Encoder you must change Audio Format to AAC before continuing A 5 7 RESTORE TRICASTER TO ORIGINAL AS SHIPPED CONDITION We firmly expect you will never need it but isn t it good to know that a complete TriCaster Restore function is available in the event of an unforeseen problem You can use one of two methods to restore your system depending on your situation To restore your TriCaster system software ofter the system launches normally 1 Clickthe Utilities icon on the Home screen in the TriCaster Startup screen 2 Select the link labeled Restore TriCester and follow prompts If TriCaster should ever fail to boot up properly you may need to try a different approach to restoring your TriCaster system software as follows 1 Select the menu item labeled Reset to Factory Defaults from the black boot screen that appears short
13. A32 Restore the Default Liveset A33 Setup the Nightly Show A LiveSet AA Initiate Streaming A35 A36 A37 A38 A39 A3 pene Aid Aid Find my Captured Stream file Record my Program Find my Recorded Program File Change Playback Speed for Clips in the DDR Media Player Deal With DDR Media Player Clips That Seem Blurry O Get Stubborn Clips to Play in the DDR 1 Change Colors for an Entire Tile Playlist at Once 2 Get Live Title Pages cgxml to Respect All LiveText Font Attributes 3 Prepare a Matched Group of Virtual Inputs A314 Improve the Quality of Multiview Output A3 15 View Media Player Time Data on Multiview Out when Set to All Sources A4 Files A41 Manage Files A42 Change the MPEG 2 Recording Quality A43 Import Media Files A44 Prepare Clips with Embedded Alpha Channel AAS Prepare clips for TriCaster Playback Using Apple Final Cut Pro A46 Add an External File Location to the File Browser 284 284 285 285 286 286 286 286 287 287 287 288 288 288 288 290 290 290 291 291 291 291 293 294 294 295 295 295 295 296 296 297 297 298 A4 Remove a Location From the File Browser A48 Export files to an External Drive A49 Export files from TriCaster for use in Apple Final Cut Pro A410 Import Export Files Larger Than 4 Gigabytes A4 11 Avoid the Error copy this file without its properties A412 Free up Space by Deleting the D
14. Go to next playlist item Autoplay On Off Loop On off Single On Off Navigate through Playlist items Set In Point for current Playlist Item Clip or Audio file Set Out Point for current Playlist Item Clip or Audio file lower case L semi colon apostrophe a Up Down Left Right Arrows i D 7 DDR 2 Stop ART Play Alte lower case L Go to previous playlist item At j Go to next playlist item Alts semi colon Autoplay On Off At u Loop On off Alte apostrophe Single On Off Alte Navigate through Playlist items Up Down Left Right Arrows Set in Point for current Playlist Item Clip or Audio file Ai Set Out Point for current Playlist Item Clip or Audio file Alto D 8 STILL Stop Shin e Play shift 1 1 Go to previous playlist item Shift 0 Go to next playlist item Shifte colon Autoplay On off Shift u U Loop On Off Shift quotation Single On Off shift 4 Q D 9 TITLE OR GRAPHICS Stop Gtk Play Ctrl 1 lower case L Go to previous playlist item ctrl Go to next playlist item Ctr semicolon Autoplay On Off clu Loop On Off Ctrl apostrophe Single On Off Crita D 10 SOUNDS Stop Ciri Shit k Play Ctrl Shift 1 lower case L Go to previous playlist item Go to next playlist item Loop On Off Single On off Set In Point for current Playlist Item Set Out Point for current Playlist tem Ciri Shift cto Shite semico
15. EEEE A special type of transition can be found in the Transition Bin for either BKGD or DSK layers on TriCaster EHTREME systems Animation Store transitions can have a full color animated overlay built into them along with individual sounds for transitioning in and out transition sounds are optional also level of audio control is provided in the Internal Audio Mixer tab These special Animation Store transitions are loaded into the Transition Bins in the same way as their less colorful cousins using the Browse feature A number of Animation Store transitions are included with TriCaster EHTREME but you can generate your own using the supplied Animation Store Creator application and custom animation content you have access to or create using art software Note The Animation Stare Creator application is covered in its own manual which con be opened fram the Help menu in TriCaster Startup DSK POSITIONING FAB Each DSK layer has its own Position button and settings Click the neighboring button labeled with a double headed arrow to open the Overlay Position panel Figure 153 Position panel settings are organized into two groups named Crop Edges and Position The current settings can be toggled on off using the Enable switch at upper left or Reset for either group with a single click The Crop Edges controls are similar to Crop settings in TriCaster s Input Configuration panel However these local DSK s
16. Edit import and export in full HD resolution Realtime external hardware project preview in HD or SD Import and export file format support includes MPEG2 and QuickTime for versatility in program delivery In summary TriCaster gives you the combined power of both a network control room and a complete post production facility in one simple to use broadcast appliance Let s jump in now First we ll get you connected Following that we ll begin to explore TriCaster s most important features 2 4 17 OPTIONAL CONTROL SURFACES Several models of optional TriCaster control surface are offered including models designed for primary control and others for specific purposes such as instant replay Control surfaces make many operations even more convenient Once you get your hands on one you ll never want to let 0 and there s sure to be one or more that would be an ideal companion to your system SETTING UP T This chapter explains how to properly connect power external control devices monitors and audio visual sources to your NewTek TriCaster system 7 4 It also reviews registration for warranty purposes and technical support After completing this short section you ll be all set to Continue into the Walkthrough chapter that follows it C To begin let s review what came in the box NewTek TiCasters Package of three 3 2TB hard drives One 178 hard drive for the removable drive bay Key
17. Q What isa session A Sessions can be thought of as top level presets They store all of the settings playlists device configurations and so on for a given live production See Section 5 1 A 2 1 START AN SD SESSION 1 Connect your SD sources to TriCaster s input connectors see Section 3 4 2 Connect your SD monitors to TriCaster s output connectors see Section 3 7 1 3 Select the New icon in the Home Page of the Startup Screen 4 Click the Enter Session Name link under Session Name at right and supply a name for the new session S Selecta Volume hard drive for the new session 6 TriCaster Multi standard only choose your local Video Standard NTSC NTSC 1 or PAL 7 Choose either SD 4 3 or SD 16 9 widescreen for Resolution 8 Click the Start Session link lower right See also Sections 3 9 and 5 1 A2 START AN HD SESSION 1 Follow steps 1 6 in the preceding section 2 Select either 720p or 1080i for Resolution 3 Click the start Session link lower right SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION Q Whot is the best session format for streaming A We strongly recommend that you use a progressive video format for sessions you intend primarily for streaming Doing so eliminates fielding artifacts that might otherwise occur due to converting fielded video to progressive video for streaming This will generally result in quite noticeably better quality A L3 WORK ON A STORED SESSION 1 Cl
18. Still player s Autoplay setting initiates playback of its first playlist entry When playback of that item is reached c The Graphics Still player s Autoplay function performs another transition returning DDR 1 to the Program row And stops Graphics Stil playback c Then unseen on Program output the Graphics Still player cues up its next playlist entry Next DDR 1 s Autoplay setting automatically starts playing its next playlist item The cycle repeats until all tems play through or is interrupted by user actions TITLE TriCaster title pages can actually be added to any of the Media Players apart from the Sounds player The Media Players can also display bitmap files exported from third party graphics applications or overlay them using the DSKs when the files are either keyed or have an embedded alpha channel all of which is quite handy However TriCaster s native title pages have some distinct advantages over a common still image Let s try them out 1 Click Add and use the Media Browser to select a few of the prepared title pages from the NewTek location listed under Titles in the Location Ust at left Click an icon to highlight it in the Media Player playlist Display the title page on Program Output by selecting the correct Media Player on the Suitcher s Program row Move the mouse over a different title page icon and click the Configure button gear that appears in its lower right co
19. Stond in unlocked images display a green border on roll over when Shift is depressed To toggle the stond in locked status for an image left click it with Shift depressed If you right click a stand in image a menu is presented that provides several optional methods of fitting the source image to its frame Choosing Stretch causes the image to completely fill the frame Fill Area retains the interested image s original aspect cropping if necessary to fit inside the frame Show All Image also retains the original image aspect but fits the entire source image inside the frame which may result in pillar boxing or letter boxing 11 LIVEMATTE amp CROP 7 _ Although its controls are deceptively simple TriCaster s LiveMatte is a very powerful chromakeying technology capable of extremely high quality results 4 Whether uses alone or in conjunction with TriCaster s Overlay or LiveSet features you will find LiveMatte can play an important role in your live productions As we mentioned earlier chromakeying or simply keying is used to combine images by eliminating a portion of a foreground image effectively cutting a digital keyhole in it to reveal a different background TriCaster also relies on this method to insert talent seamlessly into virtual sets via Liveset Figure 186 LiveMatte controls are located in the Input Configuration panels for every Switcher source To access them c
20. The largest portion part of the individual control panels is devoted to VU Volume Unit meters with Gain control knobs The VU meters displayed vary depending on the Connection Type Two VU Meters are displayed when an analog Connection Type is set to a Mic option with individual knobs to control the Gain for each input channel see Figure 213 When the Connection Type is Line the VU meter displays the levels for the two analog input channels controlled by a single Gain knob Also the Pan sliders are replaced with a Balance control figure 225 Figure 2i Other connection Type selections and sources display a single VU meter with either two or four level graphs controlled by a single Goin knob Figure 214 AUDIO LEVELS TriCaster s analog audio conforms to SMPTE RP 155 The maximum input output level is 24 dBu Nominal input level is 4 dBu 20dB FS and the sample rate is 96 kHz Levels above 0dB are shown in red in the VU meters to caution you that overly high levels can result in clipping in recordings Hint An error message appears in the Status Bar above the main Program output monitor to warn you if clipping occurs see Section 6 5 1 See also Section 134 Advanced Audio Configuration and the heading Audio Headroom in Section 161 1 13 1 5 AUDIO GROUPS Audio control panels for TriCaster EHTREME sources both internal and external have a drop down Group menu that allows you to link differ
21. concert with complementary Multiview monitor layouts 4 3 4 SCOPES In this configuration the tabbed monitoring area in the Live Desktop displays Waveform and Vectorscope displays along with a full color source video pane invaluable for calibrating your Video sources 1 Click the Scopes monitor tab 2 Move your mouse pointer over the vertical divider separating the Scopes pane from the main Preview monitor at right click and drag the divider as far as it will go to the right 3 Drag the horizontal divider separating the monitoring section from the Switcher area below downward until you ve got nice big scopes to work with Figure 37 4 Move the mouse onto the video monitor at left and click the Configure button gear at Tight in its titlebar to display the Configuration panel for the video source A drop down menu at upper left lets you choose whether the current source for the scopes and full color monitor is drawn from the Preview row selection Program row or the FX row Feel free to experiment with the controls but before leaving restore the monitoring panes to their default size as follows 5 Move the mouse above one of the Desktop dividers you previously dragged and double click it Then repeat this process for the other divider too 4 4 AUDIO MIXER Having previously connected and configured your audio inputs let s explore a few of the standard features in TriCaster s two Audio Mixer tabs
22. control features for external audio sources The tab houses individual control panels for each of the external audio inputs on TriCaster s backplate Inputs 1 4 EENE The advanced audio features provided by Tricaster EHTREME are discussed in Chapter 13 Audio There is a source Type selector drop down at the top of the control panels for each Input Clicking it reveals the list of Connection Types Figure 27 Options include Mic 1 2 with and without phantom power Line SDI Embedded and in selected instances Line Quad The latter option combines two neighboring input pairs as a one 4 channel source governed by a single Gain slider After connecting audio sources to the input connectors see also Section 3 4 1 the first thing to dois set the correct Type using the drop down menu Select Mic 1 2 for professional grade microphones or other low impedance connections use the Phantom option for condenser microphones requiring supplementary power Choose Line for higher impedance device connections such as a CD player computer audio output or VCR or Line Quad where required Select SDI Embedded to access digital audio from an SDI video source Nate Analog levels conform to SMPTE RP 155 The maximum input output level is 24 dBu nominal input level 4 dBu 2UdBFS and the sample rate is 96 kHz The Gain sliders next to the VU meters default to their lowest settings on first
23. minimize feedback and roll off unwanted parts of the audio spectrum Enable or disable the Equalizer using the switch beside the label above its control group The sliders attenuate or boost the tonal range centered on the frequency shown at the top with the amount of effect applied falling off toward neighboring frequencies on either side Click Reset to return all sliders to OdB Hint Naturally reducing or increasing hanging the level of one or more tonal bands affects the overall output level as well This may coll for you to trim the main level setting for the potro rood 13 4 2 COMPRESSOR LIMITER The Compressor Limiter is capable of preventing clipping from unexpected peaks or transients and making talent sound better than they do in real ife bringing voices music and other audio Sources into an optimal dynamic range Being able to do this independently for each output too isicing on the cake especialy for internet streaming as it ensures correct levels at any time Compressor or Limiter what s the difference Compression and limiting are not really different processes but really rather a matter of degree and perceived effect Compression ideally takes the form of a subtle almost imperceptible modulation of the sound level to bring it into a more pleasing and convenient range A limiter is applied more for the purpose of managing even ESHOLD Sound above the set Threshold level will be compr
24. of course normally your foreground shot would be supplied by a camera 8 Now click the second Zoom Preset icon Figure 82 Observe that the view on Program output Figure 83 has now zoomed in by 33 the value shown in the adjustable zoom slider above Zoom Preset 2 gure as 3 Enable the Animate Zoom switch and click Zoom Preset 4 The zoom gradually changes from the starting position to the level assigned to Preset 4 100 The timing for the change is controlled by the nearby duration time controls Using the other Virtual Inputs along with convenient presets you can easily mimic a very large studio complex from a much smaller location 4 11 FRAME BUFFERS To this point we have used photos graphics and titles from TriCaster s Medio Players as sources for several different exercises Of course for Overlay and DSK purposes this requires you to be sure that that the current playlist entry in the respective Media Player is the right one for the moment Tricaster s Frame Buffers provide an alternative workflow that not only prevents selection accidents but also offers other benefits 1 Add the image file named TriCaster Logo w Bkgnd png from Still gt NewTek gt Logos to the playlist of a Medio Player Figure sa 2 Right click on the new icon in the playlist and slide the mouse pointer down to the item Send to Frame Buffer Select V1 BFR from the sub menu that appears 3 Select the button lab
25. should be audible 4 Switch to Camera 3 The audio from inputs 1 and 2 is muted on output If audio input 3 has sound you will hear it instead S Switch to Camera 2 Even though Follow is not turned on for input 2 you will nevertheless hear sound from both input 1 and input 2 again This is because another input in the same group does have Follow enabled 4 5 NETWORK SOURCES Perhaps you d like to be able to add Microsoft PowerPoint output web pages Skype video calls application displays titles and graphics from NewTek s LiveText or other exotic content to your productions TriCaster supports all such displays from computers on the same network as Network 1 and 2 sources on the Switcher via the supplied iVGA client application nat required for LiveText 4 5 IVGA CLIENTS 1 For a Microsoft Windows client copy the iVGA program from the TriCaster iVGA folder inside C TriCaster to the sending computer For OS X client systems copy the file IVGA dmg zip from the same folder to the Mac Unzip it by double clicking it mount the disk image dmg file in the same manner then drag the IVGA program icon into Applications See Section 14 1 for more detail 2 Connect TriCaster to the client computer via the local network 3 Double click the iVGA icon on the second computer After agreeing to the NewTek license and a moment or two for the network connection to be established the name of the remote comput
26. stream file You have the option of deleting the fle on completion of a streaming session if you wish 15 6 STREAMING STRATEGIES One of the best approaches when beginning to stream your productions is to establish a relationship with a commercial streaming media provider A good provider can guide you past firewalls provide public addresses for everyone to view your stream and provide no end of valuable guidance And it may not be as expensive as you think costs vary based on considerations such as how many viewers you expect how much web bandwidth you use each month and so on Some services based on an advertising model will even host your stream free 15 6 1 ON DEMAND OR LIVE Not all streaming is ive streaming The difference i similar to i watching a television program you previously recorded at a time convenient for you ori watching a live event On demand streams are stored on a server often supplied by an external service provider ready to be transmitted whenever a viewer wishes Live streams are available at the time they are broadcast such as during a ive concert or event ON DEMAND HOSTING TriCaster permits you to record live productions to a local hard drive The resulting fles can be hosted on a network later so viewers can connect whenever they like If you have the resources available you can host the video yourself but if many people will likely want to view your production you will l
27. to ensure everything goes as planned Note The Stream ID text string for multbitrate profiles must contain the character combination 38 without the quotation marks The exact position of the character combination does not matter and spaces are permitted though the latter may pase issues for some CONS A multi bitrate profile without Sc in the Stream ID will produce a Flash Media Encoder error on attempting to stream Also the filename for mult bitrate streaming recordings TriCaster saves will automaticaly include the requisite Si because the originating stream ID contains it A 8 MORE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS A 8 1 CAN I DO ANYTHING TO IMPROVE LATENCY AUDIO SYNC Latency might be defined as the transit time for an a v stream Each device in the video chain Introduces some limited transmission delay TriCaster s latency is very minimal as little as 1 5 frames but you can take measures to keep it to a minimum first and foremost by genlacking your video devices see Section 7 1 6 Ina seemingly related matter note that audio and video passing through TriCaster are always synchronized However aspects of the physical design for IMAG video projection installations can make mimic a sync issue for viewers at some locations in the auditorium These issues are discussed in detail in Section B 3 IMAG and Latency SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION Q Why does latency seem higher f
28. which is entitled 1 0 Chapter 14 are discussed in Configuration Likewise Network sourc 9 1 PROGRAM AND PREVIEW Figure 158 The Program Output monitor could hardly be more important hence it s prominent position at upper right on the Live Desktop and eye catching red toned titlebar The Program monitor shows what TriCaster is displaying to your viewing audience at any moment This includes the BKGD video layer as well as any other video layers such as DSK 1 or 2 or FTB that are displayed above it When you move your mouse pointer over the Program monitor a Configure button gear appears above its upper right corner Clicking this button opens a tabbed panel that contains Proc Amp controls for Output and Multiview video and Genlack settings see Chapter 7 for details 511 CONFIGURATION INDICATORS Small indicators flags may appear above the Program Output monitor Their presence denotes that Proc Amp settings are enabled for Program Multiview output or both Figure 159 Hint Click these flags ta toggle the Proc Amps on off without opening the Configuration panel 9 2 LOOK AHEAD PREVIEW Figure 160 Right beside the Program moniter the Live Desktop also displays the Look Ahead Preview monitor labeled simply Preview surmounted by a green tinted titlebar The Look Ahead Preview is versatile and powerful Instead of showing just one video source the Preview row select
29. 2 Nate Media configured as Read Only i they cannot be used for sessions Howes not shown for the New or Open session features since r Read Only media can be used for import purposes CONTEXT MENU Right click a session name to open a context menu with two items listed in it Rename and Delete The Delete function should be used thoughtfully as t cannot be undone All content stared in the named session s folders will be deleted including clips images and titles and even title and edit project files created within the session unless you have deliberately saved the projects and all constituent files to locations outside the session folders Nate Content that is nat local to the session lut which was used in itis nat deleted For example you may have added stil images to your playlist directly from a USB thumb drive doing so without actually importing the files into the session Those external fles will not be deleted RESTORE SESSION BACKUP In another section of the Startup Screen Session Page Manage there is a feature that allows you to back up the current session to another storage volume The Restore Session Backup link at the bottom of the Session List for each drive is provided to compliment this feature To restore a session you have previously archived click Restore Session Backup Figure 97 and use the file explorer provided to select a SessionBackup file Media
30. AUDIO MIXER TriCaster provides extensive multi channel audio control and management in two dedicated tabbed panels Adjust individual audio sources internal and external and introduce them into your program manually or automatically Control output levels for program headphones auxiliary output and stream separately Convenient mixer presets allow single click access to prepared setups Audio follow video options Advanced audio controls including Seven band equalization along with compressor limiter for each source and also every output o Source grouping and multibus routing options 2 4 13 INTEGRATED MEDIA PLAYERS TriCaster s numerous specialized Media Players and title system serve up graphics titles video clips and audio files quickly and easily during your live productions Add a v clips sound files or still image files to Media Player playlists Trim and re order playlist entries Store playlists as presets for easy recall Flexible playback controls include variable Speed and Loop options Figure 10 Media Players have volume and more elaborate controls in the mixer along with convenient per clip audio level adjustments right in the playlist Start and stop playback manually or automatically based on Switcher activity Use two Media Players to create automated slide shows complete with transitions Assign titles graphics or a v clips to multiple DSK or Overlay channel
31. Default 82 288 Nightly Show 288 Source Positioning 204 Sources 203 Tools 288 Zoom Presets 84 203 Zoom T Bar 204 LiveText 17 263 266 267 Standalone 44 54 223 228 Luma Keying See LiveMatte M Media Player See Live Desktop Media Player Monitors All Monitors Tab 44 Computer 15 276 Dual Displays 119 Output external 124 278 Switcher Monitors Tab 46 Multibirate Streaming 309 Multiview Output 131 Broadcast Clocks 132 143 Network Splay 228 Airplay 218 281 Connecting 53 237 246 INGA 39 41 53 164 223 225 313 Ping 248 Port Forwarding 251 Testing 246 NTSC See Video Standard o Open Manage Session See Startup Screen Overlay Virtual Input See Virtual Input Overlay P PAL See Video Standard Pause 332 Ping 248 Play Pause amp Stop 232 Power Supply 310 Profile Streaming 303 multi bitrate 309 Program Output Monitor 43 Pull See Streaming Pull Push See Streaming Push a Quicktime 292 Record See Live Desktop Register See TriCaster Register Rename Input 118 Restart See Startup Screen Shutdown System Restore TriCaster 103 304 s Session Volume Storage 98 Session Page 30 Sessions 29 94 284 Backup Restore 100 106 17 114 286 Shutdown See Startup Screen Shutdown Software Installing Third Party 303 Speed See live Desktop Meida Player SpeedEDIT 17 263 264 Spell Check 184 Spill Suppresion See LiveMatte Startup Screen
32. FTB video layer DSK 2 delegated show or hide the DSK 2 video layer DSK 1 delegated show or hide the DSK 1 video layer BKGD delegated transition between sources selected on the Program and Preview rows Figure 157 To use the T bor pull it downward by dragging it with the mouse pointer Drag it all the way to the bottom and release to complete a transition the T Bar then pops back to the top Hint Naturally when the T Bar is dragged part way a partial transition occurs With certain transitions this con be useful for split screen effects DESKTOP MONITORS 7 The word monitor comes from the Latin mon re meaning to warn The word has taken on additonal meaning since Roman times 4 As a verb these include such connotations as keeping an eye on something and checking continually as when monitoring a process As a noun we understand it to mean devices that permit M onetodo just that Fittingly Tricaster s desktop monitors are just what you need to keep an eye on and control your live productions warn you of conditions that might affect output quality and also allow you to make any necessary adjustments nce several valuable contrals and features are located in the monitoring Nate Far convenie section Among others these include the Proc Amp Genlack LiveMatte and Crop ca aive these feotures their due they ore treated individually in Chapter 7
33. Hint You will need to have speakers connected ta at least the first two connectors channel 1 and 2 in the PGM row of TriCoster s Audio Out section even better if you have them handy jnnect a pair of stereo headphones and put them on 4 4 1 MUTE MONO AND BALANCE 1 Click the Sound tab at right below the Switcher area of the Live Desktop 2 Click the Add button in the Sound pane 3 Click the Practice Session entry under the heading Audio in the Location list at left this Location entry was created automatically when we imported files back in Section 4 2 Importing Content Figure 39 4 Find the icon named 3tone_quad WAV in the file pane This is a four channel audio file with a mid range tone on channel 1 a higher tone on channel 2 while both channels 3 and 4 both carry a lower tone 5 Select the icon for this file and click OK to add this sound file to the DDR 1 playlist amp Turn on both Single and Loop for the DDR then turn Follow off for DDR 1 Figure tt 7 Toavoid confusion later click the External Audio tab and Mute any inputs that currently show live audio on their respective VU meters by clicking the speaker icons in the titlebar of each control group so they show a red stroke through them see Figure 40 8 Clickthe internal Audio tab and make sure audio for the Sound player is not muted 3 Set the Sound player Gain slider to OdB you can do this quickly by holding down t
34. Input works very much like the two downstream DSK video layers we used back in Sections 4 6 1 and 4 6 2 but is upstream of the Switcher Thus content in this overlay channel thus appears beneath anything you display in those two video layers on Program Output 4 Access the Graphics or Title player and click the Breaking News CGXML icon imported back in Section 4 2 from the Practice Sessions folder S Edit the top line in the title to say 5 Day Forecast as shown in Figure 78 6 Select Graphics Title in the V1 tab s Overlay row and display the Virtual Input s overlay channel by clicking the Auto button in the Overlay Transition area of the VI tab Figure 78 As you can see we have replicated on our earlier composition which relied on the FX channel with additional benefits The title page can be displayed automatically or independently when you select V1 on the Switcher and both of the primary DSK video layers are left free for other uses Virtual Inputs allow you to offset and even scale the primary video source of course this works every bit as well with live camera streams As well since the entire composition is now represented by a single button on the Switcher it is very easy to Take or Transition directly to it with a single click and itis just as easy to transition from one Virtual input to another Of course this is just one way to use the basic Virtual Input features The creative possibili
35. Screen create a new 1080 session name it Practice Session 2 The Session Page will appear when you click Start Session 3 Click Manage on the icon ring Figure 32 Figure 32 4 2 IMPORTING CONTENT Let s import a few files that we ll use later in our walkthrough a Ea Click the Import Media button at lower right Figure 33 5 Click Add in the Import Media panel Figure 33 to open a system File Explorer 6 Navigate to C TriCaster Documentation Walkthrough Content 7 Press Ctrl a to multi select everything in the folder shown in the File Explorer then click Open adding these items to the file pane of the Import Media panel Figure 33 B Click Import different media types are automatically sorted into their respective destination folders on import We ll use these files later Hint Although you might well n jer even notice a two minute initialization period begins you start or re start TriCaster This warm up period allows t tem to stabilize ensuring performance of various components for example video clips playing in the DDR before more information in could skip some frames See Section 6 5 1 f We are ready now to commence our tour of the Live Desktop beginning with further consideration of monitoring features and options 4 3 MONITORING 4 3 1 PROGRAM AND PREVIEW Inevitably you ll be paying a lot of attention to the main Program
36. Take button Notice that when the video source assigned to Input 1 is on output you hear its associated audio input When you perform a Take placing Input 2 on output the audio source connected to row 2 in the Audio In section is heard When Follow is enabled for an audio source its sound is automatically sent to output whenever the associated video source is displayed on output In this case the levels shown inthe VU meter for that audio source are drawn in color When you switch away from that video source the VU meter still shows its audio level but the graph is drawn in grayscale providing confirmation that audio is present but indicating that itis not going live to Program out Hint Follow even works when the associated video source Is displayed on Output as an Overlay or Virtual Input source FOLLOW AND AUDIO GROUPING additional drop down located just below the Connection Type menu This is the Group control Grouping allows you to gang multiple audio sources together When BIB Follow is enabled for a group member the sound from the entire audio group is heard whenever the corresponding video source is displayed Let s test this gure ta 1 Supply live sound to audio input 1 and 2 and set both inputs to a single group color using the drop down Group menu 2 Enable Follow for Camera 1 and Camera 3 but nat Camera 2 3 Select Camera 1 on the Switcher s Program row The audio from both input 1 and 2
37. The latter at the moment is the Program row selection b The Preview monitor shows DSK 2 assigned to Still or DDR 2 overlaid on the current Preview row selection The Look Ahead Preview monitor or simply Preview is showing us the composition that will result if a Take or Transition operation is performed a look into the future if you will 2 Hold down Ctrl on the keyboard again and click the BKGD Delegate button de selecting i Note that after de selecting the BKGD delegate button the Preview monitor no longer shows the Switcher s Preview row selection Why is that At this moment only the DSK 1 and DSK 2 buttons remain lit thus only those two video layers will be affected by a main Take or Auto operation The result will be as follows DSK 4 currently seen on Program out will be removed from view DSK 2 will be overlaid above Program instead The BKGD layer will not change in this case Hence Preview correctly depicts the outcome of a Take or Auto just as we ve mentioned The Look Ahead Preview allows you to switch with real confidence the Transition Delegate features provide flexible and convenient video layer management and thus enhanced control over your ultimate Program output composition 4 7 RECORD AND GRAB Located immediately beneath the Program monitor are Record Stream and Grab buttons along with their respective Configure buttons We ll discuss streaming further on but let s consider Rec
38. Up or Left Arrow key text input box opens with the cursor between the last two characters of the current string Down or Right Arrow key text input box opens with cursor at the end of the string Backspace text input box opens with the last character of the string deleted and the cursor at the new end of the string Tab advance to next entry field Shift Tab to prior field Hint A red line under a character or word indicates the spell checker is questioning its spelling Right click the word to open a menu showing various suggested alternatives Click one of these if you wish ta update the original Fit Tite Figure 188 The titlebar of the Title Page Editor holds an assortment of text attribute controls These include a Font selector drop down menu numeric Size control and Bold Itali and Underline switches Figure 185 STAND IN IMAGES Images embedded in Title Pages may be locked or they may be editable stand ins When you roll the mouse over an embedded image and a yellow border is displayed around the image the image is a stand in Click a standin to open the File Browser allowing you to select a replacement image file You can find out which if any images are unlocked stand ins and which are locked and toggle the status of any image Hold down the Shift key while rolling around inside the Title Page With Shift depressed a red border is shown around any locked image under the cursor
39. WHERE TO CALIBRATE Tip one forget point and shoot Lighting set design and countless other factors have an impact on the video attributes our cameras see As a first step cameras need to be properly calibrated Ideally this is done right at the camera Corrective measures taken downstream never fully compensate for problems at the first link in the chain Most cameras even inexpensive consumer models provide adequate controls for this purpose Some other video sources do not offer much if anything in the way of adjustment however You may need to adjust TriCaster s Proc Amp settings to improve previously recorded video played from a DVD player ora networked video chat system In both cases above the Waveform and Vectorscope monitors in TriCaster s Preview Scopes tab will help We also need to give consideration to downstream devices though Computer displays are inherently different than television sets Thus the video you see on your computer interface can vary quite a bit from what your viewers see on their televisions Too you will want to be able to correctly judge colors when preparing titles and graphics It will help you a great deal if your downstream from TriCaster video monitors are properly set up to allow you to make these judgments C 2 CALIBRATING VIDEO SOURCES The obvious disparity between neighboring televisions on display in a store amply demonstrates that even identical and brand new video device
40. Y Note The video broadcast standard such as NTSC NTSC or PAL of all video sources connected fora given session must be the same 2 To input analog audio along with the video connect the external audio sources to the XLR or Y connectors in the Audio in group box Two connectors labeled a and b are provided for each input group We ll discuss audio Connection Type options a bit later in Section 3 14 Nate SDI video sources with embedded audio do nat need a separate analog oudio connection 3 5 GENLOCK CONNECTION The Genlock input on TriCaster s backplate is for connection of a house sync or reference signal often a black burst signal intended specifically for this purpose Many studios use this method to synchronize equipment in the video chain Genlocking is commonplace in higher end production environments and genlock connections are usually found on professional gear If your equipment allows you to do so you should genlock all cameras supplying TriCaster and TriCaster itself To genlock TriCaster supply the reference signal from the house sync generator to TriCaster s Genlock In connector 3 6 TIMECODE CONNECTION Tricaster EXTREME supports external linear timecode LTC Connect the cable from your timecode generator to one of the connectors in Audio Input 7 for TriCaster 850 EXTREME TriCaster 450 EHTREME uses Audio Input 3 External timecod
41. adjust output color using controls on downstream devices monitors or Projectors whenever possible TriCaster s Multiview Proc Amp con never completely compensate for a badly colibrated monitor TriCoster s Proc amps are available for occasions when no external options are available many cameras da not have built in color controls projectors generally do but at times the physical placement of the device can make it inconvenient to access to them WHITE BALANCE Asecondary group labeled White Balance adds U Offset and V Offset controls The U portion of the video signal carries the blue and green color information When you adjust the U Offset you adjust only the blue yellow portion of the video signal Rotate U Offset clockwise to shift the signal toward blue and counter clockwise to shift the signal toward yellow The V portion of the video signal carries the red and green color information Adjusting it affects only the red green portion of the video signal Rotate V Offset clockwise to shift the signal toward red and counter clockwise to shift the signal toward green Figure 127 To automatically white balance click and hold the mouse button over the Color eyedropper button and then slide the pointer on the monitor for the corresponding source Release the mouse button over a part of the image that should be white 7 1 3 SD ANALOG CONNECTIONS nections Figure 128 As discussed back in S
42. are stored in a folder named for the session inside the main Stil folder Hint During a session the grab counter situated beside the button Keeps track of the number of s stored for the current base name entry 17 SPEEDEDIT AND LIVETEXT LiveText is a powerful title and CG application allowing you to create title pages for use in the Live Desktop s Media Players Title pages can be still or motion pages including scrolls and crawls SpeedEDIT provides a host of world class editing tools for pre and post production purposes You ll find it innovative and powerful ready to handle numerous editing and also file conversion chores SpeedEDIT and LiveText are both full blown powerful professional program also available as a standalone applications Each of these programs has its own complete manual which can be accessed from the Help icon in the Startup Screen the source pdf files are located in the CTCaster Documentation folder in case you wish to print them out In this section then we will review matters specific to the different applications when running in as an integrated part of the TriCaster environment 17 1 SPEEDEDIT SpeedEDIT projects are launched from the Session Page in TriCaster s Startup Screen After creating a new session or opening an existing one click Edit on the icon ring see Section 5 3 This reveals options and links at right discussed previously in the Startup Screen cha
43. are presented in the Desktop Options menu Open this menu by clicking the gear button at extreme right just above the large tabbed panes occupying the lower third of the Live Desktop Follow Preview Row for All Inputs displays the tabbed pane for a Preview row source to be displayed automatically on selection changes When Tabs Follow Preview for Virtual Inputs is checked the tab shown updates only when you select a Virtual Input on Preview The Tabs Follow All Delegates option is especially useful when a TriCaster CS Control Surface is connected causing the interface to track your control selections Enable Link Audio Mixer Tabs to show both External and Internal Audio tabs whenever you click the tab for either of these See Section 10 3 2 Network Sharing for a discussion of the Share Frame Buffer on Network option You may want to un check the Enable Keyboard Shortcuts option when you wish to use a keyboard for text editing along with a control surface for switching Hint Control surface operations can sometimes result in a tabbed module that you want to view being obscured because related Desktop Options are enabled Press the corresponding control surface Delegate button again to re display the tabbed pane you are interest in 6 4 2 RENAME As charming as descriptive names like Camera 1 DDR 2 and Virtual Input 5 are we must admit that it s possible you might wish to change these defau
44. bath 4 3 and 16 9 widescreen image aspects TriCaster Multi standard models permit you to select from different video standards according to your locale choosing between NSTC NTSC Japan or PAL Continue with session creation by designating the Video Standard used in your locale Multi standard models only For the moment let s choose 1080i for Resolution even if the cameras you plan to connect are SD 4 3 then click the Start Session link below By default new sessions are created on TriCaster s D Media drive see Section 5 2 1 for a discussion of session Volume options THE SESSION PAGE Clicking Start Session will take you to the Session Page As our intention is to configure our connections done in TriCaster s Live Desktop click Live on the icon ring Simply click the link labeled Start Live Production to launch the Live Desktop which is likely where you will spend most of your time working with TriCaster THE LIVE DESKTOP Initially as you have yet to configure input devices or add content the Live Desktop will look a bit barren Figure 19 Figure 19 Take a quick look around but then let s continue to configure your devices We had a brief glimpse at the Live Desktop back in section 2 3 but we ll examine it more closely in Chapter 4 Live Production coming up soon 3 10 CONFIGURE VIDEO OUTPUT TriCaster provides complete video input monitoring right on the Live Desktop This all
45. can someone outside the local environment connect to it over the Internet The best way to find out is to have someone at a remote location verify that your stream is streaming properly If itis great Otherwise keep reading FLASH MEDIA LIVE ENCODER NOTES Unfortunately there are cases in which Flash Media Live Encoder fails to report significant error conditions For example no error message is displayed if the network cable is disconnected while streaming or if the connection to the remote server is lost Note If the connection to a server is lost after inital success the encoder attempts to resume streaming automatically ifthe connection becomes available again during the session TESTING WITH PING Before your stream can be seen whether on a local intranet or the Internet client computers or your service provider need to be able to establish a network connection with your Tricaster Ping is a humble but effective tool to ensure the basic connection exists thus it can help you with streaming iVGA and LiveText connection issues too and it works just fine in a multi platform environment Ping sends a small set of data packets to the target host IP number then listens for an echo response in return Ping estimates the round trip time in milliseconds records any data losses and displays a summary when finished Bottom line if you can t ping your target your connection has problem
46. connection provides the best transfer rates Slower connections may drop frames and should be considered unsuitable especially for HD sessions in extreme cases where network capability is low or unreliable because of other traffic VGA would still be useful for static displays Hint Lower Hardware Acceleration may help in some cases where a client application uses display technology that would otherwise not work with VGA Normally this can be left disabled Zoom allows you to magnify an area of the Windows display which can help when fine detail is important for an application display on the screen The portion of the screen sent to VGA output is determined by the position of the cursor on screen You can set zoom to 150 200 or 400 percent or disable it When you do not want your zoomed view to move once set you can lack zoom position with a hotkey Right Ctrl Numpad 9 The hotkey is a toggle use it again to cause the display to track the cursor again this is useful to re position the display too Privacy mode allows the client some discretion if they need to check e mail or perhaps view or arrange something without risk of the audience observing When selected this will display a large Privacy Mode banner in TriCaster s preview monitors so the operator is aware this source is temporarily off the face to remind the client that privacy mode is active ine The client icon also has a across
47. d Composite Attach the device s connector to the first top analog connector labeled 2 Connect TriCaster s audio outputs a Analog audio Connect external audio devices to the connectors in the AUDIO OUT section Note that there are two pairs of two connectors each Connectors 1a ond 1b provide Program Master output while 2a and 2b are designated AUX Auxiliary Output These two output sections are configured and controlled separately in the Live Desktop b Digital audio A separate digital audio connection is not necessary for SDI output with embedded audio Hint TriCaster s SDI and analog output sections can be used simultaneously For example you could use the Composite output to view your program on a local composite monitor at the same time as you use the SDI connection to supply broadcast equipment 3 7 3 SUPPLEMENTAL VIDEO OUTPUTS Additional dedicated video outputs make it possible to connect monitors or projection devices to TriCaster for a variety of purposes including program output for IMAG Image Magnification installations or flexible monitoring for the convenience of the operator 1 An HDMI connector provides an additional primary Program output Simply connect a suitable external monitor or device to the HDMI connector on the backplane 2 TriCaster s Multiview output may be supplied by a DVI connector TriCaster 850 or an HDMI connector found beside the main Interface DVI con
48. format options Choosing NTSC as the session Video Standard results in a Connection Tyne list with appropriate formats and it is similar for NISCJ Changing from one Video Standard to another requires opening a new session Hint All connected cameras must conform to the current Video Standard for the session The standard options are 1080i Component Analog source high definition interlaced 1080 60 or 1080 50 1920x1080 pixels 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by Y Pr and Pb input connectors 110801 s01 Digital source standard definition interlaced 1080 60 or 1080 50 19201080 pixels 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by SDI input connectors Optionally carries embedded audio 1080 30p SDi 1080 24p SDI 1030 24PsF SD1 1080 25p SDI Digital source standard definition progressive scan PF is a hybrid 19201080 pixels 16 9 picture aspect Connected to Ticaster by SDI input connectors Optionally carries embedded audio 720 60p Component 720 S0p Component Analog source high definition progressive scan 1280x720 pixels 16 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by Y Pr and Pb input connectors 720 609 501 720 30p SD 20 24p SO 720 50p spl T20 2Sp sbI Digital source high definition progressive scan 12804720 pixels 18 p
49. from DDR2 are placed on AUX outputs 2c and 2d e All The AUX outputs provide a supplementary program output channel with independent level control Solo When this option is selected AUX connectors will output a blend of all soloed sources Le audio inputs that have their respective Solo switches enabled I Group send the selected group color output to the Aux connectors The Stream sub panel provides a method of independently adjusting stereo audio levels sent to the network when streaming is enabled Its sources options are similar to those above 13 3 2 MASTER AND PHONES The main Program outputs labeled PGM on TriCaster s backplate are controlled by the Gain knob and Balance control in the Master sub panel located at far right in the Audio tab Just above this is a simple level control for the Phones output Remember that both Aux and Phones outputs are affected by source Solo switches When Solo is on for one or more sources only those sources will be sent to Aux and Headphones 13 4 ADVANCED AUDIO CONFIGURATION Fach audio input including internal sources as well as every output sports a configuration button in their respective mixer panels Clicking the familiar gear icon opens the new Advanced Audio Configuration panel 13 4 1 EQUALIZER The seven band equalizer allows you to shape sound to taste accommodate sources with different acoustic characteristics such as mismatched mics
50. login details are required for your streaming service or CDN content delivery network or possibly even multiple accounts you maintain for different purposes gure 225 TriCaster s Streaming Configuration panel supports the creation and configuration of all of the information and settings you are likely to need in this context The information you enter for a given Connection is retained in a preset that is easily accessed afterward from a convenient drop down me In addition this panel has built in web browser capabilities permitting you to both view your stream from the remote site just as your audience will see it and use webpage based controls as required 15 1 OVERVIEW To open the Configure Stream Connection panel click the Configure button gear beside the Stream button just below the Stream on off button monitor 1 Header 2 Web Browser The panel is comprised of three bands The uppermost contains the controls for creating and managing Connection profiles along with familiar web browser navigation tools The larger area beneath this displays the current webpage if any Finally beneath this is the footer which contains a status line and OK button 15 1 1 COMPACT VIEW Figure 226 Just to mention it in passing once you have configured one or more Connections you can collapse the header to a compact view using the up down control to the left of the connection name field Figure 226
51. lower right corner Clicking this button or selecting Edit Title in the icon context menu opens the pop up Title Page Editor Title Page content can be edited during both play and display changes are detected and shown immediately Opening the pop up Title Page Editor during playback is permitted The panel can be re sized by dragging its lower right corner and re positioned by dragging its titlebar When you move the mouse over text in the Title Page Editor s preview pane a white bounding box appears f you click once inside the box it turns yellow indicating the text object is selected Figure 183 If you begin editing the text by pressing a character on your keyboard a text edit field opens alternatively double click to open the text entry field Press Enter or click outside the box to complete the operation A number of keystroke shortcuts are available to help you edit text quickly Typing keystrokes as listed below will produce the result shown Any character s text input box opens with the current string cleared and only the new character s entered Home text input box opens with cursor before the first character of the current string End text input box opens with cursor after the last character of the current string Delete text input box opens empty the original string is cleared Spocebar text input box opens with original text string deleted and a space character inserted in its place
52. model generally you would proceed as follows 1 Log into the router so it shows its control panel in your web browser 2 Select the port forwarding page of the router controls These options may be found in an obscure place such as the router s Applications and Gaming page since online gaming often requires port forwarding Por Range Japoncancn sae ena protooot wnaarose ean wT 8080 6080 Bon m 1921501 101 TeCast 7000 w 7000 Bom woveen t02 m 3 Enter an Application name if required this is for your own recognition purposes so use anything you like 4 Enter the Start and End port values you can use the same port number in both fields but of course it must be the one you set in TriCaster s Port field 5 IF possible select Both for Protocol or select UDP 6 Enter the full punctuated numeric local IP address shown in the Location field of your TriCaster after you enable the stream 7 Checkmark Enable Some routers may have other security settings that need ta be modified for your Pull stream to be visible from the outside For example the Linksys router shown above has a setting in the Security poge named Block Anonymous Internet Requests While this moy be a great idea normally it s not going to help much when autside computers request that your system permit them to Pull the video stream is it There are countless makes and models of
53. monitors for all Switcher sources plus a clock option and Figure 28 many more Set the VGA Output Resolution to the native resolution of the external device and test the different display options to find a suitable setting 3 13 CONFIGURE VIDEO INPUT Let s continue by configuring the video sources you connected earlier Section 3 4 1 Click the All Monitors tab at upper left on the Live Desktop 2 Move your mouse back and forth over the input monitors Notice that a Configure button gear icon appears above the top right corner of each input monitors as you do 3 Clickthe Configuration button to open a tabbed settings panel for Camera 1 Figure 25 4 Click the Connection Type button to reveal a drop down menu listing a variety of connection types Select the correct format such as 720p Component or 1080 SDI etc for the video source you plan to connect to this input 5 Close the Configuration panel for now note that you can click the Close button or simply lick outside the panel to close it amp Continue to configure all connected external video sources in the same manner We ll look at the other options and settings in the Configuration panel later see Section 7 2 but at this point you should be able to view the video inputs you have configured on thelr respective monitors 3 14 CONFIGURE AUDIO Click the External Audio tab in the lower left quadrant of the Live Desktop to reveal set up and
54. of SD Simultaneous output for broadcast projector and live web stream to in house and remote audiences Use either Windows Media or Flash Media streaming Archive your Internet stream Connecting to multiple content delivery networks is a snap using the Configure Stream Connection panel IsoCorder technology lets you record up to four a v sources at once including all camera inputs or a custom set of sources chosen from Program Aux and camera Multiple encoding formats including MPEG 2 AVI Quicktime and H 264 mav Capture MPEG 2 clips with embedded LTC linear timecode Use NewTek s TimeWarp instant replay control surface without interrupting fulltime recording of your program or other sources 2 4 11 IMPORT AND EXPORT IMPORT MEDIA Clicking the Import Media link in Startup opens a dedicated Import Media module in Startup providing a convenient one stop approach to managing productions assets Batch import media files for use in Tricaster s Media Players Imported files are automatically categorized and sent to the correct locations making them easy to find and use during live productions Optionally transcode selected to high quality and TriCasterfriendly file formats ensuring smooth playback EXPORTING CONTENT The Export Media function allows you to create a batch list of files for export and optionally select new file formats for the exported media 2 4 12
55. once Get live title pages cgxml to respect all LiveTEXT font attributes 281 281 281 281 282 284 284 284 284 285 285 285 286 286 286 286 287 287 287 288 288 288 288 290 290 290 291 291 291 291 292 292 293 293 294 Prepare a matched group of virtual inputs Improve the quality of Multiview output View Media Player time data on Multiview out when set to All Sources Files Manage files Change the MPEG 2 Recording quality Import media files Connect alpha Matte output Prepare Clips with Embedded Alpha Channel Import Clips with Embedded Alpha Channel Prepare clips for TriCaster playback using Apple Final Cut Pro Add an external File Location to the File Browser Remove a Location Fram the File Browser Export Files to an external drive Export fles from Tricaster for use in Apple Final Cut Pro 294 295 295 295 295 296 296 296 297 297 297 298 298 298 298 Supplement Why does the Renderless Quicktime export only work with Normal Profile MPEG files Import Export files larger than 4 Gigabytes Free up space by deleting the demo clips Software Maintenance and Updates Improve system performance Resolve serious instability or dropped frames Update my TriCaster Update the Flash and or Windows Media Encoder Install virus protection Install my favorite software or codec Supplement Can I install the MainConcept AAC Encoder for Flash
56. onscreen monitor for that input shows the source keyed over a checkerboard pattern If you select the LiveMatte enabled input as Input A in a Virtual Input tab the keyed source is overlaid on the source you selected as Input B You will see the composite result when the Virtual Input is selected on either the PGM row or the PVW row 11 6 FINE TUNING You ll find LiveMatte easy to configure with a little experimentation but a few handy workflow tips follow below You may find it useful initially to turn Smoothness off ar nearly so Likewise begin with a low value for Tolerance perhaps just 5 10 or so Put the video source on Preview or Program Output before you do so to provide a larger view to help you assess your settings Hint The best method for optimizing the Key is to begin with the best incoming source possible if your cameras have both composite and S video outputs check to see which one gives you the best picture quality Pick your primary Color but before releasing the mouse button slide the eyedropper around to different parts the background Watch the monitor as you do so to see how the area of transparency is affected by different Color choices Release the mouse when you find the color that produces maximum results Its often preferable to pick a color from a location fairly close to the boundary between the background and foreground regions Now you can start to ramp up Tolerance Bring it up slowly
57. or 576i for PAL sessions Multi standard model only When you select an SD output option for an HD session you are able to choose between 16 9 widescreen or 4 3 cropped output Foreach format option the appropriate Connection Type options are also shown Let s try to clarify all of this by considering an example For an NTSC 1080i session you can select any of the following output connection and format conbminations 1080i 5DI Component 480i 16 9 SDI Component 480i 16 9 SDI 1080 30p SDI Component Y C Composite 720p SDI Component 480i 4 3 SDI Component 720 30p SDI Component 480i 4 3 SDI C Composite AUDIO SOURCE A The audio options portion of the Aux control group allows you to Choose which Audio accompanies the Aux video output in two Camere 3 situations Firstly this setting determines which audio stream is captured to a file by TriCaster s Record feature when it is configured to record Aux Additionally it governs the embedded audio accompanying the Aux row s SDI video output Figure 130 OUTPUT ALPHA MATTE ponent Figure 131 Aux options for TriCaster EHTREME systems include a switch labeled Output Alpha Matte This feature can be used independently or complement the Act as Alpha option discussed in Section 7 2 2 An alpha matte can be automatically derived from any suitable source It might be the matte from a LiveMatte keyer effect allowing A
58. overall output level of the source or output The Gain control allows you to compensate bringing the post compressor signal back to a comfortable nominal range Hint Different circumstances call for different Attack ond Release strategies For example much less aggressive settings could work nicely for vocals but fail badly when applied to a snare drum Many websites provide suggestions on establishing the best compressor limiter settings for different environments 13 5 PRESET BIN Audio presets work just lie their counterparts in the Media Players Presets are a convenient way to quickly store and recall audio steps and settings for different venues productions and Hint When you roll the mouse to the edge of the screen the very same Audio Preset bin appears either at left in External Audio or at right in the Internal Audio tab In other words there is just one uniform set of Audio presets rather than ane for each tab 14 NETWORK SOURCES T The network source features of your TriCaster are very useful TriCaster supports two simultaneous network sources so you can live switch displays from networked computers as part of your productions Connecting to a networked workstation or laptop computer running LiveText NewTek s powerful realtime title and graphics VL software means you can optionally assign CG preparation and display to a second operator This frees you to focus exclus
59. practical applications using these options AUDITIONING AN AUDIO SOURCE It can be very useful to be able to preview one or mare audio sources doing so without allowing the test sound to be audible on Program output Typically this need arises in connection with testing microphones or other audio sources that will be used in the production To audition an audio source in this manner 1 First Mute it to remove it from Program output 2 Then enable Solo allowing you to hear it on Headphones output and Aux at times when Solo is selected as its Source ISOLATING A SOURCE At other times you may want to output specially configured audio signals using TriCaster s Aux audio output For instance some installations call for sending the output from one or more internal sources such as a DDR or the Sounds player to a secondary distribution system Alternatively you may want a clean output from one or more sources for use apart from the main Program audio This arrangement is often referred to as mix minus It can be invaluable for productions like phone in shows The remote caller needs to be able to hear the interviewer but if you simply send the main Program mix to him he will be forced to endure a late arriving echo of his own voice since that too is carried on the master mix Needless to say this would be confusing and undesirable Suppose your interviewer is speaking into a microphone connected
60. presentations This is a wonderful addition for those times when you could really use another pair of hands When running on the network connected computer LiveText is listed in the Network selection drop down menus just as an iVGA source would be When you select LiveText and click the Live button in LiveText the current title page is available via the Network buttons on TriCaster s Switcher or in its DSK channels For more information on installing and using this great tool please refer to the Chapter 17 4 6 LIVE SWITCHING Back in Section 3 4 you connected cameras to inputs on TriCaster s backplate and configured them If you haven t already done so les explore basic Switcher operations 4 6 1 SWITCHER ROWS The Switcher features 3 rows of labeled buttons From top to bottom the three rows are labeled Utility Program and Preview Each button on a Switcher row represents one of the many and varied video sources available The first button group at left on any row represents Cameras while others represent other special sources discussed soon Figure 46 Tecaster 50 B A50 EXTREME Figure 47 TrCaster 850 amp 850 EXTREME Clicking a button in any row selects the active source for that row Utility row selections serve various special purposes that we ll come to a bit later Your Program and Preview row selections determine the content of the BKGD Background video layer VIDEO LAYERS TriCaster video outpu
61. see Section 7 1 The session setting has some other significant ramifications too For example if your session format is SD 4 3 this is the file format captured by the Live Desktop s Record function when capturing Program output even when the video cameras supplying your inputs are HD the opposite is also true Nate See Section 7 1 for more information on Video Output configurations Having made your selections you would normally click the Start Session button at lower right to launch TriCaster s Live Desktop but first let s explore the features of the Home Page a bit more 5 2 2 OPEN SESSION If there are existing sessions on TriCaster the icon ring on the Home Page will default to Open Figure 94 Figures Selecting Open causes the Sessions List to appear at right This pane lists all sessions stored on qualified media currently mounted on TriCaster Sessions are listed separately under the name of the storage volume they are located on Figure 95 The listing shows the Session Name and video Format for each one Let s look at a few features of the Sessions List briefly before we open a session Media Practice Session B Restore Backup Session Media Restore Backup Se gure 9s EJECT gure 96 An Eject button at the top right corner of the page allows you to safely disconnect external drives Drives can also be ejected from the Live Desktop see Section 6 5
62. streaming with the aid of a Content Delivery Network a commercial service as this is generally free of firewall and router woes that often require a friendly system administrator to resolve otherwise You will also need to enable port forwarding on the router as discussed next Port Forwarding If you are streaming from behind a router to preserve a reasonable level of security while allowing outside computers to connect to your system you will need to port forward your router Port forwarding permits a sort of lind hand off between external clients your viewers and a local transaction port which you manually specify The router will pass requests to view the stream through to the TriCaster without exposing the internal IP routing To enable port forwarding you need three pieces of information The login information for the router Your router s manual will have this information Which typically involves entering a specific IP number into your web browsers URL field and perhaps also a password you have set previously The specific IP local number that the router has assigned to your TriCaster You can read this right from TriCaster s Location display It will comprise the entire string of punctuated numbers before the colon the colon separates the port number you chose for your stream The port number just mentioned the part after the colon Although the steps vary a bit by brand and
63. to TriCaster using the Send to Live options in LiveText s File menu ge PART III APPENDICES A time saving question and answer section followed by an extensive listing of Shortcut Keys schematic diagram and keyword index A HOW DOI in this section we ll consider the most common questions TriCaster operators may have and of course we ll provide the answer too The answers are intentionally brief perhaps just a reminder of one or two steps required to perform some operation For this reason we ll also point you to explanatory information elsewhere in this manual whenever that would be useful If you ve largely mastered your TriCaster but have a specific question this may be the best place to look first The headings that follow list related questions and answers together along with cross references and other helpful remarks Hint The NewTek website includes a comprehensive FAQ database containing a wealth of useful Information on all of its products please see http www newtek com faq Howdol Connections 274 Connect cameras E s 215 276 Connect monitors 276 Supplement Why don t 1 see the Multhiew monitor resolution 1 want Isted in the VGA Output Resolution menu UMEN am Supplement After reconnecting monos my Mulivew ond Interface monitor configuration is messed up What can 1 do an Connect a supported external control surface 278 Supplement T
64. to inquire about this product A 3 2 RESTORE THE DEFAULT LIVESET 1 Click the ellipsis button to the right of the current LiveSet name to open the Liveset Browser 2 Clickthe NewTek heading beneath the LiveSets heading in the locations list at left 3 Click the A over B in the Default group in the file pane at right See Section 12 4 1 A33 SET UP THE NIGHTLY SHOW A LIVESET As you may know TriCaster LiveSets support two primary video inputs along with a third source dedicated to its Overlay channel The Nightly Show A Liveset is special in that it appears to show many different video sources simultaneously see Figure 249 even including a moving news ticker mE This virtual multi monitor effect depends on a single clip played from a DDR which is itself a montage composed of a number of different looping video clips composited into a single frame es Figure 250 Hint Several sample montage clips are suppl template clip Figure 2 os a guide to prepare similar clips that reference your own th the software of To configure the effect 1 Assign your talent shot to Input A in the Virtual Input tab 2 Put the looping montage clip in a DDR and select that DDR as Input B A 3 4 INITIATE STREAMING 1 Connect TriCaster to the Internet see Section 3 18 2 Open or create a TriCaster session see Section 3 9 3 Click the Conf
65. until most of the background color has been eliminated cutting away most of the background to within a few pixels of the foreground background boundary Now raise Smoothness to fine tune that edge region and you re nearly done Before considering your settings final make sure to test the result using a moving source This will sometimes reveal that overly aggressive settings cause small blacks of pixels in the edge region to appear to snap on and off during motion as they either qualify or disqualify for inclusion in the matte A little reduction in Tolerance and increase in Smoothness will usually resolve this problem Hint it can be useful to zoom in using Position controls when fine tuning LiveMatte 11 7 PRACTICAL STAGING FOR LIVEMATTE We d like to offer a few suggestions here to guide you in preparing so you get the most out of UveMatte 11 7 1 LIGHTING The single most important aspect of pulling a clean key is lighting The lighting should be even and diffuse Hotspots and shadows create different green or blue shades on the wall and overexposed areas lack sufficient color for clean keying It is not how much light you have on the key wall but how evenly lit that wall is Naturally you want to keep your green or blue screen clean and free of wrinkles ripples folds tears or other blemishes as well Second the distance from your talent to the screen behind can make a profound differe
66. video frame recorded one minute before midnight would be assigned the timecode 23 59 59 0 while frames recorded one minute or more later would have timecode 2 01 00 00 00 seemingly a lower ie ordinarily earlier timecode value 7 3 0 PRODUCTION TIME Production Tine 120000 AM Two more switches under the label Production Time allow you to indicate Start and End times Beside each of these is an editable time field click inside the field to modify the time value During live production the Live Desktop titlebar and several of TriCaster s Multiview layouts Figure 142 provide Broadcast Clock displays along with current timecode Secondary clocks show a useful countdown to the production Start or End times when the corresponding switches are enabled in the Timecode Configuration panel 7 3 3 LTC TIMECODE Linear timecode is by far the most common method of sharing an external timecode reference in video production Output from an external timecode generator is supplied to devices in the video pipeline using a standard audio connection TriCaster 850 EHTREME uses Audio Input 7 for this purpose while TriCaster 450 seen EXTREME uses Audio Input 3 see Section 3 6 TriCaster decodes time stamps from the audible signal and uses the values for clock displays and embedded timecode when recording video This is a great asset for post production purposes Enable linear timecode using the switch labeled Use
67. video layer seen behind any other layers shown on Program Out At any given moment BKGD may consist of a mix of video streams from Program and Preview rows or even a more complex composition formed Two overlay layers DSK 1 and DSK 2 are composed above the BKGD layer on output DSK Zappears in front of DSK 1 on Program Output that is closest to the viewer FTB Fade to Black constitutes a final overlay layer one that obscures all other layers when applied je Program Preview Recall too that the BKGD layer itself is often a composite of sub layers Sub layers may include video from the Program or Preview rows Selecting a Virtual Input on Program or Preview can bring more sub layers into the BKGD composite Input A B and the dedicated Virtual Input Overlay This being so the BKGD layer alone can at times actually comprise up to seven sub layers 8 3 TRANSITIONS Immediately to the right of the Switcher rows is the Transitions section This group of cantrols and settings provides many creative and flexible ways to compose the video layers comprising Program output Main Layer Controls Local Layer Controls Figure ar With video layers in mind it s easy to comprehend the philosophy underlying the Transition control group The larger right portion of the Transition group provides local control and configuration options individually for three of the four primary video layers namely BK
68. will dramatically reduce memory and disk speed on your system so you should disable those features Then only when you need to do so perhaps on a daily or weekly schedule perform a manual scan Never let scanning continue into a live switching event and do not assume that you can now omit pre checking files and external media for nasty surprises Hint In the unfortunate event that malware ever does evade your defensive measures you can always use TriCoster s Restore TriCaster function to completely rehabilitate your system A 5 6 INSTALL MY FAVORITE SOFTWARE OR CODEC TriCaster is not a general purpose computer The installed software suite is finely tuned to provide reliable performance and amazing features Anything you install apart from official TriCaster updates places these important goals at risk Doing so is strongly discouraged Regarding codecs TriCaster supports the vast majority of popular image audio and video formats That said hardly a day passes without another new one appearing on the scene If a file you would like to use does not play back well or at all consider converting it to a friendlier format If you feel the format is so popular that TriCaster should support it please submit the details as a feature request Please also see Section A 3 10 above SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION Q Con install the MainConcept AAC Encoder Plug In for Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder
69. you to dispose of unused imports of this type The default Resolution profiles cannot be deleted however 15 3 3 WINDOWS MEDIA PULL If you are streaming internally to people in your building or inside your own corporate firewall Pull streaming may well provide the easiest approach Be aware that since your stream may be constrained by lower bandwidth than a commercial streaming service typically offers Pull streaming may falter when more than a few users are viewing the stream For a Pull Connection Type the Location field attempts to automatically display the Internet address you would provide viewers or in some cases your streaming service provider This the IP internet Protocol address of your computer on the network This information will be provided as punctuated numeric value IMPORTANT Nate Network routers provide a measure of network security by masking the details of systems connected to them thus preventing direct external access T Tiaster is connected to the network by a router the IP number shown in the location field is only valid for viewers connected on the some side of the router as your TriCaster os they might be in a focal intranet configuration The Location provided in this case is merely a local number assigned by the router and is not accessible to the world at large Ta find out how to provide external access to your stream in this configura
70. 165 On rolling the mouse pointer over the monitor for either Network 1 or Network 2 an additional control is shown a downward pointing triangle Click the triangle to show a menu listing any valid network video sources TriCaster has recognized This menu might list displays from other computers transmitted across the network via IVGA an AirPlay stream or perhaps the output from a companion NewTek LiveText workstation LiveText and IVGA are considered in more depth in Chapter 14 Slide the mouse down the menu to the entry you wish to select and click the source you wish to assign as the current Network source 9 3 2 INTERACTIVE CONTROL The onscreen monitors with the exception of Preview are actually interactive live production controls You can click them to perform many Switcher operations Here s a list of things to try Click on an unselected monitor to place it on the Preview row Click the same monitor again to perform a BKGD layer only Take swapping it with the current Program row selection and sending it to Program Output Double click any monitor to immediately send that source to Program Out replacing the previous BKGD layer and sending its predecessor to the Preview row Shift click the monitor selected on the Preview row to Transition it to the current BKGD layer again sending its predecessor to the Preview row Shift double click any unselected monitor to Transition the BKGD layer
71. 2 Restore Backup Session gures7 Click Open and a progress gauge will track the restoration process In due course the newly restored session will be added to the Session List for the specified drive Hint Restoring a session that has a ot of content can take considerable time Be judicious then if considering a restoration shortly before a scheduled live production OPENING A SESSION Just as you were able to select an icon on the ring using the left and right arrow keys you can highlight a name in the Session List using the Up and Down arrow keys then press the Enter key to open it or simply click the name of a session to open it immediately Selecting a session takes you away from the Home Page to the Sessions Screen 5 2 3 SHUTDOWN This selection provides Restart TriCaster Shutdown TriCoster and Exit to Windows links lick them to perform the named action in the usual manner In the case of the last named function you can return to the TriCaster environment by double clicking the desktop TriCaster icon 5 24 UTILITIES Selecting Utilities on the Home Page icon ring presents a list of functions at right that have to do with the TriCaster system REGISTER TRICASTER Tricaster shows a watermark on output before registration so we encourage you to register early Among other reasons doing so will serve to identify the unit to NewTek as yours in case of theft and will also
72. 6 29 93 Export Media 14 110 New Session 285 OpenManage Session 98 286 287 290 Shutdown 100 Brit to Windows 100 System Utilities Defragment 301 Restore TriCaster 304 Update TriCaster 302 Stills See Live Desktop Media Player Stop 332 Storage externa 281 Streaming 232 239 240 242 AAC 303 Bitrate 241 Capture 238 290 Flash 240 27 254 293 302 303 Port Forwarding 251 Production Tips 246 Profile 241 303 multibitrate 309 Providers 236 237 239 243 244 Pull 236 242 251 Push 236 237 243 Session Format 285 WME 240 302 Support 305 Switcher Se Live Desktop T Tally Lights See Connections Tally Lights Technical Support 305 Titlebar 120 Titles See Live Desktop Media Player Titing See LiveText TriCaster Register 21 305 v Vectorscope See Live Desktop Video Calibration See Calibration Streaming See Streaming Video Standard 24 Virtual input 16 78 197 294 Liveset See Liveset Overlay 80 Overlay 200 Position 199 Sources 198 Virtual Set See Liveset Virtual Set Artisan 104 Virus Checker 302 w Waveform Monitor See Live Desktop Windows Activate 20 Exit to See Startup Screen Shutdown CREDITS Acknowledgments Tim Jenison Jim Plant Engineering Andrew Cross Kevin Rouviere Nathan Kovner James Killian Kirk Morger Brian Brice Kevin Nations Jeremy Wiseman Masaaki Konno John Perkins Michael Watkins Bennie Pierce Cary Tetrick
73. 97 to the second As we said above really a little video latency is not a bad thing as viewed from a surprisingly short distance back into the audience This is just as well since for all practical purposes a little latency is also unavoidable Even so as long as audio and video are in sync at your seat only a rather significant degree of latency will be objectionable unless you happen to be very near the stage For those in the front rows a few extra frames of latency moy be rather disconcerting I s true that IMAG was conceived primarily for the benefit of those further back but if the latency is too obvious for those nearest the front it can be disconcerting distraction For this reason it s desirable to keep video latency to an agreeable minimum but put away any motion of zero latency Not only would this require bending the laws of physics it would be a bad idea Even before considering minimizing latency in the device chain acknowledging that there is always going to be some latency calls for some creative thinking with regard to practical staging For example if you design your IMAG layout in such a fashion that those in the front row are unlikely to be able to see the screen s without lifting their eyes from the onstage talent they are extremely unlikely to notice a small amount of latency 8 3 3 LATENCY AND YOUR TRICASTER TriCaster is a wonderful tool in the IMAG arsenal but inevitably it is only
74. Alvaro Suarez Steve Bowie Charles Steinkuehler Menghua Wang Shawn Wisniewski Bob Peene Greg Heine Dan Fletcher Anthony Louviere Jan Uribe Jeremy Brosius Michael Joiner Jarrod Davis Ryan Hansberger Naveen Jayakumar Todd Bryant Karen Zipper Mike Murphy Design Consultants Kris Gurrad Additional thanks to NewTek Marketing NewTek Technical Support NewTek Customer Service NewTek Business Development NewTek Sales This product uses the following libraries licensed under the LGPL license see link below For the source and the ability to change and recompile these components please visit the links provided _Freeimage library http treeimage sourceforge net LAMElibrary http iame sourceforge net FFMPEG library htipj fimpegorg Fora copy of the LGPL licence please look in the folder c TriCaster LGPL Portions use Microsoft Windows Media Technologies Copyright c 1999 2008 Microsoft Corporation All Rights reserved VST Plugin Spec by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH 344 This product uses Inno Setup Copyright C 1997 2010 Jordan Russell All rights reserved Portions Copyright C 2000 2010 Martijn Laan All rights reserved Inno Setup is provided subject to its license which can be found at http www jrsoftware org files is license txt Inno Setup is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY of FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE A
75. CORDING Other common controls permit you to define the video steam to capture again this is the recording stream used for the Add to DDR feature and that is controlled by an optional TimeWarp control surface when connected MPEG Cempatibitty mpa gure 208 A drop down menu labeled Source permits you to choose which video stream to capture Tricaster provides numerous source options Beyond simply selecting PGM Program output you might select AUX a particularly flexible option since it can be independently set to a variety of useful configurations in Output Configuration In addition any single camera input can be designated as a source allowing the Aux Output to be freely assigned to something else Hint The Aux video output format can be configured in Output configuration and it can likewise be accompanied by either Aux or Program audio Far this reason directly selecting Cam 1 for example as Source can easily produce a very different recording than would occur if you assign Aux ta Cam 1 and then select Aux as Source ENCODING The Encoding option menu allows you to choose between encoding formats for the recorded file Let s consider the differences in the two MPEG 2 format options first MPEG 2 TriCaster s double rate MPEG 2 format for records is comprised entirely of Hframes resulting in excellent image quality Two variants are provided your choice principally affects color sampli
76. D will illuminate and the adjacent hard drive Fora modest added cost consider a pure activity light should flicker as the device sime wave UPS These units can be relied boots up if this does not happen check your connections and retry Though not a requirement we do strongly recommend that you connect TriCaster using an uninterruptable power supply UPS as for any mission critical system Likewise consider A C power conditioning especially in situations where local power is unreliable or noisy Surge protection is especially important in some locales Power conditioners can reduce wear on TriCaster s power supplies and other electronics and provide a further measure of protection from surges spikes lightning and high voltage 3 2 ACTIVATING amp AUTHORIZING WINDOWS Your dealer may have performed this operation for you as part of his pre delivery service When you see the Welcome to Windows screen Click Next at lower right Choose your time zone Accept the license agreement Enter your 25 digit key on some models the sticker is on the Bottom of the case Decline automatic updates by clicking not right now Give TriCaster a distinct computer name for networking You can authorize your Windows installation by network or by telephone Assuming you have an Internet connection available and have connected TriCaster to it with an Ethernet cable the Internet is the fastest
77. DOWS MEDIA ENCODER TriCaster is not designed to be user upgradeable For certain features to work correctly specific versions of third party utilities must be present These applications are upgraded in timely fashion in official TriCaster updates It is quite likely that any attempt to update these manually will have unintended results and you are strongly cautioned against doing so A 5 5 INSTALL VIRUS PROTECTION Virus and malware protection applications can dramatically impact system performance this is true even for Windows Defender which is deliberately disabled for this reason In general once additional software or services are enabled on TriCaster real time performance cannot be guaranteed In a perfect world we d love to recommend that you do not install virus and or malware protection software on TriCaster Certainly you should always take sensible precautions to avoid introducing infected files into TriCaster by rigorously virus checking media you plan to connect or import beforehand ideally do so on a laptop or other system before connecting to Teicaster Realistically though in some settings you may feel the need for protection outweighs the risk if you really feel you must install virus protection switch all of its active scanning operations off so that nothing can occur in the background while TriCaster s Live Desktop is running Anything that provides full time protection
78. Desktop Media PlayerTitle Pages Input Connectors 23 Input Virtual See Virtual Input Installing Third Party Software 303 Internal Audio See Live Desktop Audio Mixer NGA See Network Keyboard 18 Keying See LiveMatte Latency 314 315 316 11 Control Surface 278 Live Desktop 6 30 115 116 Audio Mixer 15 47 207 Balance 47 214 Connection Type 210 External Audio tab 118 208 Follow 51 212 Internal Audio tab 217 Link Audio Mixer Tabs 118 Lock 211 Mona 47 212 Mute 47 209 Output 220 Pan 50 210 Phones Output 220 Presets 222 Program Output 220 Solo 213 Stream Output 220 Talk 210 Trim 211 VU Meters 215 Dual Displays 119 Grab 65 255 261 Media Browser 67 174 Add Media Location 175 298 Filter 176 Menus 176 Media Player 15 66 218 Add Files 66 Autoplay 69 178 Presets 71 179 Scrub 68 Single 69 178 Speed 68 180 291 Title Pages 183 Editing 183 184 Stand In Images 185 267 Trimming 68 Options Menu 117 Tabs Follow Preview Row 117 118 Tabs Follow Preview Row for Virtual Input ns Overlay 154 Crop Edges 153 Position 152 Record 63 64 245 255 290 Quality Setting 258 Switcher 11 54 144 146 Take 45 56 70 149 157 164 T Bar 157 Transition 58 150 Waveform Vectorscope 38 126 132 134 166 320 321 322 324 LiveMatte 16 75 140 187 188 189 190 194 195 Luma Limit 190 Spill suppression 191 Live5et 17 82 104 201 Animate Zoom 85
79. E A LOCATION FROM THE FILE BROWSER 1 Clickthe Add button for a Media Player DDR Stil or Title 2 Right click the name of the location you wish to remove from the list and select Remove inthe menu that opens See the sub heading Context Menus in Section 10 2 2 A 4 8 EXPORT FILES TO AN EXTERNAL DRIVE There are several approaches to exporting media files from within TriCaster sessions By far the simplest is to use the Export Media feature see the sub heading by that title in Section 534 A 4 9 EXPORT FILES FROM TRICASTER FOR USE IN APPLE FINAL CUT PRO At the time of writing importing MPEG 2 files recorded by TriCaster into Final Cut requires a few extra steps There are several approaches pick the one that suits your need best METHOD 1 1 In the Startup Screen s Home Page Open the session containing the recorded files you are interested in 2 Click the Manage icon in the Startup Screen s Session Page 3 Click the Export Media button at lower right and then click Add to open a Media Browser 4 Add the file s you wish to export to the Export Media file list S Use the Format drop down to select MJPEG High Quality mov for the files you add amp Click the selection gadget triangle and choose a target location for the output files 7 Click the Export button in the panel to commence transcoding Please see the sub heading entitled Export Media in Section 5 3 4 for more on Tr
80. E bars and the brighter 10 5 IRE bar Raise the Contrast level brightening the 10 5 IRE bar quite a bit You may notice that the large white bar second from the left at the bottom Super White becomes overblown showing blooming into its neighboring color bars Dial Contrast back down until the Super White bar is just white not blazingly so and does not bleed into the other bars The 10 5 IRE bar in the PLUGE should be just distinct from the 7 5 IRE bars again at this point PAL 1 Warm up the monitor as previously mentioned 2 Set the monitor s Color or Saturation Contrast and Brightness to their lowest settings 3 Slowly raise Brightness until the black bar just begins to lighten 4 Adjust the Contrast until the bars seem to be evenly graduated ignore the white bar 5 Tweak the Contrast watching the white bar carefully When it stops getting brighter in response pull it back slightly to the point where it just starts to have a dimming effect again C 3 4 COLOR ADJUSTMENTS Having set the black and white levels earlier let s continue NTSC 1 If your monitor has a Blue gun only setting enable it Depending on the brand of your monitor the alternating bars will appear either as light gray and black or blue and black Figure 262 PAL If the monitor lacks a Blue gun only feature you can obtain a colored filter such as a Kodak Wratten 478 gel and hold that between your eyes and the monitor for a sim
81. External timecode LTC in Timecode Configuration Sound from the audio input tasked with supplying timecode is automatically muted for recording and output purposes when LTC timecode is enabled but you can un mute it briefly in the Audio Mixer to let you adjust input levels Hint The timecode display in the Live Desktop titlebar is tinted blue when external timecode is in use If the external connection is lost for any reason the display changes to white TriCaster will attempt to maintain continuous timecode from the interruption on until a valid signal is restored in which cose the display turns blue ance more SWITCHER TRANSITIONS AND OVERLAY 7 TriCasters Live Desktop replicates traditional video switcher controls in easy to comprehend and use fashion It provides numerous transitions that you can use to add interest when changing scenes two independent downstream overlay channels and some very useful automation This chapter reviews these vital aspects of your live productions The central band of TriCaster s Live Desktop between the upper monitoring section and the tabbed modules below is taken up by the Switcher and related controls and features including the Loyer Controls which include main and local layer Transition controls and configuration features Figure 144 Switcher Layer Controls Figure at 8 1 SWITCHER ROWS Figure 105 From top to bottom the three Switc
82. GD DSK 1 and DSK 2 We ll consider the local controls first 8 3 1 LOCAL CONTROLS BKGD Transitions and Overlay DSK Transitions are slightly different BKGD Transitions have Reverse and Ping Pong options The direction controls have been relocated to the Transition Options panel opened using the nearby gear button Pressing the local Take button for the BKGD layer will swap the current Preview row selection to the Program row and vice versa just as you would expect Pressing the local Take button for either DSK 1 or DSK 2 displays or hides the corresponding video layer shown on top of the BKGD layer Naturally local Auto buttons perform similarly but apply transition settings you configure with the controls at right for each layer Hint DSK Overlay Positioning is toggled an off in the Transition Options pane opened by clicking the button labeled Pos A small sidelight beside this butto TAKE AND AUTO As we have seen clicking a local BKGD DSK 1 or DSK 2 Take button performs a straight cut for that video layer For BKGD the Program and Preview row selections will be swapped f instead you press the local Auto button for BKGD the transition currently selected in the bin at right is performed but the end result is the same In similar fashion DSK layers will be either hidden or displayed above the BKGD layer when you lick their local Take and Auto buttons
83. It is useful to display the corresponding Virtua Input using the Switcher s Preview row while making adjustments Notice that by dragging left or right on either of the two numeric gadgets below you can adjust Position on a single axis Hint If you click a numeric field a second time or right click it you can type a value into the gadget using the keyboard press Enter to complete the editing action or Esc to cancel it In similar fashion drag the pointer over the Rotation button with the left mouse button pressed to turn the source in 3D space as follows Drag left right to rotate the source about the Y vertical axis Drag up down to rotate the source about the X horizontal axis Hold down Alt on the keyboard while dragging to rotate about the Z axis Drag on a single numeric slider below or hold down Ctrl while dragging to constrain rotation to one axis Dragging the mouse on the Size button magnifying glass affects the scale of the overlay When the nearby lock button is enabled dragging in any direction affects size equally on both axes Otherwise dragging vertically changes the height of the overlay and dragging horizontally affects its width Again if you drag just one of the numeric gadgets below the Size button with lock disabled you modify just one dimension of the overlay stream width or height Position and Size can be reset by clicking Reset Positioning and can be toggl
84. Lastly selecting Exit shuts down the iVGA client and removes the icon from the task tray 14 2 AIRPLAY AirPlay is Apple s protocol for getting audio and video from here to there specifically from an AirPlay source which may be an Apple computer or a mobile device such as iPad iPod or iPhone to a second device The local network is the means of transmission between units and a wireless connection from the player to the network is perfectly acceptable Typically the target device for AirPlay might be a television display or set of speakers but in this case your TriCaster is the beneficiary It basically works as follows You select the AirPlay entry in the Source menu for Net 1 or Net 2 just as you would select an IVGA or LiveText source Unlike iVGA embedded audio with level control is supported TriCaster identifies itself as a network client for AirPlay apps applications You can then designate TriCaster as the output device for content played on the device AirPlay streams audio video or both from the device to the local network and on to TriCaster The AirPlay output is available just like any other TriCaster Switcher source Consider just a few of the countless possibilities Use your iPad as a touch driven external wireless DDR or capture video or snapshots on your iPhone and instantly stream this content to the Tricaster Nate Please see Appendix A Secti
85. Omitaster 650 850 erncrermev 450 450 euicrernev HD PORTABLE LIVE PRODUCTION USER GUIDE Revised Nov 8 2011 Trademarks NewTek TriCaster TrCaser XD TCXDESO TCIOBSO Extreme TriCaster TOXDESO Extreme TriCaster 850 Extreme Taster Extreme TriCaster 850 TOXDASO TEXOASO Extreme TriCaster TCXDASO Extreme TriCaster 450 Extreme raster Estreme TriCaster 450 soCorder TCXDSOO TriCaster PRO TiCaster STUDIO TriCaster BROADCAST TriCaster DUO NGA SpeedEDIT 3PLAY 3PLAY 20 3PXDA2O LlveText Datalink vest LveMatte TimeWarp VT VITS Video Toaster Toaster 3D Arsenal Aura LightWave LightWave 3D and LightWave CORE are trademarks of NEWTEK A other brand names product names ar trademarks belong to thelr respective holders Q NewTek www newtek com TC TriCaster TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents PART Getting Started 1 About This Manual 2 Introduction 21 22 23 24 5 Overview 5 Startup Screen 6 Live Desktop 6 Features EI 241 Physical 7 242 Multi Tier Failsafe sn 243 A V Input and Output 9 244 Timecode 5 245 Alpha Channel 0 10 246 Monitoring 10 247 Video Processing ai 248 TheSwitcher e En 249 Video Layers and Transitions AQ 2410 Record and Stream as 24 11 Import and Export Em 2442 Audio Mixer 7 2 4 13 Integrated Media Players 24 14 Keying Virtual Sets and Virtual Inputs
86. Settings tab contains Proc Amp settings These settings are identical to those discussed in Section 7 1 2 Of course Proc Amp settings are applied to the individual video inputs thus before output Proc Amp settings which affect all sources equally When the Proc Amp is enabled for a specific source a small yellow indicator is displayed in the upper right corner just above the corresponding monitor in any of the three main monitor tabs Input Proc Amp adjustments are applied after LiveMatte is processed which can help when composing greenscreen shots to match a background or Liveset You may also notice that changes to Proc Amp settings do affect stopped or frozen sources including live camera feeds 7 24 LIVEMATTE amp CROP The second tab in the Input Configuration panels is where you configure TriCaster s powerful realtime keying system for live production LiveMatte Keying is a popular and powerful method af combining two images whether photos video clips or live camera streams The process involves eliminating a portion of the image effectively cutting a digital keyhole in it to reveal a user defined background scene It also plays an important role in the workflow of Liveset TriCaster s powerful virtual set technology Figure 138 LiveMatte s controls are deceptively simple making a great deal of complex digital manipulations easy to use Even so much can be said about getting the best results For that re
87. TIONS Click the Add button beneath the playlist pane to open a custom Media Browser see Section 10 2 2 Newly added files become selected items in the Playlist pane Drag appropriate type file s from one module s playlist to another module Right click in the playlist pane to show a menu with context relevant items from the following list operations affect selected playlist items o Qu o Copy o Paste o Remove c Rename o Cone c Set Duration Stil image and title icons o Edit Title Send to Frame Buffer Still image and title icons Set Audio Level clips with sound and audio icons Standard Cut Copy Paste and Delete keystrokes are supported for playlist entries Un playable missing corrupt or unsupported file icons are ghosted The Send to Frame Buffer feature is reviewed in Section 10 3 Interestingly the playlist Rename feature edits a local alias or playlist nickname It does not actually change the name of the file on your hard drive Roll the mouse over the Alias in the header of the icon to see the actual filename Hint Multi selection is supported for most operations including Set Duration applies to Still and Title only ICON AUDIO SLIDER In TiCaster EHTREME only the playlist of the two DDRS as well as Sounds have an additional audio feature The icons of files with audio will display a small configure gear icon at lower right Click th
88. URE STREAM CONNECTION PANEL The streaming profiles shown in the drop down Resolution menu in the Configure Stream Connection Panel are drawn from the folder C TriCaster Streaming Profiles These files are organized according to whether they are WMV or Flash profiles again into NTSC or PAL versions Multi standard models only and then finally sub divided into folders labeled 4x3 16x9 the latter two being Standard Definition profiles and HD Note that profiles in the various sub folders only appear in the Stream Type list for the corresponding session type The easiest method of creating a custom profile is to modify an existing profile and then store it using a new name The procedure differs depending on whether you are working with a Flash or Windows Media profile Note It is possible to create streaming profiles that place very high demands on system resources or are impractical for streaming over most networks The defoult profiles are suitable for most purposes and should not interfere with other operations Attention to these considerations when creating custom profiles is vital to ensure reliable performance and we encourage you to perform real world testing beforehand IMPORTING A CUSTOM PROFILE USING BROWSE Flash Media Encoder profiles are XML files while Windows Media Encoder uses a prx file extension for its profiles If you already have a prepared custom profile and wish to import it follow these ste
89. Y More often than not significant latency is added by other devices in the IMAG chain that come after the TriCaster Projectors are a common contributor but at times the cameras themselves area factor Here are some helpful points to consider when designing and connecting your system If you use Multiview output from the TriCaster to the projector if at all possible match the resolution sent from the TriCaster to the native resolution of the projector On some projectors this allows the unit to avoid using its own internal scaling which is often a significant factor in unwanted latency When possible try supplying the projector with analog video This can eliminate a lot of the complexity from the process of course this is not always possible Certain projectors provide a low latency mode to disable features of the unit that carry a heavy toll in latency Enabling this mode can make positioning the projector slightly more challenging as you may sacrifice some ability to position and scale the image using projector menu functions but the latency reduction can be very worthwhile Some cameras include features that add more latency than you would expect For Instance image stabilization by definition adds one field of latency and sometimes more Disable anything of that sort that you can Latency may be slightly lower for progressive sessions so for lowest latency genlocked 720p cameras and sessi
90. You can halt an Auto operation partway by clicking the button again during the transition For BKGD transitions the operation will be completed the next time you click the button A slightly different result occurs when re initiating an incomplete DSK transition If the effect was more than halfway complete when halted clicking Auto again completes it Otherwise it is reversed returning the layer to its prior display state CONFIGURING TRANSITIONS The duration of transitions is governed by a drop ei down menu provided for each local video layer Auto Ad The menu provides convenient two one and k second duration presets Figure 149 Alternatively you can either drag the mouse pointer left or right over the numeric display to set a custom time or click the numeric field to enable direct keyboard entry Figure 149 Figure 150 Completing the Transition section is the Transition Bin which allows you to pre select the transition effect that will be performed next by clicking its thumbnail con The active transition for each video layer is displayed with a gold border Figure 148 Click the Configure gear button at right above the Transition Bin to select and configure transitions for each video layer Figure 151 gure 151 The options that appear when you do so differ depending on whether you are configuring a Background Transition BKGD layer only or an Overlay Transition DSK layers The first time you dick Conf
91. a safety margin 1 5 times the stream s bitrate is desirable This may mean you need to consider using a lower resolution or lower framerate for your stream but doing so when required will generally deliver a smooth result and is the wise course Nothing inclines viewers to turn away quicker than a stuttering start and stop stream See Speed Tests in Section 15 8 1 for some useful resources 15 6 2 STREAMING PROTOCOLS Additionally there are two primary streaming methods known as Pull and Push Choosing the best method for your needs is important Let s review each and consider what is best for your needs PULL BY END USERS Simply put the Windows Media Encoder in TriCaster allows your networked audience to connect directly to it and it distributes the stream to them Connecting in this manner requires you to have a connection with sufficient bandwidth to deliver a stream to each individual user For this reason the simple Pull streaming method rarely works well for more than 1 or 2 viewers Advantages When Tricaster is not behind a firewall or does not have a public IP address this is a very simple way to let a few viewers watch your program stream Disadvantages o Requires either a public IP address or requires users to be on the same network Facilities such as hotels or convention centers will usually not provide a public IP address Even if they do getting them to open holes in thei
92. ad to stream content wirelessly to TriCaster Your presentations can simultaneously be displayed by video projectors television monitors broadcast by traditional means and streamed in high quality on the Internet 2 2 STARTUP SCREEN When you power up TriCaster the Startup Screen appears This is your command center for initiating most other operations gure The Home Page of the Startup Screen allows you to define and open sessions each of which can be customized for various productions or other purposes Later when you re open a session all ofits assets and settings are remembered After creating a session or opening an existing one you are taken to the Session Page Here you can launch the Live Desktop for live production or perhaps choose to Edit prepare Graphics title pages Manage content or even create custom transitions 2 3 LIVE DESKTOP Tricaster s live production features are all available from its unique Live Desktop which in many ways mimics familiar production equipment However the Live Desktop provides far more functionality than that of similar single purpose devices all in one place The various features controls and modules comprising TriCaster s Live Desktop are arranged in three horizontal bands as seen in Figure 2 The uppermost area is devoted to monitoring The Switcher section is centrally located and is also home to the Transition and Overlay controls The bottom most s
93. allow you to check for software updates that may have been recently released The steps in the Registration process were outlined back in Section 3 3 so we won t repeat them here UPDATE TRICASTER Periodically NewTek may provide software updates for your TriCaster Updates can enhance performance security or even add useful new features If TriCaster is connected to the internet clicking Update TriCaster will automatically access the appropriate webpage so you can check for new software patches or other downloads provided by NewTek Use the login details you provided when registering your TriCaster to enter your personal product page click the my downloads link at the top of the page and install any new updates This way you can be sure the very latest version of the software for your Tricaster is installed Click Update TriCaster Login to the NewTek update webpage locate the latest update and click on it At the dialog popup choose Run Comply with any onscreen prompts that fallow Hint If you wish you can instead access the same webpage from a second computer connected to the internet then transfer update files to TriCaster using a network connection or perhaps a USB thumb drive DEFRAGMENT ALL DRIVES Over the course of lengthy use the section of TriCaster s internal storage devoted to audio and video storage can become fragmented Eventually this can degrade playback perfo
94. ally monitors are provided for all live Camera inputs along with previews for Medio Players Additional monitors show your current Network external source selection if any 9 3 1 CONTEXTUAL TOOLS Additional controls pop up when you move your mouse pointer over the onscreen monitors The controls provided vary according to the source type represented by the monitor Figure 163 Camera monitors show Freeze and Configure buttons in the titlebar on mouse roll over The function of the first is obvious click the button to highlight it and freeze the current frame click it again to restore live input The Configure button opens the Configuration panel for the related source see Chapter 7 Section 7 2 Nate Audio is nat affected by the Freeze feature Additional controls appear if you roll over the onscreen monitor for a Media Player Stop and Play buttons are supplemented by Previous and Next playlist item buttons These buttons all perform identically to the controls in tabbed modules below the Switcher see Chapter 9 Figure 168 As well a timecode field is conveniently situated below the monitor label for Media Player modules Figure 164 Like its sibling in the tabbed modules right clicking on it opens a menu allowing you to Reverse Direction for the time counter show or disable Warning Colors or use the entire Playlist Duration for the timecode rather than just the time for the current item Figure
95. ally tinting gray areas When the trace is off center the direction and distance of the offset tells us what sort of tint and how much is represented by the deviation You may be able to use the color controls at Your camera to correct for this offset or you can use the U Offset and V Offset controls in TriCaster s Proc Amp to do so as always source controls are best Adjustments to U Offset move the trace left or right while V Offset changes adjust its vertical position Let s move on toa slightly more rigorous testing C 2 3 COLOR METRICS At this point we ve assured ourselves that the signal from the camera is neither too bright nor too dark that its output falls within broadcast legal luminance limits and that the black amp white part of the signal does not have an unwanted color cast We haven t done anything yet though to assure our reds are red not slightly brown or that our blues are not slightly green or magenta etc The Vectorscope can provide much more specific information about your cameras color signal Let s see how it can assist you to ensure your colors are accurate USING COLOR BARS You ll no doubt have seen the familiar color bars used as a standard reference for video signal calibration Two examples are shown here Figure 256 is an example of the color bars used in NTSC countries while Figure 257 is a PAL example common throughout European nations Figure 256 NTSC Figure 257 PAL You can use col
96. and Preview monitors Figure 34 occupying the right half of the upper monitoring section in the Live Desktop by default guest TriCaster s Look Ahead Preview monitor The Program monitor displays what reflects the outcome of the upcoming you are sending to downstream switching operation devices and your audience Situated beneath these principal monitors are Stream Record and Grab buttons their respective Configuration buttons and time counter fields we ll look at those features later A convenient master volume knob appears here too notice the VU meter monitor overlays in Figure 34 Hint Mi ve your mouse aver Program Output then click the Configure button gear that appear above it to open a tabbed panel containing Proc Amp Multiview and Genlock settings 4 8 1 ALL MONITORS Click the All Monitors tab at upper left to view dedicated monitors for all camera inputs along with an array of other sources These include monitors showing the current playlist items in the two DDRs Graphics module and Network sources such as an iVGA input from another computer on the network a title overlay from a networked LiveText workstation or Apple AirPlay stream Just as Audio tab layouts for different Tricaster models vary so too do the monitoring tab layouts For example for TriCaster 850 the All Monitors tab shows eight camera monitors while TriCaster 450 naturally has half that
97. and handy digital clocks External all 8 primary inputs plus large Program and Preview monitors Internal all Media Players other than Sound Plus Net 1 and Net 2 Program TriCaster s main Program output Preview the Look Ahead Preview FX the current FX source selection Preview Program both video sources plus clocki Waveform Vectorscope the current Preview row selection along with large Waveform and Vectorscope monitors Hint The External and Internal sktop monitor tabs ind can be v to provide an allinclusive manitaring solution when the latter are used The VGA Output Resolution menu provides a long list of popular and useful options to allow you to configure TriCaster output to conform to your downstream external device Note that it is important to select the native resolution of the external display device monitor or projector for best results 7 1 6 GENLOCK TriCaster s Genlock feature allows it to lock its video output to a reference video signal house sync such Hint Genlock refers to generator as black burst supplied to its Genlock input locking Professional video devices Connector This synchronizes TriCaster output to often provide a genlock input Other external equipment locked to the same which allows on external reference reference Genlocking is not an absolute signal often referred to as house require
98. and superb product support This chapter provides a quick tour of the major components of your V newTriGaster system 2 1 OVERVIEW Traditionally producing live high definition television has been very costly requiring very expensive equipment and a large crew TriCaster changed all that In one compact system you can have a complete set of tools to create broadcast web stream and project your production TriCaster even includes NewTek s revolutionary LiveSet system to provide you with network quality virtual sets for bigger than life production capabilities TriCaster thus sets a new benchmark for portable live production Simply put it is the most complete reliable and efficient system available for live production and web streaming Its capabilities are equally well suited to broadcast center control room installation or remote production location and it requires just one person to operate No matter what your live broadcast ambitions are a TriCaster can help you fulfil them With TriCaster you can produce and distribute live video programs from diverse sources and materials in both Standard and High Definition Use multiple cameras recorded digital video PowerPoint presentations on networked laptops live web pages digital photos and graphics and much more TriCaster also supports Apple s AirPlay protocol allowing compatible off the shelf mobile Video devices such as iPhone and iP
99. ason we ve devoted a whole chapter in this manual to discussing it and Crop please see Chapter 11 When LiveMatte is enabled for a specific source a small green indicator is displayed in the upper right corner above the corresponding monitor in any of the three main monitor tabs Similarly Crop shows a blue indicator These lights are actually interactive toggle switches 7 3 TIMECODE CONFIGURATION TriCaster can supply production time values based on the system clock when necessary To access timecode options click the small gear icon next to the timecode display at right in the ttlebar of the Live Desktop Figure 35 Hint You can set TriCaster s system clack just as you would far any computer by first exit to the Windows desktop TriCaster EHTREME systems can optionally use an external linear timecode LTC reference to drive its clocks and timecode for capture We ll discuss the shared timecode features first and then focus on the unique aspects of the timecode support in Tricaster EHTREME in Section 7 3 2 7 3 1 SUBTRACT 12 HOURS The current time value is embedded in the frames of MPEG 2 video files captured during the session using TriCaster s Record function For this reason a switch labeled Subtract 12 Hours is provided This permits you to avoid confusion that might arise when sequencing files based on timecode that wraps around past midnight Otherwise for example a
100. ayers are specialized variants of a single module intended for specific and complementary purposes The foremost difference between players is in the file formats they each support and even that distinction is not rigidly adhered to as we will see The Title player when present is principally intended for display and management of title pages both those based on TriCaster s integrated titling system and titles prepared as image files in third party applications Even so if you wished you could use it as a secondary media player for a playlist consisting of photographs for example Similarly the Stil player is meant for still images photos graphics and the like but you are not prevented from adding title pages to its playlist if you like you can even edit a title page in Still just as you can in Title You can see that the difference in these two modules is really no difference at all And as mentioned earlier TriCaster 450 models combine both the functionality of both Stil and Title players in a unified Graphics module Of the various Media Players however only the two DDRs have the capability to play video clips including motion titles such as scrolls Like the other two though it can also host images audio files or ttle pages The purpose of the Sound player is self explanatory and perhaps it is obvious why it alone is not represented by a Switcher row button Sound will play back standard wav or mp3 f
101. ber of excellent references REFERENCE TYPE The bi level reference signal long used for standard definition television is often used for genlocking both SD and HD installations However if you are supplying an HD reference signal to TriCaster s Genlock Input and your other equipment select the HD Tri evel switch in the Reference Type area of TriCaster s Genlock settings Nate Reference Type options da not appear for SD sessions 7 1 7 CENTER FREQUENCY This setting is applied when a Genlock reference signal is not in use To adjust the setting supply color bars to an input and pass TriCaster s video output to a downstream vectorscope The vectorscope display is completely stable when Center Frequency is properly adjusted 7 2 INPUT CONFIGURATION Just as for Program Output the source monitors also have contextual tools that appear when you roll the mouse pointer over them In every case the right most button is a Configure button gear Clicking it opens the Configuration panel for a specific source Figure 135 Figure 135 7 2 1 CONNECTION TYPE The Configuration panel for the Camera inputs features a Connection Type menu at the top of its Input Settings tab Connection Type menu options vary depending on the Video Standard for the session TriCaster Multi tandard provides PAL and NTSC session options in addition to NTSC The Connection Type menu options for a PAL session list PAL HD and SD
102. ble click the dmg file to mount it Drag the jVGA icon from the finder to your Applications folder Run it by double clicking the icon and in a moment or two the IVGA swirl will be placed in your Dock and an onscreen dialog reporting iVGA Ready and listening When you roll your mouse over the Net 1 or Net 2 monitors in TriCaster s All Monitors tab a triangular button appears next to the Configure button gear The new source your Mac desktop will be listed in the drop down selection menu that opens when you click the triangle Hint A single iVGA source cannat be connected ta both Net 1 and Net 2 simultaneously When iVGA is running the icon in the OS X Dock has a menu you can access by right clicking it i dic S Privacy Mode Engaging Privacy Mode prevents the client papel we display from appearing accidentally on the TriCaster display when you don t want it to tor 1 Monitor Keynote M Keynote Mode allows the VGA client to update Option the screen even if Keynote is running This also can be used with some games though the framerate will likely be only one frame per second vou can set iVGA to show either desktop monitor when you have more than one attached using the Monitor 1 or Monitor 2 options in the The Options list contains settings for Open at Login Remove from Dock and Show in Finder 14 1 2 IVGA FOR WINDOWS The NGA installation for Micr
103. but first let s consider a fundamental TriCaster concept the session What is a session and why are sessions both important and valuable to you 5 1 INTRODUCTION TO SESSIONS Whenever you work with TriCaster you provide certain information about the production environment What broadcast standard is used in your locale Is it PAL common in Europe among other places or perhaps NTSC standard throughout North American regions if your task includes cameras or other live sources are they HD SD or both How are cameras connected are you perhaps using component or SDI connections or a mixture of several types As you continue you may make other adjustments relevant to your current production requirements You might calibrate your cameras individually using the Proc Amp settings in the Input Configuration panels If your production plans include the use of greenscreen staging you will adjust the LiveMatte settings for one or more cameras to provide optimal keying Perhaps you will use the output Proc Amps to adjust the display sent to a projection system What are your output device connection preferences For example will you send video toa local reference monitor using an S Video or composite cable etc Do you intend to connect to a projection system What external audio connections and adjustments are required You might create a playlist of custom title pages in a Media Player along with preset an
104. cally ears itself a few moments later so as not to pose an unnecessary distraction 6 5 2 EJECT Figure 123 Clicking the Eject button near the titlebar s Exit button allows you to choose a drive to be safely disconnected from Tricaster 1 0 CONFIGURATION TriCaster provides extensive control over your video signal at both input and output stages Every video source has its own realtime Proc Amp and keyer via LiveMatte As wel TriCaster supports independent Proc Amp settings for its Program and Multivew outputs It is very useful to be able to adjust each source and also the output stream independently TriCaster s plentiful configuration options ensure that you can match camera inputs to each other and that their signals fall within legal ranges it s best to use camera white balance controls whenever possible mind you Output proc amp settings allow you to compensate for specific circumstances For example independent Proc Amp controls make it simple to tweak the Multiview output to conform to local conditions such as projector color temperature variations projection surface color and physical lighting conditions without affecting the video output streams Let s begin with a consideration of Output Configuration tools 7 1 OUTPUT CONFIGURATION B Roll the mouse pointer over Program Output to reveal a Configure button Figure 124 above the top right corner of the display Click it to open th
105. ct the Quality setting you wish to use A 4 3 IMPORT MEDIA FILES Importing files implies copying them into the TriCaster session folders making them local rather than external To import media files 1 Open or create a TriCaster session 2 Click the Manage icon in the Startup Screen s Session Page 3 Click the Import Media button below the Browse list 4 Use the Import Media module that opens to create a list of files you wish to import into the current session and click the Import button Hint You may know that external files can be used in a session without being imported by adding them to Media Player playlists using the Add Media Location feature However such external files used in a session will not be included in session backups unless they are deliberately imported during the backup process nor are they deleted when sessions ore deleted Also the transfer speed of many external devices is tao slow for reliable playback of media content making it wise to use Import instead whenever possible A 4 4 PREPARE CLIPS WITH EMBEDDED ALPHA CHANNEL Probably the best format to use for fles with embedded alpha channel for use in TriCaster are those encoded using NewTek s own SpeedHQ 4 2 2 4 codec This format can serve for either SD or HD clips and represents a high quality moderately compressed alternative As a registered NewTek customer you can download the NewTek Multi Codec Pac
106. ction affects scale equally on both axes Otherwise dragging vertically on Scale changes the height while dragging horizontally affects width Hint if you click a numeric field or right click it you can type a value into the gadget using the keyboard press Enter to complete the editing action or Esc to cancel it Again if you drag just one of the numeric gadgets below the Scale button with the lock disabled or hold down Ctrl while doing so you modify just one dimension of the DSK layer width or height Individual settings such as Rotation or Size can be reset with one by clicking Reset Positioning and the settings can be globally toggled on or off by licking the Position buttons in the Overlay section of the Switcher Hint See Section 10 3 Frome Buffers for a discussion of this special source option DSK TRANSPARENCY Remember that the source for a DSK layer is selected using the Switcher s Utility row Some DSK sources may be partially transparent This might be because they are drawn from a Media Player DDR Still or Title file that includes an embedded alpha channel because LiveMatte or Cropping are enabled for the source or even all of the above Regardless DSK layers will automatically respect transparency when the source supplies it The BKGD layer and for DSK 2 its lower numbered sibling will appear through or around sources with transparency as appropriate Impor
107. d playlists for clips in the DDRs During the course of the actual live production you may perform further fine tuning and also add ta the media content available e You could grab a series of still mages from Program Output And capture the network Stream output as a file The list of adjustments activities and assets involved in a specific production goes on but the main point to grasp here is that the session is comprised of all of the above collectively Assuming you do not deliberately delete the session all of your session media and all of your session settings are ready for immediate recall When you re open an existing session it s just as if you were continuing an earlier event Thus if you retur to the same venue another day under more or less similar conditions simply re open Your prior session and you are virtually ready to go Of course it s the course of wisdom to test everything before actually beginning the event Naturally you can store multiple sessions and load any session freely This greatly simplifies business models that involve regular trips to several locations a number of unique episodic programs or different users with their own specific needs 5 2 THE HOME PAGE Figuesi Having discussed sessions les go on to consider how you create sessions and choose which one to work on This and a few other top level functions are found in the TriCaster s Home Page This primary screen is the first thin
108. e click the icon to select it and then click OK S You may wish to add several more files to experiment with DDR 1 and 2 also support most popular audio flle formats Hint See also the sub heading entitled Section 10 2 1 regarding per cip audio levels In TriCaster EHTREME only the playlist of the two DDRs as wellas Sounds have an additional audio feature The icons of files with audio will display a small configure gear icon at lower right Click this icon to pop up a small evel slider Figure 172 Nate When playing files located in TriCaster s capture folders DDRs automatically adjust the audio level according to the current Audio Headroom setting In the Record Configuration panel This results in on improved match between the default playback level for captured audio ond imported sounds or music for which nominal levels are unknown TRANSPORT CONTROLS amp Click the newly added icon in the playlist and press the Play button in the player s footer Figure 65 a The video clip you recorded should play on the DDR onscreen monitor All Monitors view b Click DDR 1 on the Switcher s Program row it will appear on Program Output 7 Click the Stop button Notice that if you move the mouse pointer over the Speed slider it changes to a double headed arrow indicating you can drag the slider to a new value if you wish B Instead try this simply click inside the Speed slider en
109. e and can be set up in the Live Desktop Output Configuration panel o For TriCaster 850 and TriCaster 850 EHTREME Row 2 outputs a secondary configurable copy of the main Program video stream Tricaster 450 and TriCaster 450 GHTREME employ Row 2 to supply the AUX video output which has even more options TriCaster 850 and TriCaster 850 EHTREME only provide a third video output row and use it to present AUX output 1 Connect downstream video devices to the appropriate output connectors in the VIDEO OUT section whether SDI Component Y C BNC or Composite Please note that the latter two formats may require RCA cinch plug or S video 4 pin mini DIN to BNC adapters and also that both of these connection options support output at SD resolution only a SDI Attach SDI connectors to the uppermost row of BNC connectors in the VIDEO OUT group labeled 1 2 and AUX Hint if your equipment supports SDI this i your best quality option b Component Attach your device to the second third and fourth BNC connectors Y Pb and Pr Figure 16 c WC If your S Video equipment and cabling has the usual 4 pin mini DIN connectors you will need an S Video to dual BNC adapter Attach the Y luma connector of your device to the second analog BNC connector row labeled Pb at far left in the VIDEO IN group Attach the C chroma connector to the third analog connector labeled Pr
110. e you can download and use the Adobe FAV Post Processor tool available from the URL below requires an account to login httos wwnw adobe com cfusion entitiement index cfm eventecustom amp skusFS00005228 A 3 11 CHANGE COLORS FOR AN ENTIRE TITLE PLAYLIST AT ONCE You can quickly alter the default colors for a complete playlist of Title Pages in a Media Player such as Titles 1 Select the button for the player containing the titles on the Preview row of the Switcher 2 Click the Configuration gear button for the player s onscreen monitor to access the Proc Amp 3 Click and drag the Hue slider left or right swinging colors through the spectrum Observe that black and white graphics and titles are unaffected by the hue shift In many cases this allows you to modify background imagery without any effect on text objects which are often white A 3 12 GET LIVE TITLE PAGES CGXML TO RESPECT ALL LIVETEXT FONT ATTRIBUTES TriCaster s Title Page file format cgxmi presently supports almost every attribute that LiveText offers but there are a few exceptions For example multiple font styles on one text line are not supported which means that different words on a single line cannot be different colors or use different typefaces Of course you can achieve the same effect by using additional text objects as necessary For similar reasons text entered as paragraphs is automatically spit into multiple lines in cgx
111. e File menu s Close item 17 2 LIVETEXT LiveText projects are launched from the Session Page in TriCaster s Startup Screen After creating a new session or opening an existing one click Graphics on the icon ring see Section 5 3 This reveals options and links at right discussed previously in the Startup Screen chapter just mentioned 17 2 1 SESSIONS PROJECTS AND DISPLAY LiveText uses the current session settings for output to TCXD850 video outputs new projects created within the LiveText File menu or from the Session Page and bitmap file exports If you use the File menu to Open a project whose settings do not correspond to the current session settings TriCaster will attempt to display it on its hardware video outputs if possible LiveText sends output from the canvas to TriCaster s outputs continuously while running For this reason the Live Display pane and associated tools that appear at upper right above the Pages Panel in LiveText standalone do not appear in TriCaster s LiveText interface When LiveText is running TriCaster s video outputs rows 1 3 will all conform to the session format That is ifthe project is HD the SDI outputs wil all be HD and the analog outputs will be Component HD Likewise when the project is SD the SDI outputs will all be SD As there are multiple connection options for analog SD video please refer to the following table in this case rownumver sor Tansionanca anion Bnez Anal
112. e Output Configuration panel Figure 125 Figure 125 NOTE The format for TriCaster s Program output including HOMI is dictated by the session format At th time of writing certain less common session formats are not supported by typical downstream monitors and devices The Aux video output provides more configuration options and may provide an alternative in such situations 7 1 1 OUTPUT CONTROLS Output Configuration contains tabbed panes providing Output c Proc Amp processing amplifier controls for TriCaster s primary output e SD Analog Connection configuration controls Aux output configuration controls gt Including Output Alpha Matte Muttiview Proc Amp controls for Multiview output c Multiview output display options Genlock Genlock calibration controls o Center Frequency setting This panel closes when you click the Close button or click outside the panel 7 1 2 PROC AMP Proc Amp adjustments can be toggled on and off using the Enable Proc Amp switch at upper left in the Main and Multiview panes note that the Multiview output Proc Amp affects only Program and Preview displays or reset by clicking the Restore Defaults button Each Proc Amp has numeric slider controls for Brightness Adjustment range from 50 to 50 IRE the default being 0 As reference the full luminance range of the visible portion of a video signal can be thought of as 100 IRE units na
113. e VGA Output Resolution you chaose corresponds to that of the monitor connected see Section 7 1 5 NOTE Changing Output Resolution can couse frames to be dropped briefly Thus we do not recommend changing this setting during live production A 3 15 VIEW MEDIA PLAYER TIME DATA ON MULTIVIEW OUT WHEN SET TO ALL SOURCES Space limitations prevent TriCaster from displaying timecode fields beneath monitors on Multiview output when VGA Output Resolution is set to 720x480 AA FILES A41 MANAGE FILES Please refer to the item How do I Manage Selected Content inside a Session Section A 2 7 A 4 2 CHANGE THE MPEG 2 RECORDING QUALITY TriCaster has two optional quality settings for recording live video as MPEG 2 Normal Profile Compatibility Mode and High Profile Both of these alternatives record rame only MPEG2 files at a rate of approximately 100mbps for HD video or half that for SD sessions The Normal setting produces a standard profile MPEG2 with 42 0 encoding and has best compatibility with third party products High quality files comply with the MPEG2 high profile standard resulting in 4 2 2 encoding at the expense of slightly less cross product compatibility To change the setting 1 Open a TriCaster session 2 Access Record Configuration by clicking the gear icon just right of the Record button beneath the Program monitor 3 Use the Encoding menu to sele
114. e is enabled and configured in the Live Desktop see Sections 3 16 and 7 3 3 7 OUTPUT CONNECTIONS Next we ll discuss the audio and video output connectors along with relevant settings We ll start with video output not only so you can view your results but because some aspects are best considered before even beginning a TriCaster session 3 7 2 A V oureuT TriCaster provides separate video and audio output connector groups and very flexible options for display of your live and recorded video streams Here are some of the possibilities Simultaneously send output to standard and or high definition devices from HD sessions Simultaneously send program output to both analog and digital devices Send program output or other layouts to a secondary monitor or projector using Multiview Stream program output to the Internet via a suitable network connection 3 1 3 HD AND SD As mentioned earlier for HD sessions TriCaster supports simultaneous output of both SD Standard Definition and HD High Definition video The Video Output section on TriCaster s backplate provides vertical columns of four BNC connectors offering the following connection possibilities for live production Row 1 video output format is determined by the session see Section 5 1 c When the session is SD 4 3 or 16 9 output is likewise SD 4 3 or 16 9 When the session is HD output is HD Row 2 outputs are user configurabl
115. e session containing the content you wish to delete in the Home Page of the Startup Screen 2 Click the Manage icon on the Session Page 3 Under Browse at right click the link for the type of content you wish to manage see the sub heading Manage in Section 5 3 A28 RENAME A SESSION 1 Make sure all drives that have session data on them such as captured clips are inserted 2 Right click the name of the session you want to rename in the Home Page of the Startup Screen 3 Choose Rename from the menu that appears A 2 9 DUPLICATE A SESSION It can be very useful to make a copy of a session For example it might often take less time to modify a copy of an existing session than to configure an entirely new one 1 Backup a session see Section A 2 4 2 Rename the current session see Section A 2 8 3 Restore the backed up session see Section A 2 5 A 3 LIVE PRODUCTION A3 1 MAKE CUSTOM TRANSITIONS AND LIVESETS The animation Store Creator application is included with TriCaster 850 EXTREME It s documentation can be accessed from the Help menu on the Home Page in Startup As well an optional user friendly tool called TriCaster Virtual Set Editor is available This tool makes it easy to modify LiveSets to suit your specific needs Other powerful tools are available in the LiveSet Creation SDK a command line tool provided for serious LiveSet developers Send email to liveset newtek com
116. e shown with a white border 12 4 5 INPUT POSITION We discussed the Position controls for video Inputs A and B back in Section 12 2 It s worth adding here that these controls when active do affect the scale rotation and position for Liveset video inputs this is another unique advantage of this LiveSet implementation You will find that you can often use Position controls to ensure a good fit and natural appearance of talent or other source appearing in your virtual sets greatly reducing the need to fuss with physical camera positions to do so 12 4 6 ANIMATE ZOOM 002000 002000 003000 F 000500 gure 202 As noted earlier you can use the Zoom T Bar to manually zoom in on most LiveSets even when displayed on Program Output The Animate Zoom switch makes it possible to easily perform this realtime zoom automatically with a single click With Animate Zoom enabled simply clicking a preset automatically zooms from the current position to the virtual camera distance represented by the preset A built in ease in out is applied to ensure a smooth zoom The duration for the animated zoom is controlled by a menu beside the Animate Zoom switch This works just like the similar Duration menu buttons in the Switcher s Transitions section Providing instant access to three preset durations Alternatively click and drag in the neighboring numeric field to set a custom duration or click the field once more to ent
117. ea of what your local bandwidth really is One site which provides a list of online speed test resourcesis http www dslreports com speedtest more 1 15 8 2 IS IT REALLY A TRICASTER ISSUE With regard to streaming issues don t overlook the fact that TriCaster is just one of the pieces of the puzzle There are many others that are just as important Here are some useful things to try ccc THe RE Archive the streaming output file locally and then examine it to see if it has any problems This file corresponds exactly to what TriCaster is sending the downstream server In cases of sync problems low frame rate problems audio popping problems etc if it s a TriCaster issue the problem will be seen in this file On the other hand if the file looks good then the issue has to be up stream of the TriCaster DROPPED FRAMES To really confirm that TriCaster is outputting the frame rate you chose ie not dropping frames you can edit a profile inside Flash to cause FMLE to write out frame rate stats These settings apply when using the TriCaster which lets you verify that itis uploading the stream at the rate designated In FMLE select the Encoding tab and check mark Log To File 16 RECORD AND GRAB You will often want to capture video clips from external sources as well as to record your own outgoing live production Similarly it can be quite useful to be able to grab stills from Program output for use in the current prod
118. ected on the Program row 18 Enable the Autoplay switch for DDR 1 19 Play the first clip in the playlist again This time just as the clip approaches its end the Switcher automatically performs a transition the sources on Program and Preview are automatically swapped leaving Camera 1 on Program output 20 After a few moments click either Take or Transition in the Switcher s Transition section Notice that a transition is performed returning DDR 1 from Preview to Program and more importantly the next item in the playlist begins to play automatically right on time When it ends another automatic transition occurs restoring Camera 1 to Program output Let s try Autoplay without Single mode 21 Click Stop if necessary 22 Uncheck Single leaving Autoplay engaged 23 With DDR 1 on Program and Camera 1 on Preview highlight a fairly long clip say a minute or more 24 Click Play 25 After a few seconds perform a Take and watch what happens a Naturally DDR 1 and Camera 1 are swapped on the Switcher b DDR playback is stopped at the current frame of the current clip 26 Perform another Take a As expected DDR 1 is restored to Program output b Playback re commences at the next frame of the current clip The DDR did not automaticaly jump ahead to the next clip this time You may find Single mode your usual choice but it can be useful to turn it off as just described at other times Perhaps a li
119. ection 3 7 2 TriCaster s VIDEO OUT connectors can variously output HD or SD or even both simultaneously The second row referred to as the Aux Auxiliary video output is somewhat unique and in consequence is discussed separately in the next section Let s consider the different configuration possibilities for Program video output Row 1 First note that the Program video output format always matches the session In turn this means its HD video output will be either 1080 or 720 Let s consider how this affects the SD Analog Connection options offered The sole analog video connection type commonly supporting HD is Component Consequently the analog Connection Type for HD sessions is always Component SD Analog Connection options are ghosted This means that the four BNC connectors for Program Row 1 output will be automatically configured as HD SDI and HD Component three connectors Y Pr and Pb for all HD sessions Somewhat similarly for SD sessions Row 1 outputs SD video If the session is 4 3 output is also 4 3 When the session is 18 3 video output is also 16 9 Additional Connection Type options are made available for SD sessions Select between Composite Y C or Component connection types Choosing Component or Composite Y C results in the output connectors in the corresponding row being configured as shown in the following table Connection Type BNCI SDI BNCz Y BNC3 PE eNCA iPr Comp
120. ection of the Live Desktop holds side by side tabbed panels featuring media players DDR Still and Title Virtual Input setup and the Audio Mixer 2 4 FEATURES Here s a brief overview of just some of TriCaster s key features 2 4 1 PHYS RICASTER 450 amp T Rugged 2U rack mount case ensures robust reliable and quiet performance in fixed or mobile installations FTRICASTER 850 amp TRICASTER 850 EHTREME Massive storage capacity the internal drive holds approximately 20 hours of 1080 and the removable drive bay can be used to add to this capacity TriCaster 450 EXTREME ships with an extra 1TB drive for this purpose All audio and video monitoring and network connectors are easily accessible from the rear for convenient installation in industry standard 19 rack mount configurations Audio and video connectors are industry standard XR phono or BNC as appropriate ensuring broad compatibility and secure locked connections Headphone output uses a standard 1 4 stereo phone jack and an HDMI port supplies an added Program output Rugged 4U rackmount case with redundant power supplies ensures robust reliable and quiet performance in fixed or mobile installations Massive storage capacity the internal drive holds approximately 50 hours of 1080 and the removable drive bay can be used to add to this capacity TriCaster 850 EXTREME ships with an extra 2TB drive for this purpose All audi
121. ed as Output 1 a k a Program out Note that the video format for Row 1 output and for TriCaster 850 models Row 2 invariably conforms to the format you chose for the session e g 1080 The only suitable analog connection type for HD is component so the SD Analog Connection options are ghosted in HD sessions By contrast SD sessions do support several optional connection types Choose between Component connection or Composite Y Cin this case Selecting Composite C sends composite video output to the second BNC connector in an output row Y and Y C to the third and fourth connectors Pb and Pr respectively 3 11 CONFIGURE AUX VIDEO OUTPUT The Aux video output allows you to choose a different video source for Congoresti output if you wish using the Source Fgure23 You can also choose from a wide array of output formats and opt to send either the Master or Aux audio mix to accompany it Aux configuration and options are detailed later in Section 7 1 4 3 12 CONFIGURE MULTIVIEW OUTPUT The next tab in the Output Configuration panel is Multiview Settings in this tab determine what is displayed on TriCaster s secondary DVI output and the resolution of that display You might use this output for subsidiary monitoring purposes or perhaps to supply a projection system The Screen Layout drop down menu provides numerous optional displays including Program Preview or FX monitors an All Sources
122. ed on or off by clicking the Position button located to the left of the Configure button gear You will likely have realized by now that simply using the Virtua Input controls considered so far you could scale a live video source down and position it above another source to create a picture in picture effect or even two live insets with a black background 12 3 OVERLAY Figure 195 Another switcher style source selector is situated right above the Input A row in Virtual Input tabs It is labeled Overlay Just above that at right you will also see local transition controls that are quite similar to those found in the Switcher s Transition pane Really the Virtual Input Overlay feature matches the DSK channels found in the Switcher s main Transition section in almost all respects Unlike the DSKs though its inclusion in Virtual Input tabs make ita pre Switcher sub layer along with Input A and B This means that the Overlay is applied before that composition is sent to the Switcher Thus content in a VI Overlay appears beneath anything displayed via the two Switcher DSK channels The Overlay selection and Position controls work just like their Input A and B cousins discussed earlier see Section 12 2 12 4 LIVESET This brings us to the LiveSet section of the Virtual Input tab LiveSet allows you to achieve the look of a large sophisticated studio setting Figure 197 within a very small studio space Figure 196 witho
123. el 1 When the slider reaches the extreme left position the sound from Mic 2 is now entirely sent to output channel 1 Figures Hint In their default center position the two Pan controls have exactly the same effect as clicking Mono Actually this is why a Mona is not needed in this case Pan thus provides precise control over where the audio from either Mic input is heard whether exclusively on output channel 1 2 or whether differing levels from either source is sent to both outputs 4 4 3 TALK Talk is an abbreviation of Talk Over The Talk feature is only shown for inputs when they are set to Mic 17 Start the Sound player playing the audio tone file again 18 With Input 1 set to Mic 1 2 enable its Talk switch watching the Sound player s VU meter as you do so Enabling it causes the level for all other audio sources to drop off by 20dB allowing Mic 1 and 2 to dominate output This is very useful for public address announcements which is its principal purpose 44 4 FOLLOW gure as 18 Connect cameras to both Video In rows 1 and 2 20 Connect two audibly different active audio sources to Audio In rows 1 and 2 21 Enable the Follow switch in the Audio Mixer for both Input 1 and Input 2 22 Select the button for video Input 1 on the Switcher s Program row 23 Select the button for video Input 2 on the Switcher s Preview row 24 Click the Audio Mixer tab 25 Click the Suitcher s
124. el 2 for example Rather Balance regulates the levels for one pair of channels 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 at a time and does not affect the other pair in doing so Let s consider the effect of the Mono switch next 13 Center the Balance control once again so that you hear the mid tone exclusively from the left speaker and higher tone from the right only 14 Click the Mono switch Notice that now a blend of the channel 1 mid range tone and channel 2 higher tone issue from both speakers 15 To confirm that for yourself slide the Balance knob to the extreme left Although sound is now issuing only from the left speaker you can hear both tones 16 Click Stop in the Sound player Nate tl twa channels are never blended Mono switch has na effect on channels 3 and 4 The with channels 1 and 2 on output 4 4 2 PAN The Pan control looks much like the Balance slider but has special abilities Like Talk Pan is only available when the one of the two Mic input Types is chosen A Pon slider is provided for both channels of External Audio sources when Mic is selected Sliding the Pan knob left or right actually moves or pans the audio from its original channel onto its neighbor For example when the Pan knob for Mic 2 is at the extreme right all of the sound from that source is sent to output channel 2 Moving the slider leftward places an increasing amount of the sound from Mic 2 on output chann
125. eled VI BFR as the Input B source in the V1 tab D aster Figure ss 4 Note that the image you sent to the VI Frame Buffer now appears on the virtual monitor in the Liveset S Now right click the original TriCaster Logo w Bkgnd png icon in the Media Player and select Remove Observe that the correct image continues to appear when the LiveSet is displayed even though the original image file no longer exists in the playlist Actually the Send to Frame Buffer function copied the source file and placed it in a special folder C Tricaster effects Frame Buffer session_name It remains available there even when the original file is not only unavailable from the playlist but has actually been deleted from the hard drive TriCaster provides separate Frame Buffers for each Virtual Input which can be selected as Input A Input B or Overlay source for their respective Virtual Inputs and another for the main Switcher Important Hint Frame Buffer files can be updated across a network using any suitable application including Adobe Photashop when Share Frame Buffer an Network is enabled in the Live Desktop Options menu opened by the gear button at right beneath the Transition section of the Switcher See Section 10 3 for more information on Frame Buffers 4 12 STREAMING Sending your output to the world or the office can be nearly as easy as connecting TriCaster to the Internet or intranet and press
126. ely transparent when tolerances are critical Because the noise varies over time holes in the foreground can result and even worse these may flicker on and off from one frame to another LiveMatte s Luma Limit control makes it possible to overcome this issue In essence it restricts the chromakey operation based on luminance brightness values Dark foreground areas which typically cause the problems just described normally have quite different luminance values from the background color In simplest terms problem areas of this type can be decisively pulled back into the foreground by pre filtering the chromakey effect around a luminance threshold Generally try to set up the best key you can before raising the Luma Limit from its default value of zero no effect Then gradually raise the limit until you are pleased with the result 11 3 SPILL SUPPRESSION Figure 189 The term Spill refers to key color unintentionally reflected or spilled onto the foreground subject It s very common for a little green spill to occur on the shoulders of a person in a greenscreen shot for example The Spill controls when enabled remove key color spill in your scene by reducing the amount of that color in the foreground where it doesn t belong The net result is that it is eliminated or at least reduced to the point where it is not objectionable Use the Tolerance and Smoothness controls under Spill Suppression in similar fashio
127. emo Clips AS Software Maintenance and Updates ASA ImprovePerformance AS 2 Resolve Serious Instability or Dropped frames AS3 Update TriCaster ASA Update the Flash and or Windows Media Encoder AS S Install Virus Protection AS Install My Favorite Software or Codec ASJ Restore TriCaster to Original As Shipped Condition A6 Registration And Tech Support A61 RegiterTrCaster A2 Contact Technical Support A3 FindTriCaster s Hardware Firmware Revision Numbers A7 Miscellaneous ATA Access Windows AX2 Return to TriCaster from the Windows Desktop A73 Add A Custom Streaming Profile to the Configure Stream Connection Panel AB More Questions and Answers ABl Can I do anything to improve latency audio sync 8 2 Whyis my power supply beeping A amp 3 Why Do Some Thumbnail Icons Look Wrong Performance Considerations B1 Testing One Two B2 WGAand Performance B3 IMAG and Latency 8 3 1 Relativity and the Speed of Light 8 3 2 Latency and Your Audience 298 298 298 300 300 301 301 301 302 302 302 302 303 304 305 305 305 306 306 306 306 306 309 309 310 an 313 313 313 314 314 315 c D 8 3 3 latency and Your TriCaster Bi Other Sources of Latency Video Calibration ca c2 What And Where to Calibrate Calibrating Video Sources C21 Setting Black and White C22 Adjusting Color C23 Color Metrics ca Calibrati
128. end Program to AUX Out Send Program Clean to AUX Out Send FX to AUX Out Program Row Inputs 1 to Input x model limit Preview Row Inputs 1 to Input x model limit Transition Delegate select BKGD Transition Delegate multi select BKGD Transition Delegate select DSK 1 Transition Delegate multi select DSK 1 Transition Delegate select DSK 2 Transition Delegate multi select DSK 2 Transition Delegate select FTB Transition Delegate multi select FTB Select FTB Delegate and perform Fade Utility Delegate select FX Utility Delegate multi select FX Utility Delegate select AUX OUT Utility Delegate multi select AUX OUT Utility Delegate select DSK 1 Utility Delegate multi select DSK 1 Utility Delegate select DSK 2 Utility Delegate multi select DSK 2 Transition Overlay 1 On Off Transition Overlay 2 On Off Take Overlay 1 On Off Take Overlay 2 On Off Select Transition prev next Select Fade Transition Atra O plus Alt Shift 14 Alte Shift 5 Alt Shift 6 Alte Shift 7 Alte Shift 8 F1 F12 plus Shift F1 12 1 0 and Shift 1 0 Lkey left square bracket shift 1 key right square bracket shift key backslash Shift Backspace Shift Backspace ctrl b atl Shift Alt L Alte Shift Alt AtA Shift Alt Alt Backspace Shift Alt Backspace t Shift f d Shit d and comma and period nef
129. ent audio sources together This allows you to assign individual sources to groups identified by color Audio Groups are especially useful in two respects First a selected Audio Group can be assigned as the source for TriCasters Aux output see Section 13 3 1 e Audio Groups are also very useful in the context of Tricaster s Audio Follow Video feature see Section 13 1 4 Enabling the Follow switch for any member of a group affects the way the Follow feature works When a video source that corresponds to any group member is displayed on Program Out whether it is selected on the Switcher s Program row or perhaps via a DSK or Virtual Input the total contribution of the all members of the same Audio Group will be heard on output Audio Groups are very useful in connection with Follow Consider a typical scenario Two participants are behind a sports desk Cameras 1 2 and 3 are left center and right views and there are individual close up cameras as well 4 and 5 An external audio mixer is connected to TriCaster at Audio Input 1 Video clips will be played back from the DDR on demand Audio from Input 1 need to be heard whenever any camera 1 through 5 is on output When we switch to the DDR we want to hear DDR output exclusively To accomplish this we simply need to assign Inputs 1 through 5 to the same group in the mixer and enable the Follow switch for Input 1 and the DDR 13 2 INTERNAL AUDIO Besides e
130. er sub heading selected in the Location List Recursion is deeper infinite for default locations Note External devices used with Add Media Location must be fast enough to support realtime playback of the files on it Really it s better ta use the Import feature instead of Add Media Location but the latter can be handy for those times when you need to add smaller files wish after your production is already underway Click Browse to substitute open and use a standard system file explorer for file selection rather than the custom Media Browser Hint To jump to the standard system file explorer rather than the custom Media Browser from a Media Player hold keyboard Shift while clicking the Add button FILE PANE Icons appearing in the File Pane represent content located inside the sub heading selected at left in the Locations List These are grouped under horizontal dividers named for sub folders which allows related content to be organized conveniently FILE FILTERS The File Pane view is filtered to show only relevant content For example when selecting Livesets the browser only shows Liveset files vst An additional filter appears above the File Pane This is a smart filter which quickly locates files matching criteria you enter doing so even as you type For example if you enter wav into the filter field the File Pane would display all content at the current location with that string as par
131. er a value directly using the keyboard The maximum duration for an animated zoom is 120 seconds Hint Livesets each zoom in on a predetermined target A given group of Livesets may offer variations an the basic set that allow you to zoom in on an actor at center stage or a virtual monitor situated on a desk beside the talent or something else entirely You will find many je uses for the different versions of the Live Tan ess than 100 years ago movies were silent We ve come a very long way since The Jazz Singer 1927 Warner Bros High quality audio and audio management tools are almost certainly a T f requirement for your live productions When it comes to audio TriCaster provides professional quality T andeonvenience which wel explore in this chapter External audio connections and configuration were briefly discussed back in Sections 3 4 1 and 3 7 1 You ll observe that there are two side by side audio tabs External Audio at left and Internal Audio on the right Figure 203 and Figure 204 External Audio controls govern all external audio sources including sound from TriCaster s analog XLR and digital SDI embedded sources The Internal Audio pane provides control over internal audio sources like the Media Players along with controls for TriCaster s several audio output streams Compact sub panels in each tabbed pane provide configuration and control for o
132. er is added along with Black and any other networked systems with iVGA running on them to the IVGA client list Note Gigabit networking is highly recommended and should be considered mandatory for HD sessions in porticulor gure as When TriCaster recognizes qualified network sources it adds them to a drop down menu for quick selection Figure 45 4 Move your mouse pointer over a Network monitor in the All Monitors tabbed view 5 Click the triangular menu button above the monitor to select a networked source or change the current selection from the menu that appears Hint VGA places a red green blue status icon on the client system Far a Windows based system the icon is in the task tray on Macintosh systems it is shown in the dock This indicates this computer s display is ready to send to TriCaster The icon is animated when the IVGA source is selected as the active Network source in TriCaster 4 5 2 APPLE AIRPLAY See Section 14 2 for details on using devices and applications supporting Apple Airlay as network sources for TriCaster 4 5 3 LIVETEXT NewTek s optional standalone LiveText application offers features that are very similar to TriCaster s integrated LiveText see Chapter 17 but installs separately on a compatible Microsoft Windows computer A networked LiveText workstation effectively constitutes a dedicated CG and title solution for Tricaster
133. es enable this support please see Section 13 4 for more detail 3 17 NETWORKING TriCaster is capable of displaying screens from networked computers running NewTek s iVGA lent software output from other supported applications such as NewTek s own LiveText or media streamed via from Apple AirPlay to a connected network Connecting TriCaster to a local area network LAN may require additional steps beyond those mentioned back when we discussed Microsoft Windows activation Section 3 2 Here is the basic procedure involved in joining a workgroup 1 Connect a suitable cable from the ETHERNET port on TriCaster s backplate to your external network 2 f necessary close the Live Desktop click the Back arrow to return to the Home Page 3 Click Shutdown then select Exit to Windows at right to access the operating system s own desktop 4 Right click on the My Computer icon and select Properties S Scroll down in the right hand pane of the System panel that opens to find the Computer name domain and workgroups settings area amp Click the Change Settings link at right 7 Click the Computer Name tab of the System Properties panel that opens 8 Click the Change button and enter the name of your local workgroup as provided by your system administrator 3 Close the OK button 10 Close the System control panel 11 Atthis point the network connection should be functional If further help con
134. essed the amount of compression and the manner in which it is applied are both dictated by the other settings RATIO A Ratio of 4 1 means that if input level is 4 dB over the threshold the output signal level after compression will be just 1 dB over the threshold The gain level is reduced by 3 da Very high ratio settings are the reason for the word limiter is part of the title for this feature The highest ratio setting will effectively reduce any signal that would rise above the threshold all the way down to the threshold level with the exception of a brief period during a sudden increase in source loudness as dictated by the Attack setting ATTACK Attack like Release is labeled in milliseconds The setting represents the amount of time it takes for the gain to change by a specified amount It would not be grossly incorrect to think of this setting as changing the slope of a graph depicting how aggressively the compressor pursues the target value defined by applying the Ratio setting to the amount the signal surpasses the Threshold Shorter values are more aggressive while longer values are more subtle and tend to be less noticeable to the audience RELEASE Release is similar to Attack in many ways but refers instead to the speed with which the compression effect is removed as a source signal falls back on its own so that it no longer exceeds the Threshold Ica Naturally compression impacts the
135. essions 5 Output HO sessions as SD 4 3 or 16 9 and HD simultaneously from HD sessions Multiple Media Player modules allow you to insert pre recorded video music sounds and imagery into your live presentations Select Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh computers on the same network as Switcher inputs for your live productions using NewTek s NGA client Assign one or both Network inputs on the Switcher to receive AirPlay streams and switch ive or recorded content directly from your compatible Apple mobile device or computer o Mixinternal and external audio sources Supply external audio via analog or SDI Embedded audio Send Aux Auxiliary video output to a projection system or secondary monitor at resolutions up to 1920x1080 Send either Aux or Moster audio to the Aux audio outputs Take advantage of an additional Program output via an HDMI connector Broadcast your Program to the Internet 244 TIMECODE TriCaster generates and displays local timecode based on the system clock MPEG 2 recordings include full er frame time code TriCaster EHTREME models support industry standard LTC external timecode With IsoCorder recorded clips from multiple sources are easily aligned for synchronized post show editing using the embedded timecode 2 4 5 ALPHA CHANNEL I O TriCaster allows alternate video inputs to be configured as alpha channel inputs for the TriCaster swi
136. ettings are independent and apply even when the Crop in Input Configuration is not enabled The rest of the panel is devoted to Position settings At the top are three buttons Position Rotation and Scale viewed from left to right Click and drag on the Position button a double headed arrow to relocate the associated DSK layer vertically or horizontally within the frame Notice that by dragging left or right on either of the two numeric controls below you can adjust the position on a single You can also constrain mouse actions to one axis by holding down the Ctrl key before dragging Figure 158 In similar fashion drag the pointer over the Rotation button with the left mouse button depressed to turn the overlay source in 3D space as follows Drag left right to rotate the source about the Y vertical axis Drag up down to rotate the source about the X horizontal axis Drag while holding Alt down to rotate about the Z axis DSK loyers automaticaly appear temporariy on Preview when the Position panel is open regardless of the current Delegate selections or layer display state This frees you to tinker with Position Drag on a single numeric slider below or hold down Ctr while dragging to constrain rotation to one axis Dragging the cursor on the Scale button magnifying glass affects the size of the overlay When the nearby lock button is enabled dragging in any dire
137. etween showing current time and remaining time Reverse Direction enabling or disabling Warning Colors or toggling Playlist Duration on and off versus single playlist item duration Hint With Warning Colors enabled the time display provides visual indication that the playback d of play for th display turn amber When only five seconds are let the numbers are shown in red is nearing its end Ten seconds before th current item the digits in the t SINGLE Figure 178 Media Player playback normally conforms to typical playlist practice each item in the playlist playing back in orderly succession When Single mode is enabled playback stops when the Out Point of the current playlist item is reached unless Loop is also enabled in which case playback of the current item repeats until manually interrupted TRANSPORT CONTROLS A simple set of controls beneath the playlist pane provides all playback related functions Previous button go to previous playlist entry Stop clicking Stop when already stopped goes to the first frame Ploy Next button go to next playlist entry Not shown Double click an entry in the playlist pane to begin playback at the start of that playlist entry Loop repeat playback continuously respecting the Single switch state TAUTOPLAY When enabled the Autoplay switch has several important effects Firstly it initiates playback automatically when the associated Med
138. fault LiveMatte settings Tolerance and Smoothness are close enough for this little demonstration so you can close the Configuration panel now We ll look at the details of LiveMatte in more depth in Part Il the Reference section but already your result as viewed on Program output should look very similar to Figure 71 TriCaster doesn t stop here though Let s look a little more closely at TriCaster s powerful Virtual Inputs 4 10 VIRTUAL INPUTS Virtual Input buttons sitinnocuously on TriCaster s Switcher rows just like other video inputs but in fact they possess very powerful features They can be likened to the M E Mix Effect rows of a traditional video switcher in that they permit a composition to be prepared from multiple sources In addition to the two sources just considered Inputs A and B Virtual Inputs provide an integrated Overlay channel as well 4 10 1 COMPOSING INPUTS A AND B When we ended the previous section the simple weather map setup Figure 71 we created was on Program Out Again remember that LiveMatte is already enabled for the greenscreen shot from our previous exercise We can use a few of the unique features of Virtual Inputs to dress up our production For example we might want to transpose the greenscreen talent shot to one side placing it off center in the result 1 Click the Position button just to the right of the Input A row to open the Position panel Figure 75 for Input A
139. flections Such an arrangement may seem to work fora while then fail unpredictably If you are using a very long USB cable or a poor quality cable you should supply a powered hub at the end of the cable nearest the control surface then complete the connection with a short USB cable from the hub to TriCaster TCXDBSO CS An unpowered hub will be of no help A 1 7 INSERT REMOVE A DRIVE FROM TRICASTER S REMOVABLE DRIVE BAY 1 if TriCaster is running and if applicable Eject the hard drive you wish to remove see Section A 1 9 Open TriCaster s front panel Open the removable drive bay door Pull the hard drive currently in the drive bay if applicable to remove it Insert the new hard drive connector end first nawy Figure 248 Tricaster 850 shown 6 Close the drive bay door 7 CloseTriCaster s front panel SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION Q What hard drives are recommended for TriCaster s removable drive bay s A NewTek Sales offers additional hard drives for use in TriCaster s removable bays NewTek supplied storage media has been carefully tested to meet exacting specifications and can be expected to provide optimal performance and reliability Of course you are free to purchase storage media from other sources Keep in mind that manufacturer specifications and reviews may highlight favorable statistics focusing on results from typical Le less demanding operating environments Natura
140. for Customer Service follow Telephone US 1 800 862 7837 Outside Us 1 210 370 8000 Fax 210 370 8001 Note For Technical Support contact information please see Section A62 3 4 INPUT CONNECTIONS 3 4 1 CONNECT A V SOURCES External audio and video sources are connected to the appropriate inputs on TriCaster s backplate Figure 14 TriCaster 450 and TrCastr 4S0 EXTREME 9 89 90999089 weeeee ee 1 Connect video sources to the appropriate connectors in the VIDEO IN section whether SDI Component Y C S Video or Composite may require RCA to BNC adapter a SDI Attach SDI source connectors to upper row of BNC connectors in the Video In group marked SDI Hint If your equipment supports SDI this is your best quality 1 0 aptin b Component Attach the appropriate BNC connectors from your sources to all three analog BNC connectors labeled Y Pb and Pr in each column in the Video In group c VC If your S Video equipment and cabling has the usual 4 pin mini DIN connectors you will need an S Video to dual BNC adapter To connect Y C sources attach the Y luma connector of your source to the second analog BNC connector labeled Pb Attach the source s C chroma connector to the bottom connector labeled Pr d Composite Attach the composite source s connector may require an RCA to BNC adapter to the second connector labeled
141. for correct levels WAVEFORM MONITOR For video engineering purposes the scale between black and white is defined in IRE units IRE being an acronym for Institute of Radio Engineers White is pegged at 100 IRE For PAL and NTSC countries black is defined as 0 IRE For NTSC lands black properly sits at 7 5 IRE Using TriCaster s Waveform monitor in the Live Desktop s Preview Scopes tab you can actually see the IRE values for your video sources graphed on a vertical scale select the source on the Switcher s Preview row Figure 253 Confirming that the black and white levels your camera is sending TriCaster are correct is as simple as sending first black and then white and reading the value from the scale Connect your camera to the correct TriCaster input block the lens so it receives no illumination and check the level shown in the Waveform monitor For NTSC it should be 7 5 IRE for all others O IRE To check white use a standard white card or even a sheet of white paper Ensure that it is evenly illuminated with the same lighting your main subject will receive move or zoom to fill the Viewfinder with it and confirm that the Waveform monitor is showing 100 IRE If not you might try using your camera s Auto White Balance feature with the white card your camera manual will provide instructions Afterwards check the black level again Some more professional cameras offer full manual controls for white balance a
142. g you encounter on launching TriCaster It is dominated by the icon ring shown in Figure 91 When you click an icon on the ring such as New or Open that item advances to the front most position Hint Alternatively you con use the keyboard s left and right arrow keys to cycle through the icons on the ring Also when you choose an icon from the ring the right hand pane of the Home Page updates to provide more options related to your choice on Namo Enter Session Name Figures For example the first thing you will likely do on launching a new TriCaster is create a session In anticipation of that the New icon is automatically pre selected whenever no sessions already exist on TriCaster This results in the corresponding session options being displayed at right as shown in Figure 92 Multi standard model options shown 5 2 1 NEW SESSION As just mentioned clicking New on the icon ring populates the pane at right with related options Principally for each session you must designate by selecting switches your local video standard Multi standard model only select NTSC PAL or NTSC I and session format 1080i 1080 24p 1080 30p 720p 720 30p 720 24p 480 30 16 9 or 480 301 4 3 Multi standard models offer PAL format equivalents SESSION NAME You will see a suggested name for a new session listed above the options pane at right You can dick in this name field to modify the default name prov
143. gaging direct edit mode type 50 and press Enter to change the Speed to 50 3 Click Play again and observe that playback is naw in slow motion 10 Adjust Speed again notice that you can even modify Speed during playback 11 Click Stop TRIMMING AND SCRUBBING Let s spend a moment learning how to trim a clip in the DDR To do this you will use tools in the Scrub Barimmediately beneath the playlist pane Figure 66 Drag the Scrub Bar s square blue knob left or right to change the current play position Trimming is accomplished by dragging the start and end points for the clip using the blue and bracket controls at either end The mouse pointer changes to a double headed arrow when you move it over a trim control 12 Click the first top left clip in the playlist highlighting it 13 Drag the trim controls to shorten the clips runtime to 10 seconds watching the Duration display to the right of the Scrub Bar helps when trimming 14 Record a few more clips if you haven t already done so and add several to the playlist either automatically or by using the Add button SINGLE AND AUTOPLAY 15 Click the Single switch Figure 67 Figure 67 16 Double click the first clip in the DDR playlist to play it double clicking is another way to engage Play With Single mode engaged playback automatically stops at the end of the current dip 17 Select Camera 1 on the Switcher s Preview row DDR 1 is already sel
144. h Adabe Flash Media Live Encoder from the Windows Start menu Select Open Profile from the File menu in the encoder application Navigate to C TriCaster streaming Profiles FlashProfiles Continue to identify a profile xm file similar to the one you wish to create inside the appropriate sub folder at that location and click the Open button inthe file explorer In Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder modify the settings for the profile to suit your need Select Save Profile from the File menu Navigate again to the appropriate sub folder inside the main C TriCaster streaming Profiles FlashProfile directory supply a suitable name for the new profile and click the Save button 10 Exit Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder and re launch TriCaster SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION Q Does TriCaster support mult bitrate streaming profiles A Yes it does but there are a few things you should consider Multi bitrate encoding places higher demands on system resources than usual It is entirely possible to create a custom multi bitrate profile that is impractical either because its bandwidth expectations are unrealistic or because the encoding requires so many cpu cycles that it can intrude into other important live functionality For this reason we encourage you to use the profiles supplied with your system whenever possible and if you do opt to use a custom profile especially a multi bitrate one do perform meaningful testing in advance
145. he keyboard Shift key while double clicking the Gain knob 10 Click the Sound tab and then click the sound player s Play button If you have stereo speakers or headphones connected you should now hear two distinct tones a mid range tone from the left speaker connected to Output CH1 and a higher pitched tone from the right speaker connected to Output CH2 Hint f you happen to have a surround sound speaker setup with front and rear speakers you yr another jen lower tone coming from the rear speakers 11 The VU meter for Sound in the Internal Audio tab will show matching levels for all four input channels 12 Next drag the Balance slider all the way to the left As you do 5o observe that the level shown for channel 2 and channel 4 are gradually reduced At the extreme left position these two channels are completely silent Only the mid range tone on channel 1 is heard in a stereo environment and only from the left speaker at that Moving the slider to the right of center has the opposite effect reducing channels 1 and 3 doing so without any effect on the other 2 channels At the extreme right position only the mid range tone from the DDR file is audible and only from the right speaker Figure a The lesson here is that unlike either Mono or Pan considered shortly Balance does not move audio from one channel to another You cannot use Balance to blend channel 1 with chann
146. he Internet simply click the button under Step 2 in the registration dialog This will take you to the Registration page http register newtek com in the Customer Care section of NewTek s website where you will find further directions Hint Mare information on connecting TriCaster ta a network can be found in Section 3 16 ond Chapter 14 Otherwise you can visit the registration webpage from another system with Internet access In either case after registering on the website enter the resulting registration code into the field provided at Step 4 of the dialog Hint IP a very goad idea to record the login name and password you choose when creating your Website profile and keep them in a sofe place Jot down registration code too it could come in very handy if you ever need to restore the TriCaster software to its as shipped state when you don t have access to the Internet Check your personal area of the site from time to time afterward among other things you ll be able to download any free software updates that are made available going forward 3 3 1 REGISTERING BY TELEPHONE NewTek s Customer Care center can also handle registration requests by telephone if that is more convenient when opportunity permits you should stil visit the website as discussed above to gain access to software updates Please have your Product ID from the Registration dialog mentioned earlier handy when you call The phone numbers
147. he play position is automatically set to the In Point on selection Standard Shift click and Ctrl click multi selection operations are supported and all selected items are denoted by a white border around thelr icon When the Media Player is stopped its output to video monitors tracks your selection and trimming operations The current item is displayed as the media players output and in consequence appears on the corresponding monitor in the All Monitors tab Of course only one item can be displayed on output at a time the frame surrounding the thumbnail icon for the currently displayed item is illuminated Double clicking a thumbnail or clicking the Play button begins playback from the In Point of the current file Note that even still images and static title pages added to the playlist are given a play duration The default duration for these items is fifteen seconds This duration can be adjusted on an item by item basis or as noted earlier en masse for multi selected stills or ttle pages During playback the frame around successive playlist items illuminate as each is played in turn The playlist pane scrolls to display the icon for the currently playing item A progress bar is displayed beneath the currently playing thumbnail and the Scrub Bar knob also tracks playback progress Hint Selection status is Independent of which clip is playing Selected items have a white border in the Playlist pane FILE OPERA
148. heading for this example amp Click on one the icons about halfway through the playlist highlighting it 7 Hold down the Shift key and click the last icon in the playlist This will multi select all of the files from the first one you clicked to the last one the icons are given a lighter outline to show their selection status B Right click anywhere in the playlist and select Cut from the context menu 3 Right click in the playlist area of the second Media Player and select Paste Let s pause to review To this point we ve prepared two Medio Players with similar playlists consisting of a series of still images Hint Still image files default to a fifteen second duration when added to a playlist Fine but what about the aforementioned fun you ask Indeed let us press on 10 Turn Single and Autoplay on and make sure Loop is off for both Media Players 11 Select DDR 1 on the Switcher s Program row 12 Select Graphics Still on the Switcher s Preview row 13 Click the first entry in both playlists to set the current position 14 Press DDR 1 s Play button and watch the hands free slideshow Let s consider what is happening When playback of the first DDR playlist entry reaches its end c The DDR s Autoplay setting invokes an automatic BKGD layer transition to Still o And stops DDR 1 playback c Then unseen on Program output cues up its next playlist item Simultaneously the Graphics
149. hen the source is either Preview or Program To use Scopes to adjust a DSK source first delegate it to Preview by itself or consider using the FX bus far this purpose Additional titlebar controls above the scopes let you adjust the Brightness for their display Drag the slider left right or click the control to enter a value directly using the keyboard As usual you can also Shift double click to reset the slider to its default Right click inside the monitor display for either scope to show a menu that allows you to view the trace in full or solid colar Hint Drag the dividers between the monitoring panes and Switcher or Preview Program pane to re size the monitors Double click a divider to reset it to its default position Ti _Tiicaster s Media Players permit you to integrate video still images and title pages into your live presentation with utmost simplicity and professional style 4 Preload content and display it sequentially as a playlist or singly on demand The media players can even play stop and advance automatically in response to your Switcher operations 10 1 SPECIALIZED MEDIA PLAYERS TriCaster sports multiple Media Players located in tabbed panes found in the bottom third of the Live Desktop These are the DDR 1 DDR 2 either Still and Title TriCaster 850 models or a dual purpose Graphics player TriCaster 450 models and Sounds In essence all of the different Media Pl
150. her rows are labeled Utility Program and Preview Clicking a button in the Program or Preview row selects the active video source for that row audio sources may or may not be affected by Switcher activity see Chapter 13 8 1 1 UTILITY AND DELEGATE Utility is a special purpose row and offers additional capabilities described next The function of the Utility row is governed by the nearby Utility Delegate button selection s Making a selection on the Utility row assigns that source to all selected delegates The FX channel selection provides an auxiliary video stream which can serve in a variety of ways For example it could supply the background scene in a Virtual Input or be assigned to an Overlay or DSK channel Chapter 12 3 Selecting the AUX OUT delegate allows direct selection of the Auxiliary Output video stream without requiring you to open Output Configuration Hold down Shift on the keyboard when clicking the Utility row buttons on the Live Desktop as listed below to access extended AUX OUT selections 18 VI Frame Buffers 1 8 Net 1 gt Look Ahead Preview Net 2 gt Program DDR 1 gt Program Clean DDR2 gt FX Selecting a DSK 1 or 2 delegate allows direct selection of the associated DSK source When you make a delegate selection the Utility row button corresponding to the source currently assigned to that delegate lights up Fora new multi delegate selection who
151. high quality streams to large numbers of Disadvantages Like the Pull by End Users method above this requires a public IP address preferably a static IP address which does not change dynamically if you need to reconnect as well as open ports for the connection to be established These requirements are becoming increasingly difficult to meet given common security measures PUSH TO PROVIDER Windows 2003 Server introduced Push technology With this method the encoder sends the stream to downstream servers This allows the encoder to establish a connection to the server on a specified port Once this connection is established additional network ports may be opened as required since the Encoder established the connection not the server Advantages Easy to connect to the provider There are no requirements for open ports on your local system or public IP s In addition firewalls do not get in the way 4 Disadvantages Live streams that have no viewers are still consuming bandwidth From a provider point of view itis possible that all of our bandwidth could be utilized with no viewers However that is more theoretical than practical Some external streaming providers prefer to Pull streams as re connection can performed from their end automatically if necessary But in many venues system administrators are very reluctant to configure their system with an open port to have your stream Pulled from
152. iCaster s Export feature MetHoD2 bd S li 1 Record your files with Quality set to Normal Profile Compatibility Mode for more information see the sub heading entitled Compatibility Considerations in Section 1814 3 Click the Manage icon in the Startup Screen s Session Page 9 Click the Export Media button at lower right and then click Add to open a Media Browser 10 Add the files s you wish to export to the Export Media file ist 11 Choose Quicktime for the Target then select Renderless conversion mov as the Format forthe files you add 22 Click the selection gadget triangle and choose a target location for the output file s 13 Click the Export button in the panel to commence transcoding Please see the sub heading entitled Export Media in Section 5 3 4 for more on TriCaster s Export feature METHOD 3 41 Record your fles with Quality set to Normal Profile Compatibility Mode for more information see the sub heading entitled Compatibility Considerations in Section 1644 2 Export the files from TriCaster without format conversion 3 Import the files into Final Cut A red bar will indicate these clips need to be rendered within the editor After rendering they should be available for editing like any other dip SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION Q Why does Renderless Quicktime export only work properly with Normal Profle MPEG2 files A The Renderless export preset in Exp
153. ia Player is placed on Program Out by a Switcher Take or Transition operation either directly as a Switcher row selection or indirectly as an input for a Virtual Input or Overlay Secondly the reverse Switcher transition occurs automatically as the end of play approaches whether the Out Point of the current item for Single play or the end of the playlist In similar fashion for a media player with Autoplay enabled performing an Overlay Effect automatically begins playback Note Unlike Switcher Transitions the reverse overlay effect does nat occur automatically as the end of play approaches In either case when the Media Player is in Single mode the current play position advances to the next item after playback is automatically stopped 10 2 4 PRESET BIN Another very useful feature shared by all three of TriCaster s Media Players is the Preset Bin which provides quick and convenient access to multiple playlists As mentioned back in Section 4 8 1 presets also store the state of various Media Player controls To display the preset bin roll the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen in a tabbed Media Player or Audio Mixer tab If you change playlists by selecting another preset it s almost as though you are accessing another media player Use presets for quick access to different categories of content for use during a live presentation playlists prepared for different clients or for completely different programs
154. ible configure 2 4 GHz Radio mode to 802 11b g n ifthe router supports 5 GHz Radio mode set it to 802 11a n Channel Settings should be set to 1 6 or 11 11 is the most common choice since it is the starting channel making 1 or 6 a good choice Channel width should be set to 20 MHz or Narrow Band in 2 4 GHz mode Channel width should be set to both 20 MHz and 40 MHz in 5 GHz mode Ensure that only one DHCP server is active on the network Q2 Why do some clips not play properly across an AirPlay connection A There are several possibilities First TriCaster cannot play media governed under Digital Rights Management DRM schemes This is a common limitation of commercial content Otherwise If an iOS device loses its connection with the network for any reason it does not refresh its AirPlay destination list for about one hour It may seem as though the TriCaster is detected even though the connection has been lost One way to flush the AirPlay list is to enable and disable Airplane mode in the device settings Finally make sure you are connected to the correct Wifi network et A 1 13 ENABLE TERMINATION FOR VIDEO INPUTS TriCaster has full time video termination If you need to loop through or t off from other Video devices such as an external monitor prior to TriCaster in your video pipeline you should ensure termination is OFF for earlier devices A 2 SESSIONS SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION
155. ice Part Getting Started introduction to TriCaster connecting devices cameras monitors etc and registration ending with the Live Production Walkthrough a brisk jog through fundamentals about 50 pages if you re a quick study this may provide all you need Part Il Reference chapters in this section cover every arcane detail related to using TriCaster for those who need it and those who just like to know everything Part Ill Appendices leads off with a handy section titled How do 1 a helpful question and answer section with its own brief index When you have a specific need you may well find a quick answer here along with cross references to more detailed information when appropriate Appendix D lists all shortcut keys Part Ill is also home to a comprehensive keyword index This User Guide discusses two TriCaster types In most respects Operations and interface are very similar and a single description will suffice TriCaster EHTREME models provide additional and unique features though Wherever these are discussed in the text they will be flagged in the same manner as this paragraph INTRODUCTION ES Thank you for purchasing this NewTek product Your Tricaster belongs to a large family of video systems and software with a remarkable heritage A bona fide video pioneer NewTek is T L justifiably proud of its record of innovation ongoing commitment to design excellence
156. ick the Open icon in the Home Page of the Startup Screen 2 Click the name of the session you want to re open A 2 4 BACKUP A SESSION 1 Open the Tricaster session you wish to backup 2 Click the Manage icon in the Startup Sereen s Session Page 3 Click the Backup Session button below the Browse ist 4 Ifthe session has external files in its playlists choose one of the options from the dialog that opens next 5 Use the system file explorer that opens next to select the location for the backup file and click OK This process can take considerable time ifthe session has a lat of content in such cases it s best not to commence unless time before a production permits See Backup Session under Section 5 3 for more detail ALS RESTORE A SESSION 1 Click the Open icon the Home Page of the Startup Screen 2 Click the Restore Session Backup lnk at the bottom of the Sessions list as right 3 Navigate to and select the previously stored session backup file and click Open AL amp DELETE A SESSION AND ITS CONTENT 1 Right click the name of the session in Home Page of the Startup Screen 2 Select Delete from the menu This will delete the session and any content that is local to the session including associated LiveText and SpeedEDIT projects external data that has not been imported will not be deleted See Section 5 2 2 for more information 13 MANAGE SELECTED CONTENT INSIDE A SESSION 1 Click the name of th
157. icture aspect Connected to TriCaster by SDI input connectors Optionally carries embedded audio The standard definition options listed below are provided in both 4 3 and 16 9 versions 480 301 Component m NTSC analog format standard definition interlaced 720x480 pixels 4 3 picture aspect or anamorphic 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by Y Pr and Pb input connectors 480 301 sb 4 NTSC digital format standard definition interlaced 7204480 pixel 4 3 picture aspect or anamorphic 16 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by SDI input connectors Optionally carries embedded audio 480 301 Y C NTSC S Video analog format standard definition interlaced 720x480 pixels 4 3 picture aspect or anamorphic 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by Y and Pb input connectors gel 480 301 Composite NTSC analog format standard definition interlaced 720x480 pixels 4 3 picture aspect or anamorphic 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by Y input connector 4576 25i Component PAL analog format Standard definition interlaced 720x576 pixels 4 3 picture aspect or anamorphic 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by Y Pr and Pb input connectors 4576 25 SD1 PAL digital format standard definition interlaced 7206576 pixels 4 3 picture aspec
158. ided using your keyboard VOLUME Session Name Enter Session Name Media D Figures Beneath the Session name you will see a field labeled Volume Here you can choose which hard drive the session and its associated content will be created and stored on Suitable hard drives added to one of TriCaster s removable drive bays are listed in a drop down menu when you click on the field You can select any drive shown Nate External drives are nat recommended for active use as session drives See Section A 1 7 for suggested hard drive specifications for use in TriCaster s removable drive bays FORMAT AND OUTPUT CONSIDERATIONS Remember that for live production TriCaster can supply SD output for SD sessions or both SD and HD in the case of HD sessions The format of video signal on Program and Aux outputs aries according to the session type For all HD sessions Program Row 1 output is also HD For all SD sessions Program Row 1 output is likewise SD For 16 9 sessions HD or SD 16 9 Program Row 1 output is consistently configured as 16 9 too while for SD 4 3 sessions output is of course formatted as 4 3 Aux row video output is uniquely configurable within certain limitations for different session formats For example during an HD session you can output either HD or SD video from Row 3 and SD video output can be either a 16 9 widescreen format or one cropped for display on a 4 3 television
159. igure gear button next to Stream under the Program monitor 4 Supply Connection parameters in this panel as required passwords username etc See Chapter 15 Streaming 5 Close the panel and when ready click the Stream button See Section 4 12 and Chapter 15 for full details A 3 5 FIND MY CAPTURED STREAM FILE 1 Got to Locate the Home Page of the Startup Screen and click Open 2 Click the name of the session you streamed at right 3 Click the Manage icon on the Session Page 4 Under Browse at right click the Clips link A system file explorer will open 5 Open the Saved Streams folder in the file explorer A 3 6 RECORD MY PROGRAM 1 Open or create a TriCaster session see Section 3 9 2 Click the Configure gear button next to Record under the Program monitor 3 Choose your recording options see Section 4 7 1 and Chapter 16 and enter a Base Name for the file s 4 Close the panel and when ready click the Record button See Chapter 16 for full details A 3 7 FIND MY RECORDED PROGRAM FILE 1 Got to Locate the Home Page of the Startup Screen and click Open 2 Click the name of the session you streamed at right 3 Click the Manage icon on the Session Page 4 Under Browse at right click the Clips ink A system file explorer will open S Open the Capture folder in the file explorer A 3 8 CHANGE PLAYBACK SPEED FOR CLIPS IN THE DDR MEDIA PLAYER The DDR s Speed control adjusts pla
160. igure the only entry in the drop down menu may be Browse Selecting it opens a Medio Browser to let you choose a transition to replace the current selection Hint The frequently osed Fade transition is always available In the left mast slat in the bin As it has no options and cannat be replaced the Configure button is ghosted when Fade is selected By the way note that the direction of the Overlay Transitions i DSK layer transitions automatically alternates That is if the first click displays the layer using an effect the next click removes it using the reverse transition effect and so on this behavior mimics the Background Transition option call Ping Pong discussed momentarily BKGD TRANSITION OPTIONS Clicking the Configure gear button for a Background Transition opens a panel Figure 151 with a few added options as listed below Normal invokes default behavior for the transition Reverse causes transitions to be performed in the opposite direction For example a transition that normally reveals the incoming video stream from left to right will operate from right to left instead When Ping Pong is enabled the Reverse behavior is toggled each time a transition is performed Using the previous example if the last transition progressed from left to right the next one time you apply the same transition it will automatically be reversed and thus run right to left ANIMATION STORE TRANSITIONS
161. igure 80 Let s try something more sophisticated now 1 Click Take or de select the BKGD delegate in the Transitions section of the Switcher to place V1 on Preview 2 Add the file TriCaster Spin Logo Long avi from the NewTek gt Logos group to DDR 2 Enable the Single and Autoplay switches for both DDR 1 and DDR 2 3 Click the Configure gear button beside the current LiveSet name in the VI tab to display a Media Browser 4 Select NewTek in the left hand column under the heading Livesets S In the file pane at right click the thumbnail icon named Center in the World Update group and then click OK at the bottom of the Media Browser amp Select DDR 2 as the source for Input 8 The Zoom Preset icons in the Virtual Input tab and the name above will update showing that the current Liveset is now NewTek gt World Update gt Center Assuming that you still have LiveMatte enabled for the DDR V1 s Input A selector set to DDR and Input B set to Stil a little adjustment in the Positioner for Input A is all that it should take to produce a result similar to Figure 81 on Preview Input A is the primary input for the LiveSet while Input B serves as a secondary source in this case assigned to the virtual desk front monitor 7 Enable the BKGD delegate in the Switcher s Transition control group and click the main Auto button Both DDRs will begin running their currently selected clips simultaneously thanks to Autoplay
162. ikely avail yourself of a service to stream it on your behalf Ideally on demand streaming video begins to play on request after a few moments Letting the stream get a bit ahead of the client playback device is called buffering and helps ensure smooth playback This stands in contrast to other types of online video distribution which requires the viewer to completely download the video file before he can begin play Given a sufficiently high speed connection between host and viewer they may well be able to enjoy a seamless viewing experience without stuttering or other issues LIVE STREAMING Live streaming is a growing international market and one you may well wish to serve This form of streaming is a somewhat more demanding implementation Rather than record a file and deal with it later live video is transmitted over the network effectively in realtime give or take a little time in the pipe as it were Delivering a good quality stream requires that you consider both your network connection capabilities and that of your viewers As well to ensure reliable delivery you will ideally have some idea of the size of your audience Nevertheless for all cases TriCaster gives you the tools to do the job Naturally streaming video is highly compressed to reduce bandwidth demands and make it available to a wider group TriCaster supports two popular and prolific encoding systems Microsoft s Windows Media and Adobe Fla
163. ilar result Tweak the Color or Saturation knob until the small rectangular patches at very bottom of the tall upper bars on the extreme right and left of your screen merge with the tall bars above Tweak the monitor s Hue control until the small rectangles beneath the third and fifth tll upper bars likewise blend into bar above You may need to redo the last two steps several times balancing the adjustments of these two controls until all four of the lighter bars evenly match the smaller rectangles Just beneath them Note that a perfect match simply may not be possible on some monitors Check your results with some familiar imagery and make any further tweaks you feel are required If your monitor has a Blue gun only setting enable it Raise the Color or Saturation setting until the three right hand bars all appear to be the same shade If the monitor lacks a Blue gun only feature you can obtain a colored filter such as a Kodak Wratten 478 gel and hold that between your eyes and the monitor for a similar result Turn off the Blue gun only feature or dispense with the filter if you used one and examine the red bar It should appear not be so vivid that it bleeds onto the nearby bars Check your results with some known familiar imagery and make any further tweaks you feel are required D KEYSTROKE SHORTCUTS D 1 SWITCHER Utility Row Inputs 1 to Input x model limit Send Preview to AUX Out S
164. ile Devices Presets suitable for use with iPad iPhone or iPod Touch Quicktime Renderless Conversion high quality wrapped Quicktime file o DW DVCPro mov moderate quality SD only NTSC 720x480 PAL 720x576 25Mbit s 4 1 1 NTSC or 4 1 0 PAL sub sampling very broad compatibility 264 Highest Quality mov h264 Very Good moi o MIPEG mov Some as Source fie copy no re rendering Video Server c Leightronix NEXUS Ultra NEXUS SD NTSC 720x480 PAL 720x576 high quality MPEG2 Program Stream 9Mb s variable bitrate 4 2 2 TelVUE Princeton SD NTSC 720x480 PAL 720x576 high quality MPEG2 Program Stream 9Mb s variable bitrate 4 2 2 NTSC 720x480 PAL 7201576 Next use the Destination field drop down to designate a target folder for exported files to be sent A progress gouge is shown during file processing Click the Export button at the bottom of the dialogue to begin batch export processing Hint The time on export takes is affected by numerous factors the number duration and resolution of the selected files the speed of the device selected as target for the fles the designated format and so on It is generally unwise to commence a file export shortly before a live event since you cannot launch TriCaster s Live Desktop during export If necessary you can cancel the current export operation BACKUP SESSION Clicking the Backup Session button opens a system file exp
165. in your registration code 5 M TriCaster does not have internet access call or email Customer Service with the Product Us 1 800 862 7837 Outside US 1 210 370 8000 6 http uvnewtek com fag index php contacteservice 7 Enter the Registration Code provided into the Registration dialog at Step 3 Please see Section 3 3 for more detail A 6 2 CONTACT TECHNICAL SUPPORT Visit the NewTek Website at www newtek com and select Technical Support from the main Customer Care menu at the top of the page This page always contains the latest support information for your NewTek products including FAQs for all products It also lists the Technical Support Department s hours of operation and contact details A 6 3 FIND TRICASTER S HARDWARE FIRMWARE REVISION NUMBERS Click the About icon in the Startup Screen s Home Page Doing this opens an information panel that lists significant version numbers at the bottom A 7 MISCELLANEOUS A 7 1 ACCESS WINDOWS 1 If necessary close the Live Desktop by clicking the x button at the right hand end of the titlebar 2 Click the Shutdown icon on the Home Page of the Startup Screen 3 Click the Exit to Windows link at right and confirm this desire in the warning dialog A 7 2 RETURN TO TRICASTER FROM THE WINDOWS DESKTOP Double click the TriCaster icon on the Windows desktop to return to the TriCaster Startup Screen A 7 3 ADD A CUSTOM STREAMING PROFILE TO THE CONFIG
166. ind it useful to be able to quickly access the various files associated with specific sessions Selecting Manage refreshes the options pane on the right hand side of the Session Page with a number of convenient items BROWSE SpeedEDIT Projects LiveText Editor Pro Figure 108 Under the label Browse you will see direct links to the Clips Still and other content associated with the current session Clicking one of these links or selecting it with the up down arrow keys and pressing Enter opens a system file explorer You can use the familiar features and shortcut keystrokes in these windows Cut Copy Paste Rename Delete and so on to manage the session content Hint Of course you can open several of these folders simultaneously and navigate these file windows to other locations as well Fo xample you might copy the title page caxmi fles from the Titles folder of one session into the Titles folder for a different session LiveText Editor Projects gure 109 Several other important features are found in Manage including Import Media Export Media and Backup Session IMPORT MEDIA We discussed importing media for using in TriCaster productions back in Section 4 2 so we ll just review briefly here Clicking the Import Media link opens a custom import panel offering batch import of files for use in Tricaster s Media Players It even allows you to transcode files to appr
167. ined when you export to storage formatted as NTFS That being said the metadata is automatically regenerated if you use the files with TriCaster again later so its loss poses no A 4 12 FREE UP SPACE BY DELETING THE DEMO CLIPS 1 Goto Teicasters Startup Screen A Open a session it doesn t matter which one 3 Click Manage on the icon ring 4 Click the Clips link at right S Use the system File Explorer that opens to navigate up one level in the folder hierarchy to DAMediaVClips 6 Selectively delete content from the sub folders you find in this location A 5 SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE AND UPDATES A 5 1 IMPROVE PERFORMANCE 1 Clickthe Utilities icon on the Home Page of the Startup Screen 2 Click the Defragment Hard Drive link at right see Section 5 2 4 and follow further directions provided This process can take considerable time so it s best not to commence unless time before a production permits A 5 2 RESOLVE SERIOUS INSTABILITY OR DROPPED FRAMES If the system becomes seriously unstable or is dropping frames with known compatible video files after the warm up period consider a full System Restore see item A 5 7 A 5 3 UPDATE TRICASTER 1 Connect TriCaster to a valid Internet connection 2 Clickthe Utilities icon on the Home Page of the Startup Screen 3 Click Update TriCaster and follow directions provided see Section 5 2 4 A 5 4 UPDATE THE FLASH AND OR WIN
168. ing the Stream button located right below the Program output monitor The Akama HB Network gure as Note A few frames may be dropped on video output the first time you enable streaming for a session as the encoder launches If you test your stream first you ll avoid this 4 12 1 STREAMING CONFIGURATION Click the Configure button gear situated next to the Stream on off button to open the Configure Stream Connection panel which lets you view and modify settings related to streaming your production across a network connection Figure 86 4 12 2 SIMPLE PULL STREAMING Figures Pull streaming is arguably the simplest way to get your production online 1 Click the New button The Choose Connection Type dialog switches allow you to select between Browser Based Windows Media Pull Windows Media Push and Adabe Flash streaming protocols Figures 2 Select Windows Media Pull click OK and then supply a name for this Connection preset Figures 3 The next thing to do is pick a resolution and bitrate from the Resolution menu 4 Click the Test button In a few moments TriCaster provides you with the IP Internet Protocol address of your computer as viewed from the network This information will be provided to you as a punctuated numeric value in the Location display field Hint If your TriCaster is connected to the network by a router or is behind a firewall it ma
169. ion it displays the composite result of a Take operation applied to all currently delegated video layers see the subheading Transition Delegates in Section 8 3 2 IN OTHER WORDS WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU WILL GET AFTER A TAKE OR AUTO When BKGD is delegated alone Take Auto and Preview work just as in other TriCaster This allows you to set up the next shot check its composition including titles and overlay positioning and switch to it with sublime confidence Selecting the BKGD delegate tells TriCaster you intend the next transition to swap the Program and Preview layers The Preview monitor will show the Preview row selection as its background When the BKGD delegate is not active the BKGD layer will not change during a transition Consequently in this case the Preview and Program monitors share identical backgrounds Delegated DSK layers are shown above the background on Preview according to their current state That is if a delegated DSK loyer is currently displayed on Program output it does not appear on Preview since the next transition would remove it 9 3 ALL MONITORS TAB Click the All Monitors tab at upper left to reveal a group of preview windows These previews often referred to as ISO Isolation monitors display all primary video sources currently available for selection in the Switcher cows below The actual list of monitors varies according to your TriCaster model Gener
170. is icon to pop up a small level slider Figure 172 Note When playing files located in TriCoster s capture folders DDRs automatically adjust the oudio level according ta the current Audio Headroom setting in the Record Configuration panel This results in an improved match between the default playback level for captured audio and imported sounds or music for which nominal levels are unknown SCRUB BAR Just beneath the Playlist pane is a full width Scrub Bar Figure 172 The width of the Scrub Bar represents the full run time of the current clips or other file Drag the central knob left or right to change time position in the current playlist item gure 172 Initially In and Out Point handles at opposite ends of the Scrub Bar are at their extreme positions marking the actual limits of the file on disk Dragging these handles adjusts timing for the selected item multiselections are ignored for Scrub Bar trimming The duration taking into account trimming operations is displayed in a timecode field just to the right Hint For longer durations holding SHIFT while dragging In Out handles Increases precision During playback the Scrub Bar knob traverses the span between the In and Out Points ALPHA CHANNEL SUPPORT For files with transparency such as 32bit image files use non premuitiplied alpha channels only in TriCaster s media players Premultiplied fles will not give the correct results when overlaid on o
171. it projects the name s will appear here and as you would expect you can re open the project by clicking its Note that TriCaste stores new SpeedEDIT projects inside a folder named for the current session as follows DASPEEDEDIT PROJECTS sessionname projectname vip SpeedEDIT s internal File menu Save and Save As functions default to the same location Just as for LiveText it is possible to use File gt Save As to store an edit project in another location outside the session structure Be aware that projects stored outside the session structure are not shown in the project list on the Sessions screen To re open them you ll need to navigate to the project file using FilesOpen in SpeedEDIT As for LiveText external projects will not be backed up by the Backup Session function or be deleted by the Delete Session function To create a new SpeedEDIT project click in the default project name just above the Start New Project link and modify it then click Start New Project When you are finished working in SpeedEDIT clicking the x button in its upper right corner or selecting Close in the File menu will bring you back ta the Session Page 5 3 4 MANAGE Figure 107 Various Tricaster components provide filebins to permit you to manually administer files related to their projects playlists and so on The Manage icon in the Session Page provides an alternative approach to file management At times you may f
172. ively on lve switching and expanding your production capabilities External computer display inputs served across a network can be selected as video sources in TriCaster s live production environment Potential sources include displays from network connected Windows or OS X based computer systems via iVGA and text and graphics overlays from LiveText The currently selected Network sources are directly available for selection on the Switcher and can of course be captured or streamed as well as included in your presentation Note Gigabit networking is highly recommended and should be considered mandatory for HD sessions in particular 14 1 IVGA For an IVGA source to be recognized by TriCaster you must first install a small iVGA client program a computer on your network iVGA client programs are supplied for Microsoft Windows 2000 XP and Vista and Windows 7 or Apple OS X You will find the WGA installation files in the C TriCaster IVGA folder or on the supplied iVGA disk 14 1 1 IVGA FOR OS X The iVGA installation for OS X is supplied as a zipped disk image dmg file To install it first copy this file to your Macintosh Desktop either using a network connection between your Macintosh and TriCaster systems or perhaps by using a USB thumb drive NewTek IVGAdma 2ip Figure 219 mounting the WGA disk image Double click the Zip file to decompress it and then dou
173. k from your personal Downloads page on the NewTek website Apple computer users have several options available which support an alpha channel including the Animation and PNG Quicktime movie codecs select Millions of Colors in the codec settings to include alpha in the file A 4 5 PREPARE CLIPS FOR TRICASTER PLAYBACK USING APPLE FINAL CUT PRO We are often asked what format to use for export from Final Cut for best compatibility in TriCaster especially for HD clips Here are recommended steps 1 lick on Final Cut s File menu and choose Send To gt Compressor Compressor will open automatically 2 Select your encoder setting as follows a Inside Compressor click on the Settings tab in the bottom left panel b Findthe Program Stream setting from the Apple Formats Mpeg 2 folder Drag this setting and drop it onto your Sequence 3 Set your destination setting as follows a Click on the Destinations tab in the bottom left panel b Dragthe destination of your choice onto your job item 4 Click Submit A 4 6 ADD AN EXTERNAL FILE LOCATION TO THE FILE BROWSER 1 Open or create a TriCaster session 2 Click the Add button for a Media Player DDR Still or Title 3 Click the Add Media Location button at bottom left in the File Browser 4 Select the folder you wish to list as a location in TriCaster s File Browser and click OK See Add Media Location in Section 10 2 2 A 4 7 REMOV
174. l feature Among other things it allows you to post the captured file to a website immediately after an event for video on demand streaming purposes for late arrivals or others who want to review the live event Note Remember to turn off the Stream when your production concludes or TriCaster will continue writing the stream capture file PART II REFERENCE A thorough examination of the various aspects of TriCaster every button menu item feature and control is considered in this section so you can take full advantage of your system 7 _TriCaster s Startup Screen is the gateway to a suite of applications as well as session and system maintenance and management features 4 Icons in the left hand pane of the Startup Screen provide access to numerous functions We ll discuss each of these in the pages that follow beginning with a review of the concept of sessions qu The Startup Screen s Home Page appears whenever you launch TriCaster From here you create and launch sessions then choose what sort of activity you wish to pursue by making a selection from the icon ring on the Session Page Your intention may be to begin a new live production or to produce another episode of a live series Perhaps you wish to do some video editing using SpeedEDIT to prepare some title pages for an upcoming event or to perform system maintenance We ll look into each of these in turn
175. launch After adding audio sources slowly bring these sliders up to pass their signals through the system Hint Mast numeric controls in TriCaste an be reset ta their defaults using Shift double click on the control knob The default value for Gain sliders is 0dB Input level Use Trim to bring the levels for microphone and similar sources Into a useful range on the VU meter Nate In digital audio systems signal ke Jels exceeding allowable values are clipped uniformly assign the maximum level value inevitably entailing audible issues that cannot be corrected later The Audio Headroom setting In Record Configur jon allows you to offset input signal levels to provide a safety margin see the heading Audio Headroom in Section 16 1 1 This can greatly reduce the possibility of clipping in captured files Beyond this use Trim and Gain controls judiciously to avoid over modulation ll Compressor Limiters in TriCaster EHTREME s Audio Mixer tabs provide another powerful tool to prevent clipping problems ses Section 13 4 3 15 CONFIGURE GENLOCK 1 ifthe Live Desktop isnt already open launch a TriCaster session from Startup 2 Access the Output Configuration panel by clicking the Configure button gear icon that appears at upper right when you move the mouse over the main Program Output monitor on the Live Desktop 3 Click the Genlock tab in the Output Configuration
176. lay channels Graphics i e a title page or image file assigned to Frame Buffers serve independently from Media Players These sources are represented by the FRM BFR button on all three Switcher rows thus available to DSK 1 and 2 FX Program and Preview plus dedicated to each Virtual Input Figure 181 Hint We considered a Frame Buffer example back in Section 4 11 Any still image or title page in the playlist of one of TriCaster s Media Players can be assigned to any one or more of the Frome Buffers the number of Frame Buffers provided on your TriCaster is related to the number of Virtual Inputs it offers Right click a playlist icon and choose Send to Frame Buffer from the playlist context Select FRM BFR or the specific Virtual Input Overlay you wish to the file to be assigned to from the hierarchical menu This actually copies the selected image into a specially provided folder located on the hard drive at C TriCaster Effects Frame Buffer session_name The copied image file remains available in that folder even when the original file is not only unavailable from the playlist but has actually been deleted from the hard drive Naturally if an image has previously been assigned to this particular Frame Buffer the current file is overwritten by the new one This has no effect on the original source image or title page however only the Frame Buffer copy is affected Hint Title pages sent to a Fra
177. le browser to let you designate or create a location for file output Each file to be exported can have its own Target Preset and Destination settings Figure 135 Hint Iti possible to selected mopped network locations with a Drive letter assigned as the Destination saving time later Export file format options are updated from time to time to include popular new formats Here are some examples as they appear for an HD session note that the list is not comprehensive as additions are made from time to time Target categories are in bold text while Presets are italicized Application c Adobe Premiere Pro high quality MPEG 2 Program Stream full raster 4 2 2 sub sampling variable bitrate 100 Mbps nominal AVID Media Composer mov very high quality HD encoding full raster 42 2 subsampling high bitrate up to 220 Mb s Apple Final Cur Pro mov very high quality M IPEG encoding fll raster 42 2 sub sampling high compatibility m DV DVCPro avi moderate quality SD only NTSC 720x480 PAL 720x576 25Mbit s 4 1 1 NTSC or 4 1 0 PAL subsampling very broad compatibility MIPEG avi moderate quality SD or HD capable 42 0 sub sampling broad compatibility ovo d mpg SD only MPEG 2 quality presets up to 9MB sec bitrate minutes with 42 2 subsampling o Fosh Flash 9 c A diverse collection of presets suitable for playback in newer or legacy Flash players Mob
178. le the Add to DDR Playlist switch to automatically include newly captured clips fram the designated primary source to the end of the playlist of the Media Player designated below These clips are available for immediate playback during your live production AUDIO HEADROOM In digital audio systems signal levels exceeding allowable values are clipped uniformly assigned the maximum value inevitably entailing audible issues TriCaster s Record Configuration panel provides an Audio Headroom setting that provides the ability to set difference in decibels between OdB FS the maximum allowable digital level and the benchmark alignment level gure 243 This lets advanced users record files with a professional level of headroom right up to 2048 selectively conforming to regional standards or local preference It also effectively eliminates any possibility of audio clipping in recorded files The Audio Mixer tabs for TriCaster EHTREME systems feature Compressor Umiters for each input and output These can also be valuable in defeating clipping due to over modulation In a related point when playing playlist files located in TriCaster s default capture folders Medio Players automatically adjust the audio level by a commensurate amount This automatically produces an improved match of playback levels for captured audio added to playlists that include imported sounds or music for which nominal levels are unknown PRIMARY RE
179. lick the Configure button gear that appears above an onscreen monitor in the All Monitors tab The second tab in the source Configuration panel is labeled LiveMatte amp Crop the Scopes tab likewise opens the Input Hint Clicking Co jan panel for the corresponding Switcher row source For Program and Preview controls only oj Background source not any active DSK when the Program or Preview source is a Also Configure co 11 1 CHROMAKEYING The method by which part of the image is defined as transparent is generically referred to as chromakeying for its dependence on the color values chrominance of the video stream Note internally LiveMatte actua ond simple chromakeying techniques to provide but we ll stick with fundamentals for our discussion here Chromakeying has become an essential tool in video and film production Typically foreground footage is shot in front of a blue or green screen and then that background color the key color is treated as transparent allowing another image to be inserted penu Figure 187 For example when you see a television meteorologist in front of a weather map that person is almost certainly posed in front of a green screen The background is keyed out and replaced by computer generated imagery Of course if you choose inappropriate settings foreground areas may inadvertently be cut away as well Ideal setti
180. licking its name Note that TriCaster stores new LiveText projects inside a folder named for the current session as follows for example DALVETEXT PROJECTS sessionname projectname cg LiveText s internal File menu and Save As functions default to the same location However it is possible to use File gt Save As to store a project in another location outside the session structure Be aware that projects stored outside the session structure are not shown in the project list on the Sessions screen To re open them you ll need to navigate to the project file using File gt Open in LiveText Nate Similarly external projects will not be backed up by the Backup Session function or be deleted by the Delete Session function To create a new LiveText project click in the default project name just above the Start New Project link and modify it then click Start New Project When you are finished working in LiveText clicking the x button in its upper right corner or selecting Exit in the File menu returns you to the Session Page 5 3 3 EDIT Figure 106 TriCaster includes an integrated version of SpeedEDIT NewTek s popular standalone non linear video editor Selecting the Edit icon displays a number of related items on the right hand side of the Sessions Screen When you first enter a new session no SpeedEDIT projects are listed in the area under Project Name When you have created one or more ed
181. ll other software with the TriCaster not expressly noted as free is proprietary and subject to NewTek s copyright rights or those of its licensors Trademarks NewTek TriCaster TriCaster XD TCXDBSO TCKD850 Extreme TriCaster TCKDBSO Extreme TriCaster 850 Extreme TriCaster Extreme TriCaster 850 TCXD450 TCXD45O Extreme TriCaster TCXD450 Extreme TriCaster 450 Extreme TriCaster Extreme TriCaster 450 IsoCorder TCKD300 TrCaster PRO TriCaster STUDIO TriCaster BROADCAST Tricaster DUO iVGA SpeedEDIT 3PLAY 3PLAY 820 3PXD820 LiveText Datalink LiveSet LiveMatte TimeWarp VT VITS Video Toaster Toaster 3D Arsenal Aura LightWave LightWave 3D and LightWave CORE are trademarks of NEWTEK All other brand names product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders c NewTek 2005 2011 All Rights Reserved www newtek com TriCaster is a trademark of NewTek Inc Copyright 2011 NewTek Inc All rights reserved
182. lly NewTek cannot guarantee that hard drives obtained from such sources will provide performance adequate to TriCaster s requirements Here are some guidelines to keep in mind if you employ hard drives purchased from other sources All else being equal larger drives are normally faster try to use 1TB drives or above Use SATA 3 0GB s drives with rotational speed of 7200 R P M or better Drives should have a larger onboard cache 32Mb or better is recommended A L8 CONNECT AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE Connect a suitable USB cable from the external hard drive to one of TriCaster s USB2 0 ports Note that the hard drive should probably be formatted using the NTSF file system the FAT file system chokes on exported files exceeding 4 Gigabytes as will often be the case AL8 EJECT A HARD DRIVE B Launch TriCaster and click the Open icon on the Home Page of the Startup Screen 3 Click the Eject gadget at upper right on the screen and select the hard drive you wish to safely disconnect see Section 5 2 2 10 Click the Eject button in the titlebar of the Live Desktop see Section 6 5 2 A 1 10 CONNECT TALLY LIGHTS External tally light devices and their connections vary widely Please refer to Section 3 8 1 for details on TriCaster s tally light jack implementation A 1 11 CONNECT TO A NETWORK Please refer to Section 3 16 and Chapter 14 1 12 CONNECT TO AN AIRPLAY SOURCE The local netwo
183. lly be as bad or worse Of course VGA benefits from the fastest possible network connections between remote clients and TriCaster even when used as directed This is especially true if you intend to stream high resolution motion graphics to TriCaster using iVGA 8 3 IMAG AND LATENCY What s IMAG it s a compression of the expression image magnification Typically in modern IMAG applications video cameras supply live imagery to projection systems magnifying speakers and performers so that audience members further back in large venues can stil see what s going IMAG is a very tricky task at the best of times one that calls for excellent planning and where possible testing Those designing an IMAG installation have not just one but two inter related broadcasts to consider in the form of the audio and video streams B 3 1 RELATIVITY AND THE SPEED OF LIGHT Wouldn t it be nice if audio and video travelled from their respective broadcast devices at the same speed Then wherever you were seated in the audience the sound from hypothetically perfect speakers and the video image from huge video displays co located at the front of the auditorium would reach your ears and your retinas at precisely the same moment This is not the case however Sound travels quite slowly so slow in fact hat even in relatively small venues it reaches those in the rear of the audience noticeably later than those in the front Tn
184. lon Ctrl Shift apostrophe Ctrl Shift c Shift i Ciri Shift o Dii GENERAL D 11 1 SELECTION AND NAVIGATION Select All First Last Item Navigate through Playlist items Select All Previous Following Items Playlist select to Top Bottom Playlist add to selection Up Down Gta Home End Up Down Left Right Arrows Shift Home End Shift Home End Shift Up Down arrow D 11 2 MISC cut Crx Copy Crte Paste ctrity Delete Delete Key RELIABILITY TESTING We know our products play vital roles in the productions of our customers Durability and consistent robust performance are much more than just adjectives for your business and ours For this reason all NewTek products undergo rigorous reliability testing to ensure they meet our exacting test standards For TriCaster 850 the following standards are applicable Temperature MibSta 810F Part2 Sections5018502 00000 Ambient Operating 0 C and 40 C ambient Non Operating e E MILSTD 810 IEC 60068 2 38 mbenopesu 5 ERE 20stosse Sinusoidal Exceeds ASTM D3580 55 Paragraph 10 4 3 Hz to S00 HZ ranon 1Ec61000 4 2 aron LL ak Vots A AAC Encoding 303 Actas Alpha See I O Configuration Video Input Activate Windows See Windows Add Ons 104 Airplay 218 281 Alpha Channel 83 155 Alpha Input See I O Configuration Video Input Apple AiPlay 218 227 281 Apple Final Cut Pr
185. loose terms fora mid size auditorium 600 feet long it takes around a half second for the audio to reach those in the back For this reason audio engineers often position speakers throughout the house then introduce carefully considered delays by electronic means to ensure late sound from front speakers does not arrive after sound from the nearest speaker to those further back Light on the other hand travels so much faster that for all intents transmission can be considered instantaneous in the same setting So a person in the rear will see the image on a screen at the front long before sound from a co located speaker arrives If transmission of the video signal from the camera lens right through to the projection screen were instantaneous is not mind you we d likely need to find a way to delay it as otherwise the carefully timed delays the audio engineers induced would ensure a mismatch between video and late arriving audio Viewed in this light a certain amount of latency is actually A Good Thing till waiting for the promised mention of relativity OK here it is then 8 3 2 LATENCY AND YOUR AUDIENCE Latency what s that you ask In this context latency refers to the time it takes for the video signal to transit one part of the IMAG path from camera lens to final display Latency is usually expressed either in milliseconds or in video frames typically either 25 or 29
186. lorer that you can use to assign a storage location for the backup files Backup operations can take some time depending on the amount of content in the session For obvious reasons then it would be wise not to begin a major backup operation shortly before a scheduled live production A progress gauge is displayed during processing and if necessary you may Cancel the operation Of course the session to be backed up is the current session to backup a different session return to the Home Page and Open a different session The backup operation feature will determine whether all media used in the session is loca Le located in folders named for that session or whether some content is external stored in other places on your system and included in the session using Add Media Location or from folders belonging to other sessions If all session media is local the backup proceeds without further interruption When external media is used in the session a dialog is presented stating The following files are external to the session Would you like to import these files The optional actions in the dialog Backup without importing Import and Backup Cancel Backup LIVE DESKTOP OVERVIEW 78 _ _TriCaster s Live Desktop is the control center for all your live production work It provides control aver switching transitions and overlays titles and graphics audio mixing playback of digitized D T content and so on
187. lt labels to something localized To do so simply right click on any of the following items to open the Rename Input dialog Figure 118 Any monitor in the All Monitors pane Any Switcher source button Any Virtual Input tab The dialog has two editable text fields Input Name and Button Lobel The latter is a short name that will be shown on Switcher buttons while the longer name is used in dialogs where more space is available 6 4 3 DUAL DISPLAYS AND MONITORING The Live Desktop monitor tabs and specific Multiview options can be flexibly combined to show what you want to see where you want to see it Nate These options are suitable when Multi Jut is not tasked ro projection or similar display duties For example You might select the External layout for the Multiview output Then select the Internal Monitors tab on the Live Desktop or reverse these choices You ll get much larger Views of all sources this way Alternatively choose the All Monitors tab as the Multiview layout and drag the horizontal divider between the monitors and the Switcher to of the top of the screen hiding the Desktop monitors You can also drag the divider between Preview and the tabbed monitor pane see Figure 119 showing the Program and Preview monitors only Hint Reset a Live Desktop divider to ts default location by double clicking Tt 6 5 TITLEBAR TIPS An information display in the Li
188. ly accurate and broadcast legal Naturally there are other devices between that signal you and your viewers Let s discuss ways to calibrate downstream video monitors to ensure that you see your video at its best C 3 CALIBRATING YOUR MONITORS In most cases you will use a computer monitor of one type or another to display TriCaster s controls the so called user interface Even though the television monitors you likely use for final program output may look somewhat similar to your computer monitor they do differ in a number of important respects For this reason we will approach their calibration separately 3 1 COMPUTER MONITOR This is a subject that could and does easily fill multiple volumes but which we will sadly give short shrift It may not be quite as important to achieve spot on color calibration for the monitor used for the user interface Not surprisingly video output color is best judged on larger downstream video monitors Nevertheless you may find a trip to one of any number of websites providing test imagery and calibration hints useful A search for computer monitor calibration will yield an endless list along with some commercial utilities for those who feel the need Here are links to several such sites http epaperpress com monitorcal hetp www Jagom ni ied test http www jase com support kb articles monitor asp http www photofriday com calibrate php http www onecomputerguy com
189. ly after powering TriCaster up If this screen does not automatically appear reboot and press FB a few times in quick succession say once per second immediately after powering up Follow prompts to complete the process Note Following a TriCaster Restore operation the Windows system software must be re activated To do this you will need the operating system serial number which you will find on a sticker affixed to the exterior of your TriCaster This procedure restores your system drive C to its as shipped state The D drive which holds content and sessions won t be modified However any TriCaster software updates possibly including optional TriCaster expansion packs will be overwritten so use this function only if you truly find it necessary a call to NewTek s excellent Tech Support first may often be fruitful see Section A 6 2 When you do restore remember to update the TriCaster software afterward A 6 REGISTRATION AND TECH SUPPORT A 6 1 REGISTER TRICASTER 1 Read and accept the License Agreement shown when TriCaster launches 2 Select and copy Ctrl c the characters in the Product ID field in Step 1 of the registration dialog that appears next 3 Mf you have connected TriCaster to the internet click the button in Step 2 of the registration dialog 4 Follow the directions on the Registration webpage in the Customer Care section of the NewTek website to obta
190. me Buffer are converted to a snapshot that is an image before the copy operation is performed Modifying the source title poge subsequently in the playlist does not affect the copy in the Frame Buffer To update the Frame Buffer copy simply use the Send to Frame Buffer menu item again after modifying the source title page 10 3 1 UNIQUE ADVANTAGES Several characteristics differentiate Frame Buffer content from other sources such as Media Player content First any possibility of accidentally displaying the wrong image or title as might happen if the current playlist item was not the correct one is eliminated In fact even when the original source file no longer exists on the system the Frame Buffer copy can still be referenced on demand Among other things this all means that you can effectively lock a specific title or graphic to one Virtual Input Second each of TrCaster s Frame Buffers is uniquely linked to one specific Overlay channel Selecting the Frame Buffer button labeled FRM BFR for any given Overlay channel reliably refers to the correct graphic for that channel This provides assurance when you might temporarily switch to another source and then want to return to the Frame Buffer Frame Buffers have another extremely powerful feature network sharing discussed next 10 3 2 NETWORK SHARING Another very useful advantage of this system is that if you wish you can share the Frame Buffer folde
191. me codec support is more extensive AVI AVI codecs are plentiful Most are suitable for DDR playback but a few are not Fora given clip to play in the DDR a corresponding 64bit codec needs to be available However we strongly discourage installing foreign codecs codec packs and the like downloaded from internet sites etc For the sake of stability if an AVI clip does not play well in the DDR please consider converting it to a friendlier format We can recommend NewTek s own SpeedHQ or perhaps DV for Standard Definition clips M2T or MPG please continue reading for more information on file REMUXING CLIPS Even when a specific AVI exists and can generally be considered friendly the manner in which audio and video data is multiplexed or muxed in the jargon by some few applications can cause playback issues that are only evident under stress That is a clip that plays back adequately in a typical player or NLE application may not do as well when played in a DDR at times when many other concurrent operations are occurring simultaneously In general remuxing such files is all that is needed to obtain good performance One approach is to use any of a number of freely obtainable remuxing utilities A quick internet search for remux avi turns up several applications you could use some free Installed on an external system these will remux AVI files losslessly resolving the issue You may prefe
192. med for the Institute of Radio Engineers ignoring minor regional variations Contrast Adjustment range from 25 400 default 100 Hue Adjustment range from 180 to 180 Adjusts the master color of the video signal from the attached source swinging the entire image through the color wheel s spectrum Saturation Adjustment range from 0 500 Zero saturation results in a black and white picture increased saturation results in richer colors High saturation values can exaggerate the color portion of the signal Note that over saturated colors are considered illegal for broadcast transmission and may result in display problems on some devices Hint your TriCaster system provides Waveform Vectorscope monitors an invaluable way to accurately monitor the video signal to avoid issues such as illegal color To serve as a visual reminder small indicator lights appear at right above the Program monitor when either output has Proc Amp settings enabled Figure 126 Click these to enable disable the associated Proc Amps Note TriCaster s input and output Proc Amps ore very useful However please keep this important thought in mind Whenever possible it is best to perform color adjustments at the source or target device For example itis preferable to calibrate a camera s colors at the camera before sending the signal to TriCaster Doing so will yield higher color precision Similarly it s better to
193. ment but it is very beneficial and you should sync to control its video timing The definitely use it if you have the capability output of video devices connected in Teicaster mixes and switches output from eight Video sources Miniscule local timing differences between these may force tiny delays during switching operations which can also contribute to throughput latency Thus serving i TriCaster sGenlock input and other video devices in the chain with a single reference is the best approach You could think of it this way 4 Genlocking your cameras has the effect of locking their output together ensuring optimal synchronization for live switching This may result in throughput latency benefits 4 Supplying the same sync source to TriCaster s Genlock input ensures a match between TriCaster output and any downstream video devices required to handle both it and other genlocked sources Hint Digital audio is less tolerant in certain respects than analog Some devices require SDI sources ta be genlocked when mixing digital audio whether for recording or live production Tricaster however includes live dynamic audio re sampling for each input Genlocking of SDI audio video sources is not a requirement for TriCaster Stil genlocking sources and TriCaster to a house reference signal or genlocking the cameras directly to the TriCaster output is encouraged to genlock cameras see your camera manual
194. mentary program output for projection or for operational monitoring purposes see Section 7 1 5 1 Connect the external device to the secondary output on TriCaster s backplate using an appropriate cable and or adapter if required 2 Open a TriCaster session or create a new one from the Home Page of the Startup Screen 3 Click the Live icon on the Session Page of the Startup Screen and press Enter or click the Start Live Production link 4 Roll the mouse pointer over the main Program output monitor and click the Configure gear button that appears above it 5 Inthe Output Configuration panel s Multiview tab set VGA Output Resolution to match the native resolution of the external device amp Select an optional display mode from the Screen Layout menu SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS QU Why don t I see the Multiview monitor resolution want listed in the VGA Output Resolution menu A Normally the VGA Output menu option list is updated using DDC Display Data Channel information the monitor itself provides In some cases this information may not be not available e g a monitor switch or adapter might prevent the available display mode information from being supplied to the operating system If you are sure your monitor supports an unlisted mode you can attempt to add it to the menu manually by editing an XML format configuration file supplied for this purpose The file is named multview_resolutions xml and i
195. method of activation See Section 3 16 and Chapter 14 for more on network connections Click Obtain IP and DNS automatically Agree to activate Windows This activation is permanent and you won t see these screens again Registration with Microsoft is optional 3 Assign a name to the administrator account You may type your name company or perhaps simply TriCaster 4 Click Finish and TriCaster will re start After restarting and accepting NewTek s User Agreement the interface will oad automatically 3 3 TRICASTER LICENSE AND REGISTRATION On launch TriCaster presents an End User EE License Agreement dialog After you accept this the Registration dialog shown in Figure 13 is Sees presented If necessary enter the unique TriCaster Serial Number and Product ID for your system TriCaster s video output will show a watermark until the system is registered and unlocked by entering the registration code Hint If the Serial number doesn t appear automaticaly and can t find it an your unit you con obtain it from the registration webpage mentioned in the next section or by calling Customer Support Desk open seven days a week You can register and obtain your registration code either by telephone or online directly from TriCaster or from another system connected to the Internet as described next 3 3 1 ONLINE REGISTRATION If you have connected your TriCaster to t
196. ml Title Page files A 3 13 PREPARE A MATCHED GROUP OF VIRTUAL INPUTS Suppose you want to assign matching shots from one theme group of LiveSets to different Virtual Inputs or Presets You might for example want everything to be the same except that one shot is centered on a virtual monitor in the LiveSet while another is centered on the set itself 1 Prepare the first Virtual Input click its tab and use the controls to select a LiveSet assign and position an Overlay source even click a Zoom Preset to be the default 2 Right click on the Preset icon in the bin at left and select Export 3 Supply a filename for the Preset 4 Click the second Virtual Input tab 5 Right click on a blank Preset and select Import from the menu amp Select the file you exported above and click Open The second Virtual Input will adopt the exact same settings as the first Now all you need to do is replace the currently assigned LiveSet with a matching one by clicking Add at upper right in the tab choosing the LiveSet you want and clicking OK A 3 14 IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF MULTIVIEW OUTPUT TriCaster s Multiview video output is very high quality but it is possible for you to manually choose certain settings that will have a negative effect on it Avoiding these mistakes will ensure the best possible result Specifically disabling Windows Aero may cause video tearing Also for best quality be sure that th
197. n to the controls by the same name discussed earlier Endeavor to subdue spill without overdoing it which could result in an unsightly gray fringe around offending edges of your foreground 11 4 CROP Its very common for a greenscreen shot to have unintentional inclusions that really need to be removed along with the background but which remain after the base chromakey process is applied gure 190 Common examples include microphones or lighting fixtures dangling from above or perhaps a harsh crease blemish or tear in the background screen Or as is frequently the case the source video itself may have a few pixels of black or video noise along ane or more of its edges Cropping can be used to remove such unwanted garbage from the scene or it can be used independently for other purposes such as to isolate some portion of the screen for use as a Picture in Picture overlay source Essentially the four numeric controls in this group allow you to define independent margins for the frame Drag left or right on the number fields to adjust the values interactively or double lick a field to type a value using the keyboard The region defined by these four controls will be completely cropped Hint For added convenience similar cropping tools are avallable separately in the Position panels of Overlay channels and Virtual Inputs 11 5 COMPOSITING When you enable and configure LiveMatte for an input the
198. name projectname folder Motion pages scrolls and crawls that you send to Live are stored as bitmap animation files with an xi file extension suitable for playback in Live Desktop s DDR These are sent to the session folder inside TriCaster s main Clips folders The content of motion pages cannot be edited in the Live Desktop When you select Send All Pages to Live each page in the project is exported in turn to the appropriate format and location This means they are readily accessible in the Live Desktop s Medio Browser afterward for easy addition to a Media Player playlist Title Page icons will appear grouped under their project names in the Media Browser s File Pane when you select the session name in the Location List at left 17 2 3 NAMING STAND IN IMAGES Among other things the Title Editor in TriCaster s Medio Players DDR Still and Titles allows you to substitute a different image for stand in or placeholder images in Title Pages cgsml exported from LiveText working with stand in images is discussed in Section 10 3 When creating title pages for this purpose in LiveText you may find it saves you time to add the string placeholder somewhere in the filename of images you prepare for this purpose For example you might name an image headshot_placeholder png or PLACEHOLDER crest jpg Images named in this manner will automatically appear as stan in images unlocked in the Title Pages you export
199. nce in key quality When the subject stands too close to the key colored background the key color reflects back onto the subject creating a green or blue fringe that is difficult to remove If you have available space move your subject farther away from the wall When good distance is out of the question you can improve things somewhat by placing lights above and behind the talent lighting them from behind with a complimentary color filter over the light to cancel out unwanted reflection for green use a magenta filter for blue orange or amber Don t overdo back or top lighting however The limited dynamic range of the camera means there will be little useful color data in badly over exposed highlights This can make it next to impossible to separate fringe zones such as hair detail from the background especially when this is also overexposed 11 7 2 CONNECTION CONSIDERATIONS As mentioned above washed out areas in the video signal lack sufficient color information to provide good separation For similar reasons it s worth considering the color characteristics different types of video signals DI connections are ideal if you can use them Otherwise in the analog video realm you will encounter three main types of camera connections We present them here in ascending order according to the quality of video signal they provide and as things go in the reverse order of their cost and the likelihood that you will have acces
200. nd or black level Use these as instructed to ensure your camera is providing the correct white and black levels If you cannot make source adjustments or can t get it quite right by these means alone you can use the Brightness and Contrast controls in the Proc Amp TriCaster provides for that input to tweak black and white levels Of course it is always best to perform adjustments at the source if possible 2 2 ADJUSTING COLOR We re going to move into color calibration next but first we can actually use our black and white signals for some further tests VECTORSCOPE While we re still working with black and white levels we can introduce TriCaster s Vectorscope and perform an initial test of the camera s color balance A vectorscope Figure 254 can be likened to the familiar color wheel Figure 255 which sweeps radially through the colors of the spectrum yellow red magenta and so on around the arc of a circle Colors are more progressively intense saturated towards the outside of the circle while color saturation is zero at its center As it happens from the vectorscope point of view neither black nor white properly have any color saturation Thus with the lens cap on or with a white card filing the viewfinder the vectorscope should show only a small fuzzy trace at its center If the fuzzy dot is off center horizontally or vertically this would indicate that the camera is incorrectly calibrated actu
201. ne audio source or output stream gure 208 lustrations in this chapter depict the TriCostei aster s Audio tab all models but for the following items The number of inputs Net 1 and Net 2 control o has se The Configuration button in the titlebar which p ovides access to figuration options The Group color swatch just below the titlebar 13 1 EXTERNAL AUDIO The sub panels in the External tab are labeled for correspondingly numbered Input rows on TriCaster s backplate You may choose to think of these audio sources as being associated with the same numbered video inputs in the nearby rows see the sub heading Follow below but you are completely free to use them in various other configurations 13 1 1 MUTE Fgure206 The labeled header for each input or source is also where Mute switches are located Click anywhere in the header s grey band to toggle Mute for all associated channels or when multiple Mate switches are shown click a single speaker icon directly to disable that channel Mute has a couple of interesting and potentially useful features Enabling Mute for a source removes its sound from all outputs except Aux For Aux the source is not muted except when the Aux source setting is All Solo can mimic mute in that a soloed source is also removed from Master and Stream outputs but even when muted continues to be sent to Aux when the latter
202. necting is required please consult your system administrator The next section Chapter 4 Live Production Walkthrough will guide you through your first experience using TriCaster LIVE PRODUCTION WALKTHROUGH M This chapter provides a quick hands on tour of the major components and functions of your NewTek TriCaster In a very short time these basics will be second nature to you 7 4 More detailed reference material on all aspects of TriCaster follows in Part II Reference Having made the essential external connections in the previous section let s start your first TriCaster session and skim through some important fundamentals Startup and Import Monitoring and related features Audio mixing and the Follow feature Network sources Switching between video sources and using transitions Program Output and Recording Playing stored clips using the DDR Digital Disk Recorder Adding and editing title pages and graphics Using LiveMatte to create a simple chromakey effect Virtual Inputs Creating a Liveset virtual set shot Streaming to the Internet 4 1 CREATING A SESSION We ran through the basics of starting new sessions and configuring input and output devices in sections 3 9 through 3 15 If you need to review this information go ahead and do so now Well look at them individually again later in Part II Reference too 1 In the initial Startup
203. nections but support for GPI triggers has not been implemented in TriCaster at this time Toprevent damage to TriCaster s components when making external connections to the tally light jacks care should be taken that connection to Pins designated GND Ground are always at ground potential 3 9 STARTING A SESSION If Tricaster is not already running power it up now to reveal the Startup Screen If TriCaster is already running and is in the Live Desktop or another area of the interface you may need to click the small x button at upper right to exit or click the Back arrow at upper left in the Session Page to return to the Home Page The Startup Screen consists of two similar pages Home and Session Among other things the Home Page is where you choose basic TriCaster session settings see Section 5 1 for a discussion of sessions File oue PAGE gure 17 When no previously created sessions exist the icon ring dominating the Home Page defaults to New inviting you to create a new session A link labeled Enter Session Nome is shown at the top of the right hand pane when New is selected on the icon ring Click in this area to modify the name using the keyboard if you like The default name is the current date Nate TriCaster supports a variety of optional session configurations for live production You can choose either HD High Definition ar SD Standard Definition operating modes D options include
204. nector TriCaster 450 Again connect a suitable external monitor or device The new device should be recognized and enabled by the system automatically This output offers a variety of optional monitoring layouts that can be selected at any time in TriCaster s Live Desktop Note For best results it is important to configure Multiview Output to the native resolution of the external display monitor or projector connected 3 8 TALLY LIGHTS TriCaster s Tally Light support allows you to connect external tally lights and similar devices These typically provide a red LED for the video input that is currently selected on the Switcher s Progrom row 3 8 1 EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS Here is a pin out listing for TriCaster s DB15 Tally connector e PinL lEDl e Pin9 GND e Pin2 LED2 e Pin10 GND e Pin3 LED3 e Pini GPia e Pind LEDs Pint2 GPI2 PinS LEDS 850 only PiniS NC Pin6 LEDS 850 only Pin14 3 3V with 20 Ohms current limit Pin LED7 850 only PiniS NC Pin8 LEDS 850 only ENGINEERING NOTES Pins 1 8 are hot when the LED should be illuminated Each LED pin pins 1 8 has a 200 ohm current limiting resistor inside TriCaster With no load open circuit pins 1 8 can reach SV With a typical LED load they can be expected to reach about 3V GPI stands for General Purpose Interface Pins 11 and 12 are assigned for possible future use as GPI1 and GPI2 con
205. ng This configuration will record everything that is displayed on Program Output in this manner letting you capture your entire live production for posterity if you like it also provides a way for you to capture clips for playback from TriCaster s DDRs during your live events 4 7 2 GRAB gure 62 The Grab feature is similar to Record just described except of course that it grabs a fresh still image from Program Output each time you click the Grab button Also in place of an option to add the captured file s to a DDR you may enable an Add to Still Playlist switch with the result that every time you click Grab a new image is added to the Stil Media Player 4 8 MEDIA PLAYERS 4 8 1 DDR1AND2 Tricaster s two DDRs Digital Disk Recorders are powerful media players and can greatly enhance your live productions DDRs have three siblings that we ll discuss later the Still and Title players and the Sound player 1 Show DDR 1 by clicking its tab beneath the Switcher ADDING FILES 2 Click the Add button in the DDR 1 pane Figure 64 to open a Media Browser 3 Click the name for your current TriCaster session Practice Session if you ve been following along beneath the Clips header in the left hand column of the Media Browser 4 The file pane at right displays icons for recordings made in the session It should list the file you recorded earlier in Section 4 7 1 under a group header labeled Captur
206. ng Your Monitors C31 Computer Monitor C32 Program Output Monitor C33 Setting Black and White C34 Color Adjustments Keystroke Shortcuts Di D2 D3 D4 Ds D6 07 D8 Ds D10 D11 Switcher T Bar Virtual Inputs Record and Grab Tabs or 1 or 2 stit Title or Graphics Sounds General D 11 1 Selection and Navigation D112 Misc 315 316 319 320 320 321 322 323 325 326 326 327 329 331 331 332 332 332 333 333 333 334 334 334 335 335 335 337 E Reliability Testing Index 339 PART GETTING STARTED Introducing TriCaster connections and registration a top level overview of primary features and a hands on tour to get you started ABOUT THIS MANUAL C Hate reading manuals if so you are part of the majority estimates are that between 60 and 97 of the human race concur Most prefer to jump right in maybe asking a friend for TL occasional help and who can blame them This manual attempts to tell you what you need to know in a friendly concise way while also providing a deeper reference section you can turn to when you really need specifics Even if you hate reading please take a moment to peruse at least this section which explains the manual structure You may find you can escape with a minimum of reading Or if you are a devout reader you can be the hero others tum to for expert adv
207. ng applied to captured clips MPEG 2 Compatibility encoding invokes 4 2 0 color sampling similar to that of the popular DV and HDV formats MPEG 2 High Profile encoding raises color sampling to 4 2 2 These files retain more color information than standard DV HDV files as well as many other file formats The increased color fidelity is especially valuable for chromakeying purposes Please see the notes which follow regarding file compatibility COMPATIBILITY CONSIDERATIONS The 42 2 sampling and high fidelity of the MPEG 2 High Profile format make it especially suitable for chromakeying applications Support for High Profile MPEG 2 files by various applications is not universal however It would be prudent to test file compatibility with your favorite third party programs before making extensive use ofthis option Nate TriCaster s High Profile MPEG 2 files meet the High Profile MPEG 2 definition established by the Moving Pictures Expert Group MPEG Please see http en wikipedia org wiki Mpeg2 for more detailed information on High Profile MPEG 2 encoding EXTENDED ENCODING FORMATS TriCaster GHTREME systems feature provided a number of additional file formats for recording purposes The optional selections are discussed next SPEEDHQ AVI Selecting AVI encoding tells TriCaster to capture the designated source using NewTek s native AVI format SpeedHQ which is a high quality 42 2 file forma
208. ng service and are specific to your account Location also referred to as the Server Address is the address TriCaster will send the stream to Again this is supplied by the service provider The Stream ID may or may not be provided depending on the requirements of your service provider In some cases you can simply enter a custom ID number Many service providers will supply you with a streaming profile in the form of an XML file for use with Flash Media Encoder f this is the case you can click the button labeled Import Settings From File navigate to and select the XML file and TriCaster will automatically import the Location and Stream ID values for the Connection Nate By design the Import feature does not automatically change the Resolution profile you have selected at left You should ensure that this setting is compatible with your service BROWSE IMPORT A CUSTOM PROFILE A related function involves the ability to directly import a custom Resolution profile You might create such a profile for a specific purpose using either the Adobe Flash Media Encoder or Windows Media Encoder application installed on your TriCaster The Browse item at the top of the Resolution menu Figure 233 allows you to select an appropriate file in a system file explorer which is then copied to the correct location for it to be listed in the menu for your use in future Note the nearby Delete button allows
209. ngs require judicious balance between too much and too little Let s consider the tools provided to help you achieve a good result 11 2 MATTE Figure 188 The term Matte refers to a black and white representation defining transparent background and opaque foreground parts of the image during compositing Portions of the matte that are grey are treated as semi transparent which is very useful in progressively smoothing edges between foreground source material and inserted background imagery TriCaster s matte is a digital version of this traditional tool The controls under the Matte label as you would expect allow you to define and adjust the matte for the corresponding video input 11 2 1 COLOR Initially LiveMatte removes a specific color from the foreground image This color is chosen using the Color button To choose this key color click on the Color button Figure 188 and keep the mouse button depressed Drag the eyedropper tool over one of the video monitors to choose the color you wish to remove and then release it The neighboring color well is updated to show the color selected 11 2 2 TOLERANCE No physical greenscreen is perfectly comprised of one color Wrinkles folds and shadows along with the seemingly Inevitable uneven lighting result in difference For this reason TriCaster provides a numeric slider labeled Tolerance just beneath the Color picker The Tolerance setting allows y
210. nnels Fiure 4 TriCaster 450 amp 450 EXTREME Figure 5 TriCaster 850 8 850 EXTREME The three row Utility Program and Preview Switcher allows you to freely hot punch between external sources Cameras or Network 1 or 2 internal sources Media Players and Virtual Inputs or Take Transition between Preview and Program sources Use Utility row selections to delegate video and graphics sources to various internal video busses including the two primary DSK Overlay channels AUX OUT or to the FX bus used as a secondary source for virtual sets or for other purposes 2 4 8 VIDEO LAYERS AND TRANSITIONS The Transition section of TriCaster s Live Desktop provides powerful tools for arranging and displaying the numerous video and graphic layers contributing to TriCaster s ultimate program output Figure Display of one or more user delegated video layers including FTB Fade to Black is controlled by the main T bar supplemented by one click Take or Auto buttons Local Transition controls for BKGD Background and DSK layers provide flexible and independent configuration and control of these layers and their transitions Select different transition effects for each layer and adjust Transition Speed variable and presets Reverse and Ping Pong options J Tricaster EHTREME boasts powerful and great looking Animation Store Transitions that support full color embedded overlays and separate in out sounds
211. nostics and Troubleshooting 246 1581 16 Record and Grab Testing your stream 161 Record 1611 Record Configuration 162 Grob 17 SpeedEDIT and LiveText 171 SpeedEDIT 17 11 Sessions Projects and Display 1712 Filebin Quicktabs 17 13 IEEEI394 O Output 1714 SpeedEDIT Desktop 172 LiveText 1721 Sessions Projects and Display 1722 Files Filebin 1723 Naming Stand in Images PART Ill Appendices A HowDol A Connections ALL A12 A13 A14 ALS ALS ALT ALB A19 A110 ALA A112 Connect cameras Connect fill alpha sources Configure alpha Matte Output Color correct mismatched cameras Connect monitors Connect a supported external control surface Insert Remove a Drive From TriCaster s Removable Drive Bay Connect An External Hard Drive Eject A Hard Drive Connect tally lights Connect to a Network Connect to an AirPlay Source 246 255 255 261 263 263 264 264 264 265 265 266 267 274 274 275 275 276 276 278 273 281 281 281 281 281 A113 Enable Termination for Video Inputs A2 Sessions A21 Start an SD Session A22 Start an HD Session A23 Work on a Stored Session A24 Backup a Session A25 Restorea Session A26 Delete a Session and its Content A27 Manage Selected Content inside a Session A Rename a Session A29 Duplicate a session A3 Live Production A31 Make Custom Transitions and Livesets
212. number Otherwise though the various aspects of the interface are quite similar The header of the monitor for the video layer source currently selected on the Program row is highlighted in red Dn nal The monitor titlebar for the Preview row selection has a green tint while the titlebar for the FX source monitor is blue Note that many of these onscreen monitors are interactive Figure 36 1 Clicka source monitor once to select that source on the Switcher s Preview row 2 Click the monitor with the green highlight again to perform a simple Take swapping the Program and Preview row selections Looked at another way what you have done is swap the BKGD Background video layer sources without changing the display status of any other video layers 3 Double click any source monitor to send it immediately to Program output And as discussed back in Section 3 13 these monitors display a Configuration button allowing input type selection and more including Proc Amp see Section 7 2 3 and LiveMatte controls see Section 4 9 and indicators depicting the on off status of these features Further some onscreen monitors provide other contextual controls and displays including things like Play or Stop Freeze current position timecode in a clip and Network source selection see Section 9 3 1 4 3 3 EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL MONITORS These two tabs offer other monitor layouts that you may find useful especially when used in
213. ny Connection Type other than Mic Enabling Mono centers audio sources on both channels For digital inputs AES EBU or SDI Embedded with more than two channels only channels 1 and 2are centered If present two additional digital audio channels are passed through unchanged on channels 3 and 4 foo Solo implementations and options vary widely in the audio industry but broadly speaking the feature provides several very useful functions TriCaster s Solo feature offers remarkable flexibility without overly confusing complexity Consider a few basic principles When all Solo switches are off the combined audio mix from all sound sources is sent to the Master and Headphones output connectors 4 Enabling Solo for a source sends its sound to the Headphones output but removes any non soloed sources from that output 4 The Solo switch state by itself never has any impact on Program out audio 4 Enabling Solo for one or more sources affects Headphones output as follows c The after fader audio from all soloed sources is sent to Headphones Allun soloed sources are removed from Headphones Aux output mimics Headphones whenever Solo is selected in its Source option menu An understanding of the relationship between Solo and Mute is useful Enabling Mute for any source removes it from the main Program mix but not from Aux unless Aux is set to All Likewise soloed sources are not muted on Headphones Let s consider some
214. o 297 298 Artisan 104 Audio Mber See Live Desktop Audio Mixer Audio Syne 309 Aux Output Audio 27 214 219 220 Aux Output Video 26 128 129 AVI Codecs 292 B Beep 310 c Calibration 319 IRE Units 321 Chroma Keying See LiveMatte Clocks See Multiview Output and Sessions Codecs 292 303 Connections Cameras 23 135 274 276 External Drive 281 Genlock 24 1c 11 278 Output 25 276 278 Tally Lights 28 281 Crop 191 Crop Edges 153 199 D DDR See Live Desktop Media Player E Edit See SpeedeDrT Eject 99 121 282 EULA See Tricester Register Export Media See Startup Screen See Startup Screen External Audio See Live Desktop Audio Mixer Fay 293 FAQ 271 Fies Export 179 266 294 298 300 Import 179 295 Final Cut Pro 297 298 Flash See Streaming Flash FAV 293 Frame Buffers 85 86 87 129 180 181 182 Network Sharing 182 G Genlock See Connections Genlack Configure See O Configuration Grab See Live Desktop Grab Graphics See LiveText Hard Drive Eject 99 121 281 Hard drive external 281 Home Page 29 VO Configuration Audio 5 GGenlock 37 133 134 135 Proc Amp 11 44 45 94 125 126 140 167 Video Input 33 135 Actas Alpha 139 275 Connection Type 136 139 Video output alpha Output 275 Video Output 31 123 124 Aux Output 128 129 SD Analog Connections 127 IMAG 27 310 314 315 316 images stand in See Live
215. o allow entry of the pre arranged host web address Location Username and Password Nate The publishing point is placed at the end of the URL following a forward slash ie nttp 225 21 1 4 8080 NewTek Enabling the Stream button then pushes the stream from your location logging into the pre arranged web address using the username and password you provided The streaming service then re transmits your stream forall to see Nate You wi rofles including MBR multi bitrate op Find information on the use of custom ns at Section A 7 3 in Appendix A 15 4 AUDIO HEADROOM Figure 235 TriCaster provides an Audio Headroom setting that provides the ability to choose how far below OdB FS the maximum allowable digital level to set the nominal level for your streaming audio This lets you customize your streaming audio headroom level separately to make sure your audience hears sound at an appropriate level while still eliminating any possibility of audio dipping in captured streaming files Hint Recall as well the Stream control group in the Internal Audio Mixer tab provides a sar Limiter that can help you deliver t possible sound to your listeners 15 5 CAPTURING THE STREAM Tricaster archives your live stream file as it is created A new folder will be automatically created as needed at D Media Clips sessionname SavedStreams to receive the captured
216. o and video monitoring and network connectors are easily accessible from the rear for convenient installation in Industry standard 19 rack mount configurations Audio and video connectors are industry standard XLR X phono or BNC as appropriate ensuring broad compatibility and secure locked connections Headphone output uses a standard 1 4 stereo phone jack and the HDMI port supplies an added Program output 2 4 2 MULTI TIER FAILSAFE Multiple software failsafe systems continually monitor and safeguard the live performance Any recoverable software error conditions are quickly and unobtrusively dealt with Tricaster GHTREME s Always on Air features provide multi tiered redundant failsafe mechanisms in both hardware and software To name just a few Failsafe software monitors live performance and automatically re starts modules if any unexpected error condition calls for it Always on Air video pass through ensures that as long there is AC power in a case of catastrophic software condition audio and video from the last input are routed to Program output Streaming output and recording also continue in such cases 2 4 3 A V INPUT AND OUTPUT Live switch between up to four SDI and analog HD or SD cameras Professional BNC video connectors provide increased durability and reliability for camera connections Input and mix 16 9 and 4 3 formats Freely mx SD and HD sources in both HD and SD s
217. on A 1 12 for more an Airplay connections 14 3 LIVETEXT As we noted in the Walkthrough chapter Section 4 5 2 a companion workstation on your Tricaster network with LiveText standalone installed serves as a dedicated CG and title solution for your live presentations When running and connected LiveText will be listed in TriCaster s Net 1 and Net 2 drop down menus similar to an iVGA source For more information on installing and using LiveText please refer to its manual Figure 225 UeTent LVE Output pane 14 4 3PLAY 3Play s Output A and Output B are available as Switcher sources toa TriCasters They appear in the source selector menu for TriCaster s network inputs as 3Play A and 3Play 8 where 3Play is the name for the system Conveniently the output includes embedded audio freeing up multiple TriCaster a v inputs for other purposes Figure 228 15 STREAMING Live Webcasting has dramatically altered the broadcast landscape Information can now be shared among audiences around the world with very small transmission costs and the future is bright Without question the live streaming market will continue to expand providing many creative and profitable opportunities When it comes to taking advantage of this new medium TriCaster places you in the forefront of all the excitement Internet streaming for different purposes involves a wide variety of attributes at times too account
218. on Time 73 3 LICTimecode 8 Switcher Transitions and Overlay 8 1 switcher Rows 8 1 1 Utility and Delegate 8 1 2 Program and Preview 82 Video Layers 83 Transitions 831 Local Controls 83 Main Controls 833 T Bar 9 Desktop Monitors 9 1 Program and Preview 9 1 Configuration Indicators 92 Look Ahead Preview 123 124 125 127 128 i 133 135 135 136 139 140 140 m w2 w2 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 155 157 159 159 160 160 10 n 93 All Monitors Tab 931 932 Contextual Tools Interactive Control 34 External Monitors Tab 941 Contextual Tools 95 Internal Monitors Tob 9 6 Scopes Tab Media Players DDRs Still Title and Audio 10 1 Specialized Media Players 102 Shared Features 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 Playlists Media Browser Player Controls Preset Bin Speed 103 Frame Buffers 1031 1032 Unique Advantages Network Sharing 104 Editing Title Pages LiveMatte amp Crop 111 Chromakeying 112 Matte 121 Color 122 Tolerance 123 Smoothness 124 Luma Limit 113 Spill Suppression 114 Crop 115 Compositing 162 162 164 165 165 166 166 169 169 170 170 174 an 179 180 180 181 182 183 187 188 189 189 190 190 190 191 191 192 118 Fine Tuning 117 Practical Staging for LiveMatte 1171 117 2 12 virtual inputs Lighting Connection Con
219. on are theoretical ideal C VIDEO CALIBRATION An oft heard expression is Don t worry we ll fi it in post Post production techniques are invaluable but they do not repeal another often repeated axiom Garbage in garbage out And in the case of live production the results are immediately obvious to your audience for good or for bad q For these reasons and many more it s important to control the visual quality of your work all the way through the production pipeline Adequate lighting good cameras and high quality connections are critical but there are other things to consider Huren von isremartably adaptable ione sud paricpants equipped P m pm lenses Initially saw everything upside down After a few days people reported that things appeared right side up again Even when things are dramatically wrong our brains compensate to a remarkable degree Have you ever looked at a television in a store without noticing anything untoward and then realized that the colors on another unit nearby looked much better This builtin tolerance makes it difficult for us to judge whether the blacks in our video productions are really black or just dark gray whether reds are purple or tinged with a slight greenish caste and so on What we really need is a reference for comparison just as we find it easier to pick the best looking display from a row of television sets on a store shelf C 1 WHAT AND
220. one albeit critical link in a chain of devices It is common for each device to contribute a little to the combined total latency for the system TriCaster s portion of the total latency sum is well within acceptable standards for devices of this sort roughly between 1 5 and 2 5 frames the actual amount can vary slightly within this range depending on several factors For example suppose a video frame supplied by a camera arrives at TriCaster s inputs ane millisecond after a different frame has been sent to the output Obviously the new arrival must wait its turn it can t be transmitted until the correct duration for its predecessor has elapsed Thus the newly arrived frame must wait almost one entire frame until its turn comes How can you achieve the lowest possible latency for the TriCaster section of the IMAG chain An important element is to Genlock your cameras to the TriCaster output see Sections 3 5 3 15 and 7 1 6 This allows TriCaster to bypass its input time base correctors diminishing latency by about one frame to its practical minimum of roughly 1 5 frames Hint you can actually assess the latency of your TriCaster installation fairly easily Run timecode directly to 1 a monitor and at the same time 2 through the TriCaster to a second identical monitor Take a photograph that encompasses both monitors and compare the timecode shown B 3 4 OTHER SOURCES OF LATENC
221. onent Ex si Pb Pr Composite Y C SDi Composite Y c 7 1 4 AUX OUTPUT Figure 129 The Aux group in Output Configuration provides more options than are available for the first two video output rows Two drop down menus appear here regardless of session format labeled Source and Format SOURCE The Aux video output is uniquely flexible as respects which sources can be displayed While some of these mirror those presented as options for the Multiview output others are not Notably the Input and Frame Buffer sub menus support several exclusive displays Here is the complete list of possibilities Input any primary Switcher source Camera Network or Media Player Frame Buffer any individual Frame Buffer image Preview the Look Ahead Preview display Program TriCaster s main Program output Program Clean TriCaster s main Program output minus the two primary Overlay channels and FTB FX the current FX source selection Hint Remember than TriCuster s Record feature can optionally capture output from Aux providing many useful capabilities see Section 7 1 4 FORMAT The options in the Format menu actually control both video output format and Connection Type for the Aux video output The output options vary by session format HD 1080 or 720p options appear only when the session format is likewise HD SD output options are always available 480i
222. opriate high quality TriCaster friendly file ormats at the same time if you wish Figure 110 Import Media s quick processing makes this the fastest and most convenient way to pre load a session with production assets Click Add to open a standard system file window and select or multi select items to build a list in the Import Media file pane Some highly compressed video files may not be well suited to live playback Enable switches in the Transcode column for files you wish to convert to a friendlier format on import Files can be re ordered by dragging their entries up or down with the mouse or removed from the list by highlighting them and clicking Remove Once the batch import list is prepared click Import to complete the operation Files are processed quickly and are automatically added to their proper locations according to type for easy access during live production EXPORT ME The Export Media function allows you to create a list of video files for export selecting a new file format for these exports to be converted to on a per file basis and designate where to send them Clicking the Export Media button opens a new pane Click the Add button at upper left to open a custom Media Browser see Section 10 2 2 for browser details Use this pane to locate and select or multi select video clips for export xport Media panel can be resized by dragging its edges or corners with the mouse
223. or bars in conjunction with TriCaster s Waveform and Vectorscope to make sure the video supplied to the Switcher is consistent accurate and broadcast legal Most video cameras are capable of displaying color bars check your camera manual to see how to display these given a choice use 75 bars Then look at the Vectorscope to see how it traces the individual colors comprising the image The Vectorscope graticule has six distinct rectangular targets one each for Yellow Red Magenta Cyan Blue and Green The targets are small rectangles with a crosshair superimposed on them mE When a source is properly calibrated the trace from the different colored segments of the color bars displayed will fall right inside their individual targets see Figure 259 If the trace vectors do not line up as they should even after performing a white balance at the camera you can use TriCaster s Proc Amp controls to tweak the signal Adjust the Hue control to rotate the vectors around the center point to line them up correctly on their respective targets Increasing Saturation will move the trace further out towards the edge of the scope Decreasing Saturation lowers color intensity bringing the trace back closer to the center Hint Natu Should repeat the steps above for each connected source to ensure a per match when switching from camera to camera during your live product At this point your video signal should be reasonab
224. or certain video formats ie 24 25p or 30p A TriCaster passes frames through the switcher at the appropriate frame rate When the session format calls for frames at 60Hz displayed frames are refreshed much more often than for example a 24p format Consequently apparent latency will also be less than half what it would be at 24H2 In general the lower the frame rate of the session video format the higher latency will seem to be A2 WHY IS MY POWER SUPPLY BEEPING TriCaster 850 and 850 G4 TREME systems provide redundant replaceable power supply units When you i disconnect or ii power down just one of the modules or iii if a PSU should fail a beep is sounded to alert you If you wish you can mute the alert by pressing the green button on the back of the unit p SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION Q Where can obtain replacement or spare Power Supply modules A Contact NewTek Sales for purchase information for spare TriCaster components A 8 3 WHY DO SOME THUMBNAIL ICONS LOOK WRONG Some file formats notably AVI do not provide embedded aspect ratio information As a result certain files such as 1440x1080 files intended to be displayed as 16 9 the thumbnail image in Media Player icons for may not be properly proportioned Generally the problem does not extend to playback the DDR will guess the aspect ratio correctly B PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS Your TriCaster has been carefully designed
225. or the BKGD layer using the drop down as before and click Auto again to test the new transition rate Note that local configuration settings for the BKGD layer do affect transitions performed using the main controls Hint Manual button ond dragging it downward y contral the progress of a transition by grabbing the T bar with the left mouse 14 Earlier we displayed DSK 1 using its local Take button The BKGD transitions we ve made did not affect it so it should still be displayed if you removed it from view while experimenting please restore it before continuing 15 With the BKGD delegate button lit up press Ctr on your keyboard and keep it pressed While you click the buttons for both DSK 1 and DSK 2 then release it Your Transition Delegate buttons should resemble Figure 57 with three delegates mult selected Note also that the Take button for DSK 1 is illuminated in Figure 57 and the progress gauge beneath the Delegate button likewise shows that DSK 1 is fully displayed LOOK AHEAD PREVIEW Back in Section 4 3 4 we promised to spend some time on the Look Ahead Preview monitor and the time has finally arrived for us to do so together ak yj Figures 1 Cast your eyes over the Preview and Program monitors consider what you see there and howit relates to the Transition Delegate controls a The Program monitor shows DSK 1 currently assigned to Graphics or Title over the current BKGD layer
226. ord and Grab here ava RECORD 1 Click the Configuration button gear next to Record Figure 60 2 The Record Configuration panel opens Figure 61 3 Clickin the Base Name field and enter a unique name for the captured fles Hint TriCaster stores recordings at drivename Media Clips sessionname Copture where drivename ond sessionname are appropriate entries for your system and session gure The default Encoding options and Destination will work just fine for our current purposes so let s continue 4 If necessary select PGM as the Source to be recorded S You could optionally enable the Add to DDR Playlist switch to automatically add newly recorded clips to the currently designated DDR playlist but let s not do that yet With IsoCorder technology TriCaster EHTREME models can capture multiple a v sources simultaneously The first of these sources is the Primary source and defaults to PGM Program output Additional sources in many combinations can be added in a Secondary recording group shown below The options are discussed in more depth in Chapter 16 entitled Record and Grab amp Click Close 7 Make sure you have an active source playing on Program output B Press the Record button Figure 60 it will illuminate and the neighboring timecode field will begin keeping track of the duration of your recording S After a little while press Record again to stop recordi
227. orks appear under Choose a Network 3 Locate and tap the WiFi network that TriCaster is connected to A244 Wi Fi uses radio frequency technology to connect hardware and software applications so that they can communicate However RF interference can be a major problem especially in an environment such as a trade show or conference that might entail numerous competing signals Other devices contributing to RF clutter include microwave ovens cordless phones Bluetooth devices wireless video cameras outdoor microwave links wireless game controllers fluorescent lights and so on These sources can cause significant interference and signal degradation Where Possible try to eliminate or minimize the potential interference in your installation design A5 Consider the following suggestions when many conflicting wireless sources are in the immediate area Set the wireless network SSID to any unique name Choose a name that is unique to your network and is not shared by other nearby networks or other networks you are likely to encounter to avoid connection failures or unintentionally connecting to other networks sharing the same SSID Make sure that the network is not set to hidden iOS devices may interpret this as a closed network and fail to connect if using security make sure that itis set to WPA2 Personal AES Use of WEP is not recommended for compatibility reliability performance and security reasons if poss
228. ormat audio files but does not support graphics or clips of any sort Its controls are similar to other Media Players with the exceptions that no Autoplay or Speed controls are provided 10 2 SHARED FEATURES Individual Media Players are accessed by clicking tabs in the lower 1 3 of TriCaster s Live Desktop Each appears as a half screen width panel 10 2 1 PLAYLISTS The dominant feature of all of TiCaster s Media Players is a storyboard style playlist that is used to organize content for use during your live productions Figure 170 This arrangement offers large thumbnail icons for each entry A scrollbar at right accommodates long playlists Icons can quickly and easily be re ordered using the familiar drag and drop workflow The playlist can even be altered during playback of course if the currently playing item is removed playback stops immediately The filename with extension of each item in the current playlist is displayed above the thumbnails and its duration is shown below Hint The duration shown is the play time after any trimming operations and thus may at times be less than the file length on disk for video clips or audio files In such cases the In and Out markers on the Scrub Bar spanning the width of the playlist immediately below it show the effect of trimming operations while the full width of the Scrub Bar depicts the total length of the file on disk Clicking an item selects it T
229. ort Media Startup gt Session Page re wraps TriCaster s MPEG files as Quicktime a v files without re compression Quicktime does not currently decode High Profile MPEG2 files even when wrapped as Quicktime files Some applications with internal MPEG support play High Profile mov exports but for programs relying on Quicktime for decoding please use TriCaster s Normal Profile Compatibility Mode recording option A 4 10 IMPORT EXPORT FILES LARGER THAN 4 GIGABYTES This question may arise if you are using external media perhaps portable hard drives or USB thumb drives These are commonly prepared using the FAT32 flle system which does not support fles larger than 4GB As video files will often exceed this size FAT32 is not very suitable for use in that context You should reformat these drives using the NTFS system to eliminate this limitation or you might consider transferring larger files to TriCaster over a network connection A 4 11 AVOID THE ERROR COPY THIS FILE WITHOUT ITS PROPERTIES Windows shows this error message when you export a media file from TriCaster to an external volume that does not use the NTFS file system The warning is not really a concern although we highly recommend using NTFS formatted storage as noted in Section A 4 10 The files will copy just fine regardless Tricaster generates metadata attributes for media files for internal use This metadata is only reta
230. os NCS so EE m o Composite Y Note It is possible to use LiveText s File menu to open a project that does not correspond to the current session settings TriCaster will attempt to provide video output but it s possible that a given monitor may not display it correctly 17 2 2 FILES FILEBIN LiveText s file dialogs for File gt Open File gt Add File gt Save and Save As have pre configured QuickTabs pointing to the following default paths for the current session Nate the Quicktab links refer to session dependent paths thus are not permanent That is for a given session the path the Quicktab refers to is established at launch time For this reason the TriCaster version of LiveText does not support user added Quicktabs UveText s File menu has two special items Send Current Page to Live and Send All Pages to Live These take the place of other export options appearing in the standalone version of LveText As you would expect these functions creates files for use in the Live Desktop automatically storing them in the correct place s for easy access Titles prepared in LiveText can be either still or motion pages When you send a still page to Live it becomes a Title Page file with the characteristic filename extension cgxml Title Page files can be edited in the Live Desktop s Media Players Send Current Page to Live will automatically store these files in the D Media Titles session
231. osoft Y meets Windows systems is supplied as an 77 707000 executable program file SD Sevier es To install it copy this fle to the client emere system from the supplied NGA disk or its AIOE archived location in the IVGA folder on Tricaster Note 1VGA will run from anywhere you put it on the client hard drive but you might wish to install itin the Program Files folder Program Files x86 for o 64bit version of Windows Run iVGA on the client computer by double clicking its icon A smaller icon will be added to the Windows task tray To select this external computer as a network source click the triangle that appears next to the Configure button for the Net 1 or Net 2 monitor when you roll the mouse pointer over it The iVGA icon begins cycling notifying someone viewing the monitor for the external source that this input is ive Hint A single IVGA source cannot be connected to bath Net 1 and Net 2 simultaneously Right clicking the little icon on the iVGA client system reveals a menu with various options Figure 222 Setup allows you to choose between monitors on a dual screen system You can also decide whether or not to Show Mouse Cursor in the display Refresh Overlay is there in case you need to quickly reset IVGA Selecting this is equivalent to stopping and re starting VGA This is also where you set the transfer speed your network can safely handle Gigabit network
232. ou don t own the hose orat least not the entire hose Once the stream leaves your immediate environment even if you can supply good throughput locally bandwidth may be constricted elsewhere along the transmission path The level of Internet traffic can impose limits but another major factor is the sort of connection your viewing audience may have Consider an example scenario Even though you know that most of your audience is going to connect to your program using relatively slow wireless devices you use a very high outgoing bitrate thinking that this will surely be enough to fill the need The fact is though a high bitrate actually ensures their experience willbe poor The client player tries to play the stream at the bitrate you specified but in this example the wireless bottleneck impedes flow It is as if you connected a fire hose on your end giving them a suitable high capacity nozzle for their end but in the last stage of flow the stream must pass through a small garden hose Sadly the stream will be quite insufficient and output fram the nozzle the cient player will falter badiy For reliable performance try to ensure the potential upload bandwidth from your system to the net is around twice the bitrate you choose You con broadcast at a rate closer to your actual ceiling but reliable performance cherishes headroom Also consider the expected download abilities of your viewers Ideally
233. ou to broaden the range considered as the key colar including more near neighbor colors to be included in the matte A low tolerance removes only color values close to the primary or key color As you raise the tolerance you extend the range of values on either side of the primary color that will be treated as transparent This allows you to deal with those imperfections we mentioned On the other hand it may be that there is usually unplanned for detail in the foreground that is somewhat similar to the key color Reducing Tolerance may allow you to prevent unwanted holes appearing when the subject opts to wear his St Patrick s Day tie 11 2 3 SMOOTHNESS Smoothness defines a further tolerance factor and a very useful one We want our keyed foreground to blend smoothly into the background rather than to stand out in hard relief like a postage stamp or decal Smoothness serves this purpose Don t overdo it though as aggressive settings can cause the foreground to become unnecessarily muddy 11 2 4 LUMA LIMIT When working with poorly lit backgrounds or poor quality footage the color Tolerance range separating the foreground talent from the background can be extremely narrow This problem can be aggravated if the subject wears dark clothing or when there are harsh shadows there is often a strong chroma component and associated chrama noise in dark foreground areas The noise may be partially or complet
234. ow also tinted red and green respectively Figuras THE UTILITY ROW Let s take a moment to discuss the Utility row now The steps we take here will come into play a bit further on in our exploration Figure so Notice that a group of controls labeled Utility Delegate is provided to the right of the Utility row as shown in Figure 50 The group contains buttons labeled FX AUX OUT DSK 1 and DSK 2 The selection you make here govern the Utility row buttons 1 Click the tab for the Graphics tab TriCaster 850 models have a dedicated Title module you can use instead and Add a ttle to the playlist choose one that does not cover the entire screen 2 Add a different title to the playlist for DDR 2 or Stil for a TriCaster 850 3 Click the button labeled DSK 1 in the Utility Delegate group this delegates the Utility row to control the DSK 1 source 4 Click the Graphics or Title button in the Utility row note that the label above the DSK 1 delegate button updates when you do so Figure st S Click the DSK 2 button in the Utility Delegate group and use the Utility row to assign DDR 2 as the current source for DSK 2 4 6 2 TRANSITIONS Now we re ready now to try out the features in the Transition section to the right of the Switcher rows Main Layer Controls Local Layer Controls As shown in Figure 52 the Transition section is organized into two groups the main layer controls at left
235. ows you to operate it without even connecting downstream video monitors or devices You might do just that in the case of productions intended primarily for live streaming In other cases however you will likely connect external monitors to the VIDEO OUT connectors on TriCaster s backplate see Section 3 6 High definition video monitors should be connected to either SDI or Component connections 3 10 1 SD ANALOG CONFIGURATION For standard definition monitoring however several types of analog connections are currently in popular use These include Composite Y C also known as S Video and at the upper end of the analog quality range Component To connect an analog standard definition monitor for use in live production you must specify the connection type in the Output Configuration panel Nate Analog connections for SpeedEDIT and LiveText output are pre defined and cannot be user modified Please se Chapter 17 far details Figure20 1 Move your mouse pointer over the large Program Output monitor on the Live Desktop 2 Click the Configure button gear that appears above its top right corner Figure 20 to open the Output Configuration panel The first tab in this panel is labeled Output Optional settings for SD Analog Connections are located in the central part of the panel Fgwre21 Fguezz These settings provide optional configurations for the first output connection designat
236. p Title 49 LiveMatte 410 Virtual Inputs 4 10 1 Composing Inputs A and B 4102 Adding an Upstream Overlay 4403 Liveset 441 Frame Buffers 412 Streaming 4421 Streaming Configuration 4422 Simple Pull Streaming 43 m AS 46 a7 a 50 50 51 52 53 54 54 54 54 58 63 m 65 66 66 n 75 78 78 80 m 85 87 88 r1 4423 Push and Flash Streaming 424 Capturing the Stream PARTI Reference 5 The Startup Screen 5 1 Introduction to Sessions 52 The Home Page 521 New Session 522 Open Session 523 Shutdown 524 Utilities 525 Help 526 Add Ons 53 The Session Page 531 Le 532 Graphics 533 Edit 534 Manage 61 Display Requirements 62 Overview 63 AFewHints 64 Customizing the Live Desktop 641 Desktop Options Menu 642 Rename 64 Dual Displays and Monitoring 65 Ttlebar Tips 65 1 Status Bar 652 Eject 7 VO Configuration 90 90 E 95 96 98 100 101 103 104 104 105 105 107 108 115 m 116 116 m E ua 119 120 120 121 1233 74 Output Configuration 713 Output Controls 742 ProcAmp 7 13 SD Analog Connections 744 Aux Output 715 Multiview Output 716 Genlock 7 17 Center Frequency 7 2 Input Configuration 724 Connection Type 7 22 Actas Alpha 723 ProcAmp 724 UveMatte amp Crop 73 Timecode Configuration 734 Subtract 12 Hours 73 Producti
237. panel Figure 29 4 The default Reference Type in the Genlock settings is SD Bi level as this is currently the most common reference signal type However if you supply an HD reference signal to the Genlock input you may want to change the setting to HD Tri level 5 With the aid of downstream Waveform and Vector Scopes adjust TriCaster s Horizontal and Vertical Position and Phase settings in the Genlock section of the 1 0 Configuration panel Ideally both the cameras and the TriCaster should be genlocked If they are not genlocked to the same reference signal as the TriCaster output a TBC Time Base Correction operation is automatically applied Time Base Correction may drop or insert occasional frames as necessary to maintain sync hence is a less desirable approach Note For a deeper discussion of genlocking please see Section 7 1 6 3 16 CONFIGURE TIMECODE ESERTEPE Tricaster uses the system clock to generate local timecode for the time display shown in the Live Desktop and to be embedded in captured MPEG 2 video clips To configure timecode click the configure button gear next to the timecode display in the Live Desktop titlebar Please see section 7 3 for more detail Figureso If you have an external linear timecode LTC source you can use that timecode reference instead of relying on the local system time A switch is provided in the Timecode Configuration panel to Figur
238. pen a TriCaster session or create a new one from the Home Page of the Startup Screen 3 Click the Live icon on the Session Page of the Startup Screen and press Enter or click the Start Live Production link 4 For SD display devices you may need to adjust the connection options found in Output Configuration a Move the mouse over the Program monitor and click the Configure button gear that appears above it to open Output Configuration b Click the Output tab and select either Composite C or Component according to the connection type used by your device Please see Section 3 10 for more information A 1 6 CONNECT A SUPPORTED EXTERNAL CONTROL SURFACE Connect the USB cable from the Control Surface to one of TriCaster s USB ports SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION Q TriCaster TCXD850 CS has suddenly stopped working What can 1 do A The foremost reason this might happen is if the cable or extender cable you are using between the control surface and the TriCaster failed to deliver sufficient current consistently In the short term if you are in the middle of a show you can generally resolve this issue by simply unplugging and re plugging the control surface However please note that the use of so called USB extenders is not recommended Whenever possible use a single USB cable of the correct length Each added connector on the signal path is a potential connection problem and also causes signal re
239. ples are shown inthe table below Several convenience features are associated with these controls As you would expect all slider controls whether their motion is vertical or horizontal can be set to a new value by holding down the left mouse button and dragging in the same direction as the control s orientation Hold down the keyboard Shift key and double click most controls to reset the associated value to its factory default Slider vertical Gain Balance or horizontal single value Radialslider Postion Size twoxalue Rotate Rotary Knob Audio Input 1 single value Trim Combo Sider Speed Zoom Duration 002096 Drag in line with the contra s orientation to raise or lower the current value Drag up down to adjust one value left right to adjust the other value or diagonally to adjust two values simultaneously Drag left right to adjust the current value Drag in line with the control s orientation to raise or lower the current value click to type in a new value or select from the menu Hint To make very fine adjustments to slider values hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard while dragging with the mouse this increases accuracy by a factor of 10 6 4 CUSTOMIZING THE LIVE DESKTOP particular needs The Live Desktop offers several convenient provisions for tweaking the user interface to suit your 6 4 1 DESKTOP OPTIONS MENU Several potentially very useful options
240. production environment i e your bread and butter depends on getting it right and now not tomorrow failure to test beforehand is not merely unwise it can be professional suicide You should already be aware of the need for redundancy in a professional environment you didn t bring just one camera did you As reliable as any device may be Murphy and his Law are alive and well So you plan for this bringing the appropriate equipment such as uninterruptable power supplies backup recording devices there s no shame in having a VCR backing up your digital record low tech still has a place in the grand scheme But you also need to perform onsite testing to ensure your live stream is working well before zero hour No one will thank you for excuses no matter how brilliantly they point the finger at forces beyond your control 1 Set up and enable a test program stream from your TriCaster 2 You can use the tools and integrated web browser in the Streaming Configuration panel but you may want to confirm using an external system too Open Windows Media Player and select File Open URL from its file menu in some versions you need to right click WMP s title bar to present the menu 3 Enter the IP address and port number for your stream here 4 You should be able to connect and view your program stream Success at this point does not necessarily mean you re done You may be able to see the stream locally but
241. provides its own contribution to TriCaster s audio output mix Settings in the output control panels in the Internal Audio tab take effect downstream from all sources further governing audio levels sent to two different sets of output connectors plus headphones and when in use the Internet stream Hint Shift double click Gain knobs to restore their default values Od8 13 3 1 AUX AND STREAM Aux Output as you might expect controls audio sent to the four AUX output connectors An important addition to its control group is the Source drop down menu This allows you to decide to supply sound to the AUX outputs exclusively from one of the following selections DDR 1 The meters show the levels for audio the first 4 channels from DDR 1 output which are individually sent to AUX output connectors 22 24 DDR 2 The meters show the levels for audio the first 4 channels from DDR 2 output which are individually sent to AUX output connectors 22 24 gure 237 Sound The meters show the levels for audio the first 4 channels from the Sounds player output which are individually sent to AUX output connectors 22 24 Internal This is a unique configuration providing support for a number of interesting and useful situations c The first two channels from DDR1 are blended with output from the Sounds player and placed on the left AUX output pair 2a and 2b The first two channels
242. ps 1 Open the Configure Stream Connection panel by clicking the Configure button gear nextto the Stream button on the Live Desktop 2 Click New Connection 3 Select the option appropriate to the profile you wish to import in the popup Choose Connection Type panel 4 Click the Resolution drop down menu and slide the pointer all the way down to the bottom to select Browse S Navigate to the custom profile select it and click Open REATING A CUSTOM WINDOWS MEDIA PROFILE 1 From Tricaster s Startup Screen click the Shutdown icon and select Exit to Windows 2 Click the Exit to Windows button in the confirmation dialog that pops up 3 Double click the My Computer icon and navigate to C TriCaster Streaming Profiles WMVPRofiles CREATING A CUSTOM FLASH STREAMING PROFILE di Identify a profile prx file similar to the one you wish to create inside the appropriate sub folder at that location Copy the file and paste the copy in at the same location Double click the new profile to open itin the Windows Media Profile Editor Make such changes to the settings as you see fit then click the Save and Close button Rename the modified profile to differentiate it from the others in the same folder Close the folder and re launch TriCaster From TriCaster s Startup Screen click the Shutdown icon and select Exit to Windows Click the Exit to Windows button in the confirmation dialog that pops up Launc
243. pter just mentioned 17 1 1 SESSIONS PROJECTS AND DISPLAY Normally SpeedEDIT uses the current session settings for output on TriCaster s video outputs The session format is also used for new projects created using SpeedEDIT s File menu New or from TriCaster s Session Page SpeedEDIT sends output to TriCaster s audio and video outputs continuously without selecting any menu setting Unlike the arrangement for Live Desktop output for SpeedEDIT purposes TriCaster s video outputs rows 1 3 wil all conform to the session format That is if the project is HD the SDI outputs will all be HD and the analog outputs will all be Component HD Likewise when the project is SD the SDI outputs will all be SD As there are multiple connection options for analog SD video please refer to the following table in this case f Row Number spi Analog enci Analog aNC2__ Analog BNCS Says Sa im o Composite Y c Note It is possible to use SpeedEDIT s File menu to open an exiting project not using the current session settings TriCaster will attempt to provide video output which may require it to reset the display hardware from HD to SD or vice verso It s possible that this could result in a monitor its connection type or bath being inappropriate for TriCaster s output mode 17 1 2 FILEBIN QUICKTABS SpeedEDIT s Filebins have pre configured QuickTobs pointing to the following default paths for the current se
244. r 450 models offer a combined Graphics player In either case all of these are actually essentially the same identified by name mostly for convenience in use All are similar to DDRs just discussed but for the fact that they do not offer clip playback Whether your TriCaster has a combined Graphics player or individual Still and Title players the type of media files they support remains largely the same Each of these players regardless of title can display TriCaster title pages and popular still image file formats Hint The DDRs can play all of the above media types as well as video clips and sound files EXPLORING AUTOPLAY AND SINGLE The controls of the graphics players are identical to those of the DDR apart from the omission af a playback Speed control which would be superfluous and possibly confusing Rather than cover these again ets have a little fun 1 Click both DDR 1 and the Graphics or Stil tabs so you can see both players TriCaster 850 owners can use Still and Title instead 2 Click any icon in the DDR 1 playlist and press CTRL a on the keyboard to select all of the playlist entries 3 Press Delete on your keyboard clearing out the entire playlist this is a non destructive deletion never fear 4 Repeat the two steps above for Graphics Still S Add some image files a dozen or more to DDR 1 you can use some of the images from the NewTek Content group under the Stil location
245. r and its content across a network Share Frame Buffer on Network is easily enabled or disabled even during a live production using the Live Desktop Options menu at the right hand end of the Switcher beneath the local Transition controls Figure 152 Tricaster automatically presents the current session s Frame Buffer folder using the network share name Frame Buffer This arrangement allows Frame Buffer files to be individually updated across a network using any suitable graphics application such as Photoshop or similar method When you save the edited image the remote copy on the TriCaster is immediately updated even if it is currently displayed live This allows you to refresh an overlay virtually instantly using your graphics software of choice from any computer with a network connection Frame Buffer files are stored using the popular 32 bit PNG Portable Network Graphics image format The specific file associated with any Frame Buffer is easily identified by its unique name overlay png virtual input 1 png etc Nate This special share name assignment is dynamic t is automatically updated whenever you enter a session with network sharing enabled to ensure that applications on the remote system can access and update Frame Buffer graphics for the current or mast recent TriCaster session 10 4 EDITING TITLE PAGES On mouse over title page icons display a configuration gear icon in their
246. r firewall is next to impossible c Mf TriCaster is behind a router your router must be configured to port forward o Requires significant bandwidth for example with Tricaster connected to the Internet by a DSL or Cable Modem line upload bandwidth is often less than AO0kbits second Allowing for network overhead at best a 320kbit steam can be accommodated This bandwidth would be fully consumed by two viewers watching 160kbit streams or a single viewer pulling a 170 320kbit stream Even a T1 digital line can only handle four simultaneous 300kbit streams A variation on the Pull method involves using an external streaming provider At one time the only method for streaming using such a provider was to have the server pull it from the encoder Under this system the server did not receive the stream until the first user requested it Then the server would connect to the encoder pull the stream to it and finally begin re distributing it to everyone requesting it This method worked passably until firewalls became more common 4 Advantages c Pull doesn t waste bandwidth no signal is being sent out to the server unless somebody wants to view it c Mf you lose your connection to the provider side server the server will re connect to your encoder automatically when Internet connection resumes c Providers typically have significant bandwidth and are able to meet necessary requirements to deliver stutter free
247. r one of several simpler approaches that can be performed right on your Tricaster For example if the clip will play properly in a DDR when the system is not heavily loaded with other tasks you could simply put the DDR on Program output click Record play the dip and stop recording With a little trimming of the recorded clip you ll have a very usable file Or You can use SpeedEDIT its Convert to SpeedHa feature found in the Filebin s context menu can easily convert a number of clips in a single operation FLASH Fav At the time of writing FAV format files written by Adobe Flash Media Encoder are incompatible with most video playback applications even those from Adobe The developer has explained the situation as follows Adobe Flash Media Server version 3 5 and later and Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder 3 can record content in MPEG 4 FAV format using an industry standard recording technology known as fragments or moof atoms Some MPEG 4 compatible tools and players do not support moof atoms and therefore cannot recognize files recorded by Flash Media Server The FAV Post Processor tool aggregates the information from all the moof atoms into a single moov atom and outputs a new file TrCaster automatically performs this conversion in the background on exiting a session However unconverted FAV files imported while the session is running or in other rare cases will not play in the DDR To make such files playabl
248. return you to this location 15 3 CONNECTION OPTIONS The process of configuring a Connection preset begins with clicking New to create it This action will immediately open a dialog entitled Choose Configuration Type The options available are as shown in Figure 230 Figure 230 Hint The Connection Types options may seem unfamiliar if you are new ta streaming You may find it helpful to read over Section 15 6 entitled Streaming Strategies in this case After selecting a Connection Type and clicking OK the Name field in the main Configure Stream Connection panel is highlighted to encourage you to supply a descriptive name for the preset 15 3 1 BROWSER BASED The basic Browser Based connection option can arguably be thought of as the lowest common denominator and also the least demanding approach in terms of learning curve for you the operator The only local setting required beyond the initial Connection Type selection is the URL of the Home field see Section 15 2 for the streaming site you intend to use Many of the organizations providing streaming services offer free accounts with limited capabilities and options often ad sponsored These arrangements can be just what you need to get started experimenting with live streaming or may even satisfy all of your needs in this regard Generally the companies involved also offer paid for accounts as upgrades The benefits may include such things as removing the ad
249. ricaster TCXDESO CS has suddenly stopped working What can do 279 Connect il alpha sources Connect alpha Matte output Color correct mismatched cameras Insert Remove a Drive From TriCaster s Removable Drive Bay am Supplement What hard drives are recommended for TriCaster 280 Connect an external hard drive son 28 Eject a hard drive Connect tally lights Connect to a network the Internet Connect to an AirPlay source Why doesn t my AirPlay device list TriCaster as a target Supplement Why do some clips not play properly across an AirPlay connection Enable termination for video inputs Sessions Supplement What is a session Start an SD session Start an HD session Supplement What is the best session format for streaming Work on a stored session Backup a session Restore a session Delete a session and its content Manage selected content inside a session Rename a session Duplicate a session Live Production Make custom transitions and LiveSets Restore the default Liveset Set up the Nightly Show A LiveSet Initiate streaming Find my captured stream file Record my program Find my recorded program file Change playback speed for clips in the DDR Media Player Deal with clips that seem blurry when examined in the DDR Media Player Get stubborn clips to play in the DDR Quicktime AVI Flash FAV Change the colors for an entire title playlist at
250. right speaker or vice versa whereas Pan con do this TRIM EX When the Connection Type is set to one of the Mic options input controls also include Trim knobs for each microphone input This is a variable gain setting Figure 209 enabling you to adjust input gain to suit the level of a variety of audio sources Rok 2s Clicking the Lock button links the level sliders above relative to each other This enables them to be adjusted in unison 13 1 4 MORE BASIC CONTROLS Most of the features that follow are common to all Connection Types with exceptions as noted frouow Feure211 Enabling the Follow switch for an audio source directs TriCaster to track switcher operations for the related video source This results in the audio for this source being completely muted until the associated video source is displayed on Program Output whether as the Switcher s Program row selection via Overlay or as Input A for a Virtua Input Hint When Follow is enabled but the corresponding video source is nat displayed on Output the full color audio level display on the VU meter is displayed as a grayscale rather than When Follow causes an audio source to be added to TriCaster s output the audio from this input is ramped up or down on removal over 1 second The Follow feature is especially powerful used in concert with Audio gure 212 A Mono switch appears in the control panel for sources set to a
251. rk the same network you connect TriCaster to is the means of transmission for AirPlay and a wireless connection from the player to the network is perfectly acceptable 1 Select the AirPlay entry in the Source menu for Net 1 or Net 2 just as you would select an VGA or LiveText source 2 TriCaster identifies itself as a potential client device to the AirPlay source 3 One or more TriCaster devices will be listed as potential output devices for the AirPlay device Select one and you are done Note A limitation of the current iTunes release prevents it from properly addressing the second AirPlay connection it detects Instead it attempts to use the first connection If the first connection is already committed to another source this attempt wil foil SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS Q2 Why doesn t my AirPlay device list TiCaster as a target A21 The first time you connect to a network with the TriCaster you must choose a network location This is an automatic Windows device that automatically configures appropriate firewall and security settings for the type of network that you connect to You will be presented with 3 options Home Work and Public f TriCaster s active network has inadvertently been set to Public AirPlay will not connect Be sure this is set to either Home or Work 12 2 By default the Windows firewall is disabled on TriCaster If your AirPlay device does not recognize TriCa
252. rmance Defragmenting corrects this condition You could think of your hard drive as being like a shelf in your library As time goes along the shelf fills with books Some are large while others are small just as TriCaster session content files may be larger or smaller To make room for new additions you decide to remove books you have finished with from the shelf You remove a book here another there opening up gaps between the remaining books This makes some shelf space available but also creates gaps separated by the remaining books Sadly when you obtain another large book it may be too big to fit in any one of the gaps A foolish librarian might tear the new book into sections just big enough to fit into the open spaces on the shelf This is would obviously be unwise When you wish to refer ta the book later you will lose a lot of time locating and assembling its sections before you can read it How much better it would be to slide the remaining books closer together combining all the free space first Unfortunately computers are foolish librarians They tend to want to fill in all the gaps in their storage areas even if it means literally shredding your book in reality large video files from your TriCaster sessions into tiny fragments Defragmenting the storage volume has the same effect as sliding the books together resulting in one or more larger gaps The end result is that TriCaster doesn
253. rner The Title Page Editor shown in Figure 69 will appear Figure 69 6 Move the mouse over the default text shown in the Title Page Editor s preview pane and notice that a white bounding box appears as you locate editable items 7 Double click inside the bounding box for a line of text to open a text entry field type something different then press Enter on the keyboard to accept the changes B Notice that you were able to edit a page without disturbing the title already displayed on Program Output Click the Close button 9 Repeat your text edit operation but this time modify the title that is displayed on Program Output notice this time that the display updates immediately 10 Try changing the Font Size and other attributes for a line of text using the tools in the Title Page Editor s titlebar Figure 70 11 Click the Close button 4 9 LIVEMATTE Let s try something different now using LiveMatte to create a typical weather report shot We ll use a pre recorded sample clip for this task but of course if you happen to have a greenscreen studio ready to use just skip the first three steps below and select the appropriate Input button on the Switcher s Program row instead of the DDR ESI 1 Change the Suitcher s Program row selection to Vi and enable the BKGD delegate button in the Transition section of the Switcher 2 Remove any extraneous DSKs left from earlier operations from
254. routers for information on various models and a great deal of help on port forwarding generally we can recommend the following site http www portforward com english routers port_forwarding routerindex htm Firewalls You may also run into software firewalls Generally these can be configured in similar to permit exceptions to the firewall policy permitting specific ports or applications to be opened to the world Information on exceptions in the Microsoft Windows Firewall can be found in its Help system FINDING YOUR EXTERNAL IP NUMBER Again the numbers assigned behind your router only work locally In a Pull scenario you need to supply the true external IP number and port for your TriCaster to viewers outside the LAN Local Area Network You can find this number in several ways For example your router will display it as its IP Address in its Status page Or you may want to use one of several handy websites that will quickly supply your current IP number one such is http www whatismyip com Simply go to the website in your browser and read the IP number from the screen Append a colon and the port number you are using to this number and you ve got everything you need for your viewers to connect Co Are you sure your upload bandwidth is adequate to the bitrate you ve set for your stream Why not test and make sure Again a number of websites provide free speed testing These will give you a basic id
255. rs tab at the top of the Live Desktop roll the mouse pointer over the camera monitor you want to set up and click the Configure gear button that appears above it Choose an appropriate Connection Type for your camera in the Input Settings tab see Sections 3 4 and 7 2 1 A 1 2 CONNECT FILL ALPHA SOURCES 1 Connect the Fill color source to an odd numbered video Input 2 Connect the Alpha channel source to the next higher even numbered video Input 3 Open a TriCaster session or create a new one from the Home Page of the Startup Screen 4 Click the Live icon on the Session Page of the Startup Screen and press Enter or click the Start Live Production lin S Click the All Monitors tab at the top of the Live Desktop roll the mouse pointer over the camera monitor you want to set up and click the Configure gear button that appears above it amp Choose the appropriate Connection Type for the source attached to the odd numbered Input in the Input Settings tab see Sections 3 4 and 7 2 1 7 Choose Act os Alpha Channel for Input as the Connection Type for the even numbered in the Input Settings tab See Section 7 2 2 A L3 CONFIGURE ALPHA MATTE OUTPUT Open the Output Configuration panel by clicking the Configure button gear above the main Program Output monitor lick the Output tab in Output Configuration and enable the Output Alpha Matte switch Select a suitable source using the Aux Source menu
256. s Edit titles live even while on air KEYING VIRTUAL SETS AND VIRTUAL INPUTS Use LiveMatte realtime keying technology for green blue screen effects Apply independent LiveMatte settings to all video sources Virtual Inputs Figure 11 permit M E Mix Effect style compositions of two primary switcher sources with convenient Scale Position Crop and Rotation controls Figure 11 Achieve the look of a sophisticated studio setting in a very small space with NewTek s astonishing LiveSet virtual set technology Zoom in out on Livesets during your live productions right from the Live Desktop Virtual Inputs also sport an integrated overlay channel selected from any Switcher source or an assigned Frame Buffer graphic with its own position controls Convenient presets allow single click access to pre configured Virtual Input setups 2 4 15 GRAPHICS Also part of TriCaster s integrated software suite is LiveText NewTek s professional titling and graphics application LiveText allows you to create your own custom title pages and motion graphics including scrolls and crawls 2 4 16 EDIT The full version of NewTek s popular and versatile non linear video editing program SpeedEDIT is included as well SpeedEDIT provides powerful professional tools to let you prepare movies for Insertion into your live productions or perform broadcast quality post production work on recorded programs
257. s more streaming options such as higher bitrate and resolutions or multi bitrate streaming two way live chat and so on Note The steps involved in creating an account with a streaming service provider and configuring the stream vary widely and unfortunately cannot really be dealt with in depth here Generally though they are pretty simple and the provider offers step by step information and support through the site And of course NewTek s own TriCaster forum membership con generally be relied upon for helpful hands on experience and advice Once configured on the remote site you can audition your streaming broadcast using the Test button provided in the Configure Stream Connection panel After leaving this panel the Stream button underneath the Program Out monitor on the Live Desktop toggles streaming on an off if you start streaming with the Test button then close the Configure Stream Connection panel streaming continues If you do not wish to archive your test stream disable the Archive File Switch beforehand but remember to re nable it later if desired Hint Some services may show you what they are receiving from TriCaster when you press Test or Stream but do not actually broadcast thot stream until you indicate that you are ready to go on air using controls on the website For Browser Based streaming the encoding of your program into a stream for transmission to the service provider and ultima
258. s the problem might be as simple as a bad cable connection To issue a ping you need know the IP number of the target computer Finding the target IP number For Windows XP 1 Select Run from the Windows Start Menu look in the Settings sub menu i it is not listed at the top level 2 Type cmd without the quotation marks into the dialog and press Enter on the keyboard 3 Inthe command shell that opens type ipconfig without the quotation marks and press Enter again 4 The JP Address for the system will be reported in the window along with other data For Windows Vista or later 1 Type run without the quotation marks into the Search field then press Enter on the keyboard 2 Type cmd without the quotation marks into the dialog and press Enter on the keyboard 3 In the command shell that opens type ipconfig without the quotation marks and press Enter again 4 The IP Address for the system will be reported in the window listed next to IPv4 Address along with other data To find the IP Address fora system running OS X 1 Click the Apple icon at upper left on the Desktop and select About This Mac 2 Click More info in the panel which opens 3 Click Network in the Contents column at left 4 The IP number for the system will be listed in the right hand pane issuing a Ping Ping is a command line program and must be run from a command shell on the issuing comp
259. s can differ dramatically When mixing multiple cameras we need to ensure that their output matches Switching to a camera with obviously different color characteristics will be seen as a glaring error by your viewers Even when we restrict matters to a single unit color characteristics can change as the system warms up and as it ages For this reason it s important to allow a device to warm up before attempting to calibrate it C 2 1 SETTING BLACK AND WHITE Naturally the color range available for transmission and recording is bounded at the upper level by white and at the lower level by black Anything else falls somewhere in between Consider what happens if you gradually raise the brightness control on your television Beyond a certain point and unlike claims made for laundry detergent your whites do not become whiter They can t the upper limit white is firmly fixed Instead parts of the image that are nearly white are boosted eventually also becoming white Meanwhile black portions of the picture are tending towards gray Since white cannot become whiter and black has become gray we could say that the dynamic range of the image has been narrowed The net result is a less vibrant image The same thing is true for video from your cameras If the black and white levels from the camera are incorrect you are effectively losing either shadow or highlight detail For this reason the first thing many do is calibrate their camera
260. s located in the folder at C TriCaster Canfiguration Comments in the file provide details of its use Note that if your display hardware declines to work with additions you make to the menu the Live Desktop error flash line may show an unsupported display mode message and the monitor may either revert to the previous mode or simply not show anything at all NOTE Changing Output Resolution can cause frames to be dropped briefly We do not recommend changing this setting during live production Q2 After reconnecting monitors my Multiview and Interface monitor configuration is messed up What can do A If you disconnect or power down and reconnect monitors while on TriCaster s Live Desktop the operating system can have difficulty with monitor recognition and configuration To avoid problems naturally it s best to leave display devices connected to the DVI ports along while ive In the case of an accidental disconnection avoid reconnecting both monitors at the same time Rather allow the display on the first monitor connected to stabilize before connecting the second VIDEO MONITORS DEVICES Downstream video monitoring devices must be compatible with the video broadcast standard such as NTSC or PAL you intend to use in the TriCaster session 1 Connect cables between downstream devices whether monitors or other devices and appropriately labeled connectors on TriCasters backplate see Section 3 7 1 2 O
261. s source is set to Solo Nate Audio 7 is automatically muted when Use Linear timecode LTC is enabled in Timecode Configuration You can un mute it briefly to adjust signal levels but of course you don t want this to be audible during o live production Sola might be useful in such cases 13 1 2 CONNECTION TYPE gure 207 Individual sub panel panels for external sources govern a group of audio connections comprised variously of two XLR or 14 phone jack inputs or an SDI Embedded digital audio source Only one input type can be operative for a given audio input group at any moment A drop down Connection Type menu at the top allows selection of one of the following options Mic 1 2 low impedance microphones and other common professional audio sources Mic 1 2 Phantom power microphones typically condenser mics requiring supplementary DC power ine generally consumer audio sources such as CD players VCRs etc SDI Embedded digital audio embedded with digital video transmitted via a Serial Digital interface SDI connection Line Quad for convenience in some environments neighboring same type input groups can be configured as a single quad input governed by one set of controls 13 1 3 MICROPHONE SPECIFIC CONTROLS Certain controls are only shown when the Connection Type for an input is set to one of the Mic options as follows TALK It is often useful to reduce all other audio
262. s tab displays individual monitors for all Media Players with Network 1 and Network 2 Again depending on the TriCaster model you may find other additions completing the array 9 6 SCOPES TAB A further and very valuable monitoring tab option is Scopes This selection presents a full color source video monitor along with Waveform and Vectorscope displays A drop down menu at upper left lets you choose whether the current reference source for the scopes and full color monitor is Preview Program or the FX row selection When set to Preview the two scopes and the associated monitor refer to the current Look Ahead Preview composition including any delegated DSK channels or FTB as source Figure 168 The Program setting likewise monitors the entire Program Output composition not merely the Program row selection When FX is selected the scopes refer to the PX channel source providing a handy way to calibrate a single Switcher source The scopes and monitor permit you to judge the effect of Proc Amp and LiveMatte adjustments while making them See Appendix C Video Calibration for help on using TriCaster s scopes The titlebar for the video monitor shows a Configure button gear when appropriate Click this button to access Proc Amp and LiveMatte controls for the current Preview composition s background source only Note Adjustments you make in the source Configuration panel only affect the background source w
263. s to front panel of case Four attachable rubber feet for desktop use A C power cable s BNC removal tool to assist with cable connection and removal DVI to VGA adapter NewTek mouse and keyboard Quick Start Guide NewTek 3PLAY brochure Getting Started Training DVD NewTek VGA CD NewTek TriCaster registration reminder card New product letter 3 1 COMMAND AND CONTROL 1 Connectan external computer monitor to the uncapped DVI port on the backplate labeled interface on TriCaster 850 For TriCaster 850 use the DVI connector nearest to the Video In group for the interface monitor connection DVI connectors located at left below the power supply are normally capped and should not be used Note TriCaster s user interface requires a minimum screen resolution of 1440x900 2 Connect the mouse and keyboard to USB ports on TriCaster 3 Connect the A C power cord s from the three prong connections on TriCaster s backplate to an external power receptacle see Hint below 4 Turn on the computer monitor A word about UPS devices Modified sine wave UPS devices are popular due to low manufacturing costs However such units should generally be viewed as being of low quality and possibly inadequate to fully protect the system from abnormal power events 5 Press the Power switch located on TriCaster s faceplate At this point the blue Power LE
264. s to them Composite a two conductor design using the classic RCA connector also referred to as a phono connector or CINCH AV connector Y C typically using a round 4 pin mini DIN connector or two BNC connectors Y C keeps Y luminance and C chrominance signals separate Hint Y C is occasionally called component which while technically correct con be a bit confusing given the name of the next class S Video legitimate or S VHS completely incorrect though a common error Component a k a YUV or t Pb Pr a three wire system typically using BNC push amp twist on connectors For analog connections either of the last two methods is to be preferred but it is entirely Possible to succeed with only a composite signal When you have something better available however you should naturally use it Try to avoid downgrading the pre LiveMatte signal from a Y C camera for example by connecting it to your TriCaster using composite cabling Hint cameras using IEEE 1394 connection such as mini DV or HDV format are nat supported as lve switching sources for several reasons However they may often be connected by Y C cable mint DV cameras only or Component cabling This configuration may actually provide a better color rendition for Keying purpose than if it were possible to connect them by IEEE1394 cable nM Virtual inputs are a wonderful Tricaster innovation opening
265. se current sources are different no buttons are initially lit Atalltimes the source currently assigned to a delegate is listed above its button in the Utility Delegate group 8 1 2 PROGRAM AND PREVIEW The Program row selection determines the dominant video stream of the Background BKGD video layer the bottom most layer of the composition shown on Program output Normally the Preview row selection determines which source is The Program and Preview rows are extended with buttons labeled VI to either V4 or V8 depending on the TriCaster model These buttons control display of the composite output of TriCaster s Virtual Inputs Chapter 11 8 2 VIDEO LAYERS The concept of video loyers is central to understanding how TriCasters Switcher and Transition controls relate to one another and how they combine to form the video seen on Program Out TriCaster s Background layer often shortened to simply BKGD is always the base for the video composition displayed on Progrom out DSK Down Stream Keyer or overlay layers may or may not appear above or if you like in front of the Background DSK layers are typically used for overlaying graphics titles etc though they may serve other purposes as well In addition to BKGD three additional primary layers can contribute to TriCaster s final Program output at any given moment The Background BKGD layer supplies the bottom most
266. selecta different transition and click Auto again 7 To replace the current transition in the Transition Bin with a different one follow these steps a Click a transition slot other than Fade the left mot icon and then click the configuration gear button at extreme right b Click the drop down menu in the configuration panel select Browse and choose a new transition from the many supplied with TriCaster Figure 54 B To change the duration of the transition click the drop down menu next to the local Auto button The time for the transition is shown as seconds and frames 9 Now click the local Auto button for the DSK 1 layer Since Graphics is assigned to DSK 1 the currently selected item in that Medio Player transitions in to appear above the BKGD layer MAIN CONTROLS Having seen how local Transition controls work lets move on to their main counterparts Figures 10 In the main Transition control group Figure 55 click the BKGD button above the T Bar This delegates the controls below to affect the Background video layer only 11 Click the button labeled Auto below the T Bar again the main Auto button nat to be confused with the local Auto buttons at right Tat Ato 0202 Figure 56 12 Click a different transition icon in the BKGD Transition Bin and click the Auto button again TriCaster supplies a wealth of transitions to suit every need 13 Selecta slower transition speed f
267. sh Media The decision as to which encoding format to use for your live stream is up to you or in some cases your client Here are some things to consider 4 Some corporate and institutional network administrators opt to support one or another format exclusively Check with your IT department to find out if this affects your decision 4 Flash has a very wide installed user base and seems poised to increase in proliferation in the foreseeable future 4 Flash works well across multiple platforms PCs Macs Linux etc Windows Media is well represented but perhaps not quite to the same degree 4 Some sources report that the Flash movies will have a larger file size and use greater bandwidth than Windows Media for a given stream quality This is hard to assess and changes constantly as developers update their products 4 Codecs for both types are updated with fair regularity and when you choose the latest greatest encoding your viewers may not all have the current player requiring them to download and install updates BANDWIDTH CONSIDERATIONS You ll often hear the term bitrate in connection with streaming video This expression refers data throughput per second generally measured in Kilobits per second or Kbps You could think of this as being like water flowing through a hose You control the faucet because you get to choose the Stream Profile in Tricaster s Stream Configuration panel However y
268. siderations 12 1 Primary Video Sources 122 Position 123 Overlay 124 Liveset 1241 LiveSet Selection 1242 Video Sources 1243 Zoom Presets 12 44 Zoom T Bar 12 45 InputPosition 12 46 Animate Zoom 13 Audi 134 External Audio 1311 1312 1313 1314 1315 Mute Connection Type Microphone Specific Controls More Basic Controls Audio Groups 132 Internal Audio 1321 1322 1323 Net d and Net 2 Effects Transitions Media Players 133 Output Controls 1331 1332 Aux and Stream Master and Phones 134 Advanced Audio Configuration 193 194 194 194 197 198 198 200 201 201 202 203 204 204 205 208 208 208 210 212 216 217 218 218 218 218 219 220 220 1341 Equalizer 220 1342 Compressor Limiter ET 135 Preset in 222 14 Network Sources 141 NGA 223 14 11 NGAforOSX 224 14 12 GA for Windows 225 142 AirPloy 227 143 LiveText 228 144 SPhy 228 15 Streaming 154 Overview 230 15 11 Compact View 230 15 2 Web Browser 231 15 3 Connection Options 232 15311 Browser Based 233 15 3 2 Adobe Flash 234 15 3 3 Windows Media Pull 236 15 34 Windows Media Push 237 154 Audio Headroom 238 15 5 Capturing the Stream 238 15 6 Streoming strategies 239 15 6 1 On Demand or Live 239 15 6 2 Streaming Protocols w2 15 6 3 Streaming Media Providers 244 15 6 4 Other Resources 245 157 Production and Capture Considerations 245 15 8 Diag
269. sing Open or New takes you to the Session Page providing a new set of selections on the icon ring The name of the current session is shown in the top left corner of the screen The current session is displayed in the form Home session name If you wish to leave the current session and return to the Home Page you can click the large Back Arrow displayed beneath the session name or the word Home in the session name label Figure 202 Initially the icon ring in the Session Page offers four selections These are discussed next 5 3 1 LIVE The icon labeled Live represents the Live Desktop TriCaster s live production center Selecting it by clicking the icon or using the left right arrow keys to bring it to the front presents a Start Live Production link in the Session Page s right hand pane click it to launch the Live Desktop 5 3 2 GRAPHICS gure 108 TriCaster includes an integrated version of LiveText NewTek s standalone titling and CG application Selecting the Graphics icon displays a number of related items on the right hand side of the Session Page Project Name No LiveText Projects in Session New LiveTaxt P Enter Project Nam Start Project gure 205 When you first enter a new session no LiveText projects are listed in the area under Project Nome When you have created one or more projects the name s will appear here and as you would expect you can re open the project by c
270. source levels so that an important announcement can bbe clearly understood by the audience The Talk switch also known as Talk Over makes this a simple matter Enabling Talk for a source typically a microphone reduces the output level of all other audio sources by 20dB PAN When the Connection Type is set to one of the Mic options TriCaster presents two small Pan sliders above each of the VU meters kz Pan Figure208 an adjusts placement of the corresponding input sound on output channels and progressively modulates levels in the process so that the overall volume neither rises nor drops as a result of adjustments Using Pan one can send part of channel 1 to channel 2 and vice versa Let s consider an example When Pan is set to the extreme left position for Input 1a its audio signal is passed exclusively to Program Output 10 ignoring Aux output 1a for this discussion Centering the Pan knob splits the sound from Input Ja so that it is heard equally on outputs 1a and 1b The levels in this case are automatically reduced so that the overall level sent from Input 1a sent to output remains constant Sliding Pan for Input 1a all the way to the right results in that source only being audible on Program Output 1b Hint Pan is not the same os Balance The balance control for a stereo source varies the relative level of the left and right channels but the sound from the left channel will never come ut of the
271. ssion Nate the Quicktab links refer to session dependent paths thus are not permanent Thats fora given session the path the Quicktab refers to is established ot launch time For this reason the TriCaster version of SpeedEDIT does nat support user added Quicktabs 17 1 3 IEEF1394 1 0 OUTPUT The realtime IEE1394 DV HDV preview found in SpeedEDIT standalone is not supported for Tricaster which has other superior video display options However the File menu point Send to DV Tope and the similar icon context menu in the Filebin is available Hint SpeedEDIT s Output menu is not required in TrCuster for this reason 17 1 4 SPEEDEDIT DESKTOP TriCaster launches SpeedEDIT on a desktop of its own spanning all connected monitors You can exit SpeedEDIT by clicking the x button in the upper right corner of the desktop or by using the File men item Close Hf you have a secondary monitor connected to TriCaster you can drag SpeedEDIT s Video Output window opened from the Window menu onto that screen then maximize it by double licking inside the preview area double clicking a second time restores the standard floating window Similarly you might find it convenient to maximize the SpeedEDIT window to fill the primary monitor display To do this double click the window border In this configuration the Desktop exit button is not available but you can exit the application using th
272. ster after enabling AirPlay for Net 1 or Net 2 it may be that someone has enabled it and it is preventing connection You can either disable it or if you really must have it adjust its settings as follows 1 Exit to Windows from the Shutdown menu in TriCaster s Home Page 2 Open the Windows Firewall interface by clicking the Start button and then clicking the Control Panel link Alternatively type firewall without quotes into the Search box and press Enter then click Windows Firewall 3 Inthe left pane click Advanced Settings If prompted for an administrator password or confirmation type the password or provide confirmation 4 Inthe Windows Firewall with Advanced Security dialog box click Inbound Rules in the left pane and then click New Rule inthe right pane 5 Follow the instructions in the New Inbound Rule wizard amp Ensure that the following ports are open Port Protocol Name E Tc HTTP a Tc HTTPS 554 TCP UDP RTSP 3689 Tc DAAP 5353 upp mDNS Bonjour A 2 3 Make sure you are connected to the correct network especially for Wi Fi iOS connects to known networks by default If multiple Wi Fi connections are available it may connect automatically to a previously known network For a wireless AlrPlay source such as iPad follow these steps 1 Tap Settings gt Wi Fi If WI Fi is off turn it on by tapping the on off icon 2 Available Wi Fi netw
273. t waiwnicrosoft com windows windowsmediafknowledgecenter wminaction streaming pushoullasx Tlgnare the detailed discussion of configuring the encoder and just enjoy the pretty pictures your TriCoster makes that part easy for you 15 7 PRODUCTION AND CAPTURE CONSIDERATIONS If you re not intent on live streaming but wish to capture a live switching session you would likely record at full resolution using the Record button rather than Stream The high quality captured files can then be used later in TriCaster s DDR edited in SpeedEDIT or even be transferred to another computer even on a different platform for external processing or editing Hint use an external hord drive to transfer the files between systems or simply transfer them across a local network You can always convert these files to a streaming file format if you later decide you d like to supply them for on demand Internet viewing This lets you retain best quality right through to final output When you eventually encode for streaming you can choose settings that best suit the intended audience and streaming environment At the very least if perhaps to save conversion time you capture video for web distribution it s best to capture it at least at the size that you intend for final output to ensure satisfactory video quality for your viewers When video is compressed as it invariably is for web viewing you can ose impor
274. t of its filename This would include any file with the filename extension wav WAVE audio file format but also wavingman jpg or ightwave render avi CONTEXT MENUS Right click a Location listed under My Media Locations to show a context menu with just one item in it Remove de lists the location but does not delete the folder and its contents from the hard drive Nate this menu is exclusively for use in the My Medio Location section and is nat available for other headings in the Location List Right click on a file icon in the right hand pane to show a menu providing Rename and Delete options Be aware that Delete really does remove content from your hard drive This menu is not shown if the item clicked is write protected 0 2 3 PLAYER CONTROLS Transport controls and playback settings are located directly below the Playlist and Scrub Bor Figure 176 TIME DISPLAY gure 177 During playback a timecode field in the transport controls area displays the Current Time for the player This may be the current time position relative to the active playlist item or the duration for the entire playlist as discussed next when Single mode is enabled the duration used is always that of the current playlist item Left click the field to type in a timecode then press Enter to jump to that point in the file or playlist 1f you right click the timecode field instead a menu allows you to choose to b
275. t for the model either four TriCaster 450 EHTREME or eight TriCaster 850 EHTREME sources in total including the Primary source To remove an entry click the corresponding X button at left Caution Its recommended that any single drive serve to capture one or two videa sources at most ond a warning message is displayed if you exceed this number when configuring Destination settings TriCaster does not prevent you from exceeding this limit however when you are confident that very fast volumes are capable of handling the load 16 2 GRAB At times all you really want to capture is a still image from the current Program Output video stream This is the purpose of TriCaster s Grab function Figure 287 Click the Configure button gear next to Grab beneath the Program Output monitor to open the Grab Stil Configuration panel The options presented are similar to those of Record Configuration though a bit simpler Again enter a Base Name The name you supply which will be numerically incremented as required Enable the Add to Graphics or Stil depending on the model Playlist switch to automatically include newly captured clips at the end of the current Still tab playlist ready for immediate playback during the live production Close the Grab Still Configuration panel by clicking Close or clicking anywhere outside the panel Then click the Grab button to capture the selected a v source to your hard drive Image files
276. t have to frantically search in many different places to assemble the video streams from your recorded session Hint Defragmentation can sometimes take considerable time sa I not something you want ta begin just before an important event RESTORE TO FACTORY DEFAULTS A complete System Restore function is available in the event of an unforeseen problem Please refer to Section A57 in Appendix A for full details and usage notes 5 2 5 HELP Select the Help icon to reveal links to open TriCaster manuals including the primary User Guide as well as documentation for other TriCaster features such as the SpeedEDIT and LiveText manual Documentation for optional Control Surfaces and Add ons will appear here as well Click the License Agreement link to review the TriCaster license requirements or the About TriCoster link to list software version information credits and acknowledgments 5 2 6 ADD ONS As time goes on NewTek offers additional software to extend the power of your TriCaster The icon labeled Add Ons on the Home Page provides access to these tools When you select it links are displayed for installed software applications allowing you to launch them For example Figure 101 shows a link to the Virtual Set Editor demo as well as the Animation Store Creator utility included with TriCaster EH TREME systems 5 3 THE SESSION PAGE Opening a session from the Home Page whether u
277. t implementations LiveSet does not need multiple LiveSets to mimic different virtual camera distances for a single camera angle Making a single selection populates four Zoom Presets just below Figure 200 Initially these four presets represent default stops between the maximum and minimum distance for the specific set the closest view is 100 Click a preset thumbnail to jump to the camera view it represents An active Zoom Preset is shown with a gold border a white border tracks your cursor when selecting presets Notice that a numeric slider is provided above right for each preset These work the same as other numeric sliders in TriCaster s Live Desktop drag to adjust the value click to type directly into the field using the keyboard or press keyboard Shift and then double click to restore the default value for that preset Note Some LiveSets e g double box sets da not support zooming in such cases the Zoom Presets and the Zoom T Bar are inactive 12 4 4 ZOOM T BAR gure 201 The Zoom T Bar is located beside the Zoom Presets Dragging it vertically adjusts the virtual camera distance for the active LiveSet between 0 100 When you click a Zoom Preset the T Bar updates to the new zoom level displayed numerically above Conversely though adjusting the T Bar does not change the value for a Preset When the current T Bar position does not correspond to any presets none of them ar
278. t often consists of multiple sources of imagery added together layer on layer to form a composite The Switcher and Transition controls allow you to manage these video layers to show the viewer just what you want him to see Three of the four primary video layers BKGD DSK 4 and DSK 2 The BKGD Background video layer constitutes the base of the video composition ultimately sent to Program Output Based on your Switcher operations as many as three other primary video layers may be superimposed above the BKGD layer on output The DSK 1 and DSK 2 video layers are most commonly used to apply graphics or titles to the BKGD layer DSK stands for Down Stream Keyer FTB Fade to Black constitutes a final video layer prior to output one that can obscure all others when called upon to do so FTB is less commonly used and unlike the other primary video layers has no local transition controls Figure 48 As stated in the previous section the Program and Preview row selections determine the content of the BKGD Background video layer The Preview row selection is normally cued up for the next Take cut or Transition operation Either operation once completed results in the original Program and Preview row selections exchanging places Of course during a transition portions of both the Program and Preview row selections can be seen in varying amounts The BKGD layer composition can include other content as well as we ll see la
279. t or anamorphic 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by SDI input connectors Optionally carries embedded audio 1576 251 Y C PAL S Video analog format standard definition interlaced 720x576 pixels 4 3 picture aspect or anamorphic 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by Y and Pb input connectors 2576 25 Composite PAL analog format standard definition interlaced 7205576 pixels 4 3 picture aspect or anamorphic 16 9 picture aspect Connected to TriCaster by Y input connector Multi tandard TriCaster PAL connection type Page 134 7 2 2 ACT AS ALPHA TriCaster optionally allows one or more neighboring pairs of video inputs to be combined as a single video alpha channel sometimes also referred to as fill and matte The ability to configure one input as the alpha channel source for another is absolutely invaluable for installations employing video feeds from high end external CG and chromakeying systems such as Chyron and Ultimate To use this feature select Act as Alpha Channel for input as the Connection Type in the input Configuration panel for an even numbered input Nate The input configuration video format and conn tion type for the alpha input is automatically configured to match the fil source it is paired with 7 2 3 PROC AMP Figure 137 The main portion of the Input
280. t suitable for both SD and HD applications Hint Users of Microsoft Windows can download a free NewTek codec pack from their personol downloads page in the Registration area of the NewTek website H 264 Another important encoding option is H 264 TriCaster supports two different bitrates designated High Quality and Web Quality The former uses 20 Mbit sec encoding while the latter option invokes a 2 Mbit sec bitrate suitable for online use Nate H 264 encoding is processor intensive We recommend this format be used to encode Just one video stream to avoid dropped frames or other glitches QUICKTIME Quicktime encoding is recommended for use for convenient transport to Apple Final Cur systems and the like Encoding uses an all I frame format similar to SpeedHQ AVI and is suitable for realtime playback without conversion DESTINATION Figure 205 Select drives or other storage volumes as targets for the different recordings using the Destination drop down menu SECONDARY RECORDINGS EE Wewreks isoCorder technology provides further recording capabilities to TriCaster ET REMeE systems An additional list of Secondary sources can be added in the Record Configuration panel the number depends on the model These are configured in exactly the same manner as the Primary source discussed previously Click the Add Source button to place an additional entry into the list up to the total limi
281. tant Nate Use straight a k a non premultipli 75 media players Premultiplied files may not yield correct results when o Figure 155 TriCaster s DSK layers offer a lot of creative possibilities You might use one DSK to display a permanent station ID bug Or you might superimpose a company logo from Still onto a title page add a spinning globe animation playing in the DDR to a lower third frame a keyed source composed over a title Figure 155 or set up many other elaborate effects in this manner 8 3 7 MAIN CONTROLS In large measure TriCaster s main Transition controls Take Auto and the T Bar behave similarly to their local sidekicks What makes them special is the Transition Delegate button group located just above the main T Bar TRANSITION DELEGATES An executive maxim suggests Don t do anything yourself when you can delegate it We briefly examined the Utility Delegate tools back in Section 8 1 1 where we discovered that delegating controls can multiply their functionality The familiar main T Bar Auto and Take controls occupying the left half of TriCaster s Transition control group are now joined by a set of Transition Delegate buttons Let s see how applying the concept of delegating controls affects their use Figure 156 Assign something suitable to both DSK layers using the Utility row with FX delegated Click the local Take buttons to hide both DSK layers if the
282. tant detail compressing a full screen video down to a quarter or a sixteenth of its size isa lesson in humility OTHER FACTORS Other variables to keep in mind when you re creating video for the web are contrast and motion During video encoding for web distribution a fair amount of video information and detail can be lost For this reason good lighting of your source video is essential Also web streaming doesn t handle detail transitions and motion all that well so your best shots should be close up and without a lot of movement Too audio from cameras and camcorders is rarely as good as that from external microphones You should at least use a clip on lavaliere microphone if not a directional or shotgun microphone to be sure you record only the audio you really want Finally for high quality streaming consider using a 720p session even when your cameras may be SD and interlaced there is no particular benefit to working in SD when your goal is a smaller streaming output 15 8 DIAGNOSTICS AND TROUBLESHOOTING As technologies go video streaming is still in its adolescent phase at best There are a lot of different standards and diverse environments to consider Tricaster gives you the necessary tools but there are stil some teething problems you may encounter This section will point you in the right direction to overcome them 15 8 1 TESTING YOUR STREAM When it comes to using your TriCaster in a professional live
283. tcher TriCaster GHTREME adds alpha channel output supports using its Aux video output channel 246 woNiToRING Figures TriCaster s Live Desktop includes large Program output and Look Ahead Preview monitors with associated controls Also freely toggle between viewing All Monitors onscreen monitors for all sources Figure 3 External Monitors Live video sources supplied to TriCaster s video inputs Internal Monitors all internal sources including Media Players and Network sources Scopes Waveform and Vectorscope monitors and full color source monitor Secondary Multiview monitor output options including o All sources plus Preview Program and clock o Waveform Vectorscope and video monitor o More 2 47 VIDEO PROCESSING Proc Amps for every source preserve pristine image and color fidelity through the entire Pipeline to final output Separate control over the Brightness Contrast Hue and Saturation for every video source along with White Balance and U and V Offset Individual Proc Amp controls for Program and Multiview outputs Input Proc Amps retain independent settings for different Connection Types 2 4 8 THE SWITCHER TriCaster s Switcher layout is consistent for all models but the number of inputs available varies TriCaster 450 amp TriCaster 450 EHTREME provide a 14 channel switcher while TriCaster 850 amp TriCaster 850 CH TREME both offer 24 cha
284. tely beyond to your Internet audience is performed by an applet running on the website As mentioned before however while simple this arrangement often doesn t give you as much control or as many options as you might eventually want The other Connection Type options are more hands on in this respect but require you to manually select related settings as discussed for each type next 15 3 2 ADOBE FLASH TriCaster can encode and stream using Adobe Flash and this is a very popular choice In determining whether you should choose Flash or another encoding method for your own purposes you might find it helpful to review the section titled Live Streaming in Section 15 6 1 When you select Adobe Flash as the Connection Type the controls presented in the header of the Configure Stream Connection panel update accordingly gure 231 The first thing you might notice is the Resolution menu at left beneath the Home field Figure 231 This drop down selector lets you choose from a prepared lst of streaming profiles labeled to show their respective frame rate fps resolution and bandwidth settings gure 232 At right you will see the Server control group Figure 232 where you will enter the specific parameters required by your streaming service or CDN Content Delivery Network Let s consider the information you need to complete this successfully The Username and Password are supplied to you by the streami
285. ter in Sections 4 9 LiveMatte and 4 10 Virtual Inputs Hint By default selecting a tabbed module DDR1 Stil etc on the Preview row automatically shows the corresponding control panel in the tabbed panes below Click the Desktop Options n gear at extreme right just above the tabbed panes to enable or disable this behavior CONFIGURING CAMERAS Let s try out some of these concepts shall we If you previously configured some cameras feel free to skip ahead to the next sub heading The Utility Row 1 First confirm that the Connection Type selected for your video sources is correct a Move your mouse over an Input monitor All Monitors view b Open the Configuration panel for that video source by clicking the Configure button gear that appears in the monitors titlebar Choose Connection Type setting that is appropriate for the camera Close the Configuration panel 2 Repeat the steps above for all connected cameras 3 Click the Switcher button labeled 1 on the Program row to send Camera 1 to TriCaster s BKGD layer the button turns red denoting its selected state For experimental purposes feel free to use internal sources such as Media Players rather than live cameras if you like see Section 4 8 4 Click to select Camera 2 on the Preview row the button will light up in green 5 Note that the titlebars of the corresponding source monitors All Monitor view are n
286. ther imagery Monitors an TriCaster EHTFS background behind transparent content ME models show a checkerboard 10 2 2 MEDIA BROWSER Figure 173 The custom Media Browser is available anywhere in the Live Desktop interface that you might wish to select content transitions or effects for use in your project such as the media players LiveSet and Transitions sections Its layout is comprised of left and right panes we ll refer to as the Location List and File Pane respectively LOCATION LIST The Location List is a column of favorite locations grouped under headings such as LiveSets Clips Titles Stills and so on The Media Browser is context sensitive so the headings shown are generally appropriate for the purpose for which they were opened A list of sub headings will appear under each main heading in the Location List These may correspond to named sessions or groups of content When you select a sub heading the right hand pane is populated this is the File Pane ADD MEDIA LOCATION amp BROWSE Add Media Location Clicking Add Media Location opens a standard system folder selector The name of a folder you selected using this is added to the Media Browser s Location List under the main heading My Media Locations These lacations can be accessed in others sessions opened by the same user File recursion for listings under My Media Locations is limited to one sub folder below the fold
287. ties are endless For example Figure 79 shows Input A with LiveMotte enabled keyed over Input B with the Virtual Input s integrated Overlay channel use to add a PiP Picture in Picture effect gure 79 Again note that this setup leaves both primary DSK channels available for other purposes such as adding two more live PiPs graphics or a title composition 4 10 3 LIVESET We ve saved the best for last in connection with Virtual Inputs however This is also where we gain access to TriCaster s virtual set technology called Liveset Hint Actually if you ve been following along you have already used a Lives composition named A over B Figure 80 the default a very simple gure 30 As its name implies A over B simply produces a composite of the video source you select as Input A displayed on top of Input B In cases where LiveMatte is active for Input A or if Input A has an alpha channel as might be the case for example for a 32bit image file or for that matter if Input A is scaled down or repositioned Input B will automatically show through transparent areas in the composition we can see that result in Figure 79 The name of the current LiveSet is shown above the Zoom Preset thumbnail icons at the top of the Virtual Input tab in this case we see NewTek gt Default gt A over B identifying the specific Liveset a member of the Default group in the NewTek folder F
288. tion please see Section 15 8 Diagnostics and Troubleshooting for information on routers and port forwarding You can provide any clients or streaming providers this address Entering this address into the File menu of Windows Media Player using copy and pasting it into the Open URL window will direct the player to show the stream from your system on client computer system s connected to the Internet Hint Most web browsers con be also configured to invoke a compatible player when required as well but using WMP directly in this fashion may save some steps Beyond this simply select a suitable profile from the Resolution menu for your need Once you are done setting up the connection click OK to close the panel Your live program stream will be sent continuously to the network while the Stream button is enabled 15 3 4 WINDOWS MEDIA PUSH A Push Connection Type is often the most convenient method especially in cases where TriCaster is connected behind a firewall Push streaming is also usually simpler when you need to stream from major venues such as hotels or convention centers The program stream passes quietly out through any firewalls or routers between the facility and your streaming server Also once your streaming provider has provided you the connection specifics you can resume the stream at any time without intervention from the server When a Push profile is chosen the Server control group updates t
289. to Input 1 The audio from your interviewee is routed into another TriCaster input 1 Enable the Solo switch for Input 1 2 Selecting Solo as the Source for Aux This setup gives you a clean output consisting of just the interviewer s voice on Aux By connecting the local input of your remote call hookup to TriCaster s Aux output you can send that clean signal to your remote caller and control its level eliminating annoying echoing feedback and the like Meanwhile both participants can be heard on the main Program output Hint See also Audio Groups Section 43 1 5 BALANCE A Balance slider is likewise shown for all source types other than Mic In a conventional stereo environment centering the Balance knob will result in Gain being applied equally to the left and right channels Sliding the knob to the left decreases the gain applied to the right channel channel 2 while moving to the right of center decreases the gain applied to the left channel 1 Of course TriCaster provides supports four audio output channels quad When considering how Balance works in this configuration it may help to think of these four channels as comprising two independent stereo left right pairs channels 1 and 2 or a and b if you like forming one pair and 3 and 4 c and d the other Sliding Balance to the left decreases Gain for channels 2 and 4 the notional right channels and so on VU METERS AND GAIN
290. to faithfully execute its duties under any reasonable circumstances Still your production environment especially in remote locations may impose limitations that you are wise to consider This chapter discusses a few matters that may help you get optimal performance in less than ideal settings 8 1 TESTING ONE TWO Professionals simply do not leap into new environments blindly They prepare plan plan some more and then most importantly they test This allows them to tackle the really tough jobs with confidence 8 2 IVGA AND PERFORMANCE Although iVGA is highly efficient it does require significant system resources taxing the CPU GPU and even the AGP or PCIe bus of client systems especially when a large portion of the display is refreshed This is not normally problematic as for iVGA purposes the client system is not required to perform other concurrent tasks Its entire duties involve providing a video source for the downstream TriCaster via the iVGA client software However itis very unwise to install and run the iVGA client software directly on a TriCaster itself TriCaster s lve video processing requires unhindered CPU and GPU access Adding the resource demands of the WGA client to TiCaster would almost certainly cause frames to be dropped on output and should simply never be done The same warning applies to other screen sharing or remote desktop applications which would actua
291. to it sending the original Program selection to Preview Observe that the Autoplay switches respond normally when you switch interactively in this manner INTERACTIVE TITLEBAR INDICATORS Small yellow green and blue flags representing the Proc Amp Crop and LiveMatte appear in the monitor titlebar when the corresponding features are active These are actually switches and allow you to enable or disable these features simply by clicking them without requiring you to open the Input Configuration panel Figure 166 Monitors in TriCaster EHTREME views represents transparency n source imagery with a checkerboard background pattern see Figure 166 9 4 EXTERNAL MONITORS TAB This tabbed pane supplies individual monitors for all camera inputs 9 4 1 CONTEXTUAL TOOLS Just as we noted earlier Section 9 3 1 when discussing the All Monitors view rolling the mouse pointer over the preview panes in the External Monitors view presents a row of context sensitive buttons above These include a Configure button and other features relevant to the source represented by the individual monitors The function of these buttons is identical to the corresponding controls in the All Monitors tab 9 5 INTERNAL MONITORS TAB The Internal Monitors tab provides yet another useful view especially for times when you may be using TriCaster s Multiview output to show a complementary monitor set such as External Monitors Thi
292. uate the subtle differences in the black bars making up this region gure 261 The large blocks at left and right in the PLUGE represent NTSC black 7 5 IRE Between these larger blocks are three smaller bars one at left that is slightly darker than NTSC black 3 5 IRE one at right that is slightly lighter 10 5 IRE These are separated by another equal sized 7 5 IRE bar Our criteria for adjusting black level takes advantage of the fact that nothing in NTSC should ever be blacker than 7 5 IRE This means that when the monitor s black level is too bright both the 7 5 IRE and 3 5 IRE bars will be distinct Set properly it will be impossible to distinguish them from one another Conversely if the monitors black level was too dark it would be impossible to distinguish between the lighter than NTSC black 10 5 IRE bar and its darker neighbors Here are steps you can follow 1 Having warmed the monitor up as described earlier start by enabling the monochrome switch if your monitor is so equipped otherwise turn the Color or Saturation knob all the way down Set the monitor s Contrast knob to its center detent Play with the Brightness knob until you can clearly discern the bars for all three black levels in the PLUGE Gently turn Brightness down until the 3 5 IRE and 7 5 IRE bars merge becoming indistinguishable from one another You should be able to just notice the difference between the 7 5 IR
293. uction This chapter will provide everything you need to know about this topic 16 1 RECORD TriCaster provides a great deal of flexibility when it comes to capturing your production a part of it or a wide array of internal and external sources with embedded timecode to files This ability be very helpful for immediate post production purposes or as a way to capture video clips for playback from the DDR during a live production The unique IsoCorder technology built into TriCaster EHTREME systems brings even more powerful capability to TriCaster s Record feature It s even possible to record all incoming sources simultaneously with embedded timecode or a mix of sources and output streams including Program Program Clean and Aux Settings and controls for recording are grouped in the Record Configuration panel Click the Configure button gear near the Record button to open this panel Figure 240 16 1 1 RECORD CONFIGURATION The Record Configuration panel allows you to select a Primary source for recording and configure it TriCaster EHTREME systems allow you to go on to set up as many as seven additional Secondary recordings we ll discuss that a bit later BASIC SETTINGS Figure 201 The fist thing you may want to do is enter a Base Name for captured files The name yau enter will be numerically incremented as necessary when you start and stop recording ADD TO DDR Figure 282 Enab
294. up whole new levels of convenience and production value You can pre configure Virtual Inputs as multi source compositions with or without an overlay and introduce them into your productions like any single Switcher source Virtual Inputs also provide TriCasters connection to Liveset NewTek s astonishing realtime virtual set technology investing it with great new capabilities We illustrated the value of Virtua Inputs back in Section 4 10 of the Live Production Walkthrough chapter Now welll look into this powerful tool in depth Virtual input tabs straddle the lower left pane of the Live Desktop These correspond to similarly labeled Switcher buttons in the Program and Preview rows there are no Virtua Input buttons in the Switcher s Utility row As you would expect selecting one of the Virtual Input buttons on the Program row displays the output from the corresponding Virtua Input output on Program Output Likewise clicking a Virtual Input button labeled V1 V2 etc on the Preview row cues up that Virtual Input s composite output for an upcoming Take Transition operation and also displays the corresponding control panel in the tabbed area below This all makes it easy to Take or Transition directly to from or between Virtual Inputs with a single click even if the video sources used in the composition for both are identical 12 1 PRIMARY VIDEO SOURCES gure 192 Virtual inputs support two primar
295. ut the need for external equipment figure 196 Figure 197 12 4 1 LIVESET SELECTION An information line at the top of the Virtual Input tab lists the current Liveset if any for this Virtual Input The default LiveSet simply composites Input A over Input B if any part of the image assigned to Input A is transparent Input B will show through Hint Many virtual se s LiveMatte ttings to be applied t Input A input B does support keying To select a different LiveSet click the Add button at the right hand end of this field line opening a custom Media Browser Figure 198 The Location List of the Media Browser lists any installed LiveSet groups under the heading LiveSets Select an entry beneath to show thumbnail icons in the Browser s File Pane 12 4 2 VIDEO SOURCES Virtual inputs provide LiveSet with a new standard of flexibility allowing you to easily and flexibly assign inputs from the Virtual Input tabls without Switcher involvement Figure 199 Virtual sets in the Liveset system display video from either one or two different Tricaster sources It will not surprise you that these correspond to Input A and B the primary video sources we discussed back in Section 12 1 Again as you might expect Input B is often assigned to secondary purposes such as to supply the display for a monitor in a virtual set 12 4 3 ZOOM PRESETS Unlike earlier LiveSe
296. uter To open a command shell and send a ping follow the procedure below that applies Windows 1 Repeat the steps you performed above to re open a command shell 2 Type ping without quotes followed by a space and the target IP number as in the image below then press Enter tudio gt ping 192 168 4 101 3 Ping will go to work and in a moment or two begin reporting results A ping failure indicating a network problem will look like Figure 237 A success ping will display a report like Figure 238 192 168 liquit timed tima poris opis sd Apple 0S x Pace 250 1 49 with Testudio gt ping 192 168 1101 m For a system running Apple s OS X 1 Double click Terminal in the Applications Utilities folder 2 Type the following command into the Terminal without quotations and then add the IP number and press Enter ping c 4 ipnumber So for example you might type ping c4 192 168 101 The response will be similar to the Windows example described above Again a ping failure indicates a problem with the network connection PULL CONNECTION ISSUES Note that if you are Pull streaming from behind a router the IP number shown in the TriCaster s Location field will only be valid for other systems behind the router You will need to derive the true external IP address to pass to your viewers or service provider Again inthis environment you may wish to consider Push
297. ux output to support downstream compositing of the full calor source or it could be drawn from the Title player or even a pass through from an upstream alpha channel source Output Alpha Matte is easy to use Simply enable the switch in the Output Configuration panel and select a suitable source using the Source menu Hint The Format setting should match session resolution when Aux is used to supply an Alpha Motte signal to downstream devices ras MULTIIEN OUTPUT Tricaster s Multiview output fils several valuable purposes You might use it to provide a video stream to a projection or other remote display system at high resolution If you supply your projector inputs from TriCasters SDI or analog video outputs instead or don t require projection the Multiview output can be used to feed a secondary display monitor Perhaps you wish to use Multiview to output something other than the main Progrom output This is where the Screen Layout menu comes in Hint See Section 5 3 1 for details on the time shown in Multiview layouts with clocks Changing Multiview output options Layout or Resolution can cause frames to be dropped briefly Changing these settings during live production is not recommended Screen Layout offers a diverse list including numerous optional displays as follows All this useful display is the default and combines monitors for all Switcher sources plus Program and Preview
298. ve Desktop titlebar provides useful data Displayed info includes Session Name Session format Switcher Memory tracks how much system memory is required by currently selected Virtual sets transitions and the like If you do inadvertently overtax the effects system by pre selecting many many large custom effects unlikely you might just reach the limit which could result in dropped frames Timecode from an external LTC timecode source or the system clock may include optional Start End time displays Timecode Configure button gear Figure 120 QR Code Documentation click this button and scan a QR code with your mobile device such as an iPad or Android tablet to download and view TriCaster documentation without interfering with your live production Eject x Exit button esa STATUS BAR gure 124 Figure 122 An information display is conveniently located below the titlebar just above the Program and Preview monitors From time to time this bar displays information pertaining to operations or system status including any cautionary indications For example a brief initialization is required following a system start or restart for DDR video playback to stabilize During this brief warm up period an initialization countdown is displayed Figure 121 in the Status Bor At the end of the countdown the status line is updated Figure 122 The display automati
299. ve speaker is presenting a long clip but wants to be free to interrupt it with live commentary at any time Turning Single off with Autoplay on works perfectly in this scenario The TriCaster operator can click Take or Transition freely confident that DDR playback will resume at precisely the right frame when he does so again PRESETS Let s consider one more powerful feature common to TriCaster s media players the Presets Bin These bins run vertically down the outer edges of all Media Player and Audio Mixer modules providing instant access to custom playlists and configurations Normally hidden the preset bins fly out when you move the mouse pointer to the edge of the screen Presets store other information about the current state of the module too including playback position selection status and so on In many ways Fewest presets act ike tabs that reveal even more media players 27 Clicka different preset icon and use the Add button to populate it 28 Switch back and forth between presets noting as you do how various attributes are retained 29 Try copying and pasting playlist icons between two presets right click on an icon to access the context menu containing Cut Copy and Paste 30 Notice that if a clip is playing a Stop action occurs when you change presets 4 8 2 GRAPHICS STILL amp TITLE Tricaster 850 and 850 EHTREME provide dedicated players for Still and Title while TriCaste
300. view using the local Take buttons in the Transition section of the Switcher Figure 72 3 Click the tab labeled V1 Figure 72 below the Switcher to reveal the panel for Virtual Input 1 4 Make sure the current Liveset selection shown at upper left just below the tab is Default gt A over B Figure 72 Figure 73 5 Notice that the lower portion of the Virtual Input panel contains two source button rows labeled Input A and Input B Figure 73 a Select DDR J in the button row labeled Input A b Select the Graphics or Stil button in the Input B row 6 Click the DDR 1 tab and Add the video clip named Kiki 1 Center mpg from the Green Screen group inside the Clips gt NewTek location 7 Click the Graphics or Still tab and add the image named texas_weathermop png from Practice Session under Still in the Location list 8 If you are not already viewing All Monitors click that tab at the top of TriCaster s Live Desktop 9 Move your mouse pointer over the DDR 1 monitor and click the Configure button gear that pops up at right in the titlebar above the monitor 10 Click the LiveMatte tab in the Configuration panel that opens Figure 74 11 Click on the Color button in the Matte section of the panel and keep the mouse button depressed 12 Drag the eye dropper pointer over the green background in the DDR s monitor and then release it Figure 74 This establishes the primary key Color 13 The de
301. windows7 windows7_calibrate_colorhtm 3 2 PROGRAM OUTPUT MONITOR Again a search of the internet for video monitor calibration will yield a large number of resources both free and commercial If you have television monitors connected to TriCaster s outputs though you can make further use of the color bars The approach is somewhat similar to what we did for our video sources in that the first adjustments are to ensure that black and white levels are correct Color calibration is performed afterward First warm up your monitor for at least 10 minutes some sources recommend a half hour to stabilize its output Dim room lights and window light t eliminate light sources that might skew your color perception Pass the color bars from your camera through to program output or use a color bars image in one of TriCaster s media players for this purpose C 3 3 SETTING BLACK AND WHITE As mentioned earlier NTSC and PAL and NTSC 1 regions use different black levels so it s no surprise that they take different approaches to setting black and white levels and that their respective color bar displays vary from one another Likewise we ll treat calibrating for NTSC and PAL separately NTSC NTSC color bars have a special group of grayscale bars designated as the PLUGE the acronym stands for Picture Line Up Generation Equipment in the lower right area The images in this section have been adjusted slightly to accent
302. with local layer controls at right The latter group is divided vertically into individual sections for the BKGD DSK 1 and DSK 2 video layers Controls for each layer are stacked in order of their appearance from bottom to top on Program output first BKGD then the other two layers in order FTB the final video layer has no optional settings thus it does not appear in this area fLocAL CONTROLS Let s begin our exploration of switching with local controls and the BKGD Background layer Figures 1 Select Camera 1 on the Switcher s Program row 2 Select Camera 2 on the Preview row 3 Click the All Monitors tab and notice that the red and green highlighted titlebars conform to the selections you just made 4 Click the local Take button for the BKGD layer Figure 53 a Camera 1 is removed from Program Out Camera 2 previously the Preview row selection moves to Program output The Camera 2 button is now lit up on the Program row The Camera 1 button is lit up on the Preview row The red and green monitor titiebars have been swapped 5 Now click the local Auto button for the BKGD layer The Program and Preview row selections swap again but this time rather than a simple and instant Cut the change employs the currently selected transition by default a Fade amp The icon for the current Transition for the BKGD layer has a gold border in the Transition Bin at right Click a different icon to
303. xternal audio sources sounds played from TriCaster s internal storage volumes including removable media such as external hard drives or thumb drives via the content players DDR etc can be added to the output mix Separate sub panels are provided to control audio added to TriCaster s Program output mix by the DDR and Sound media players 13 2 1 NET 1 AND NET 2 The Net 1 and Net 2 audio control groups affect sound associated with the Switcher sources by the same name At present AirPlay and 3Play Source selections support audio see Chapter 14 Note Net 1 and Net 2 controls may be found in either the Internal or External Audio tabs depending on the model 13 2 2 EFFECTS TRANSITIONS This control group is found only on TriCaster EHTREME models and governs the sound from Animation Store Transitions 13 2 3 MEDIA PLAYERS Video and audio only files in DDR 1 and 2 playlists along with audio files in the Sounds player may contain one or more audio channels At most Medio Players output the first four audio channels of multiple channels additional embedded streams are ignored The options and controls in these sub panels are similar to those in the input control panels with the obvious exception that a Connection Type menu is unnecessary Note See also Sections 13 15 Audio Groups and the heading Follow in Section 13 14 13 3 OUTPUT CONTROLS Each of the audio sources discussed earlier
304. y are visible on output Click the BKGD button in the Transition Delegate group Click the main Auto button below the T Bar The result of the last operation is identical to what would have occurred had you pressed the local BKGD layer Auto button at right instead Now hold down the Ctr key and click the delegate button for DSK 1 Or if you have a TriCaster CS control surface press both the BKGD and DSK 1 buttons in its Transition Delegate group at the same time instead You have just delegated the controls below to two video layers You can likely guess what comes next Press Auto or Take and observe the result Now add DSK 2 to the delegate selection and switch again The BKGD layer is updated DSK 1 is removed and DSK 2 is displayed Hint The Look Ahead Preview monitor Section 9 2 reflects your Transition Delegate selections and allows you to configure video layers for upcoming switcher operations with great confidence A progress bar beneath the each of the Delegate buttons tracks transition progress For the two DSK layers the bar will remain fully on when the related layer is 100 displayed FTB Let s discuss the final button in the Transition Delegate group FTB The acronym stands for Fade to Black The result of selecting the button and displaying the video layer it controls will not likely surprise you very much FTB offers a convenient method of doing precisely what is implied b
305. y be necessary to take further steps to provide external access See Chapter 15 for a more elaborate explanation S Close the Configure Stream Connection panel now and click the Stream button You re streaming You can provide clients or streaming providers supporting Pull streaming the Location address Entering this into the File menu of Windows Media Player using the Open URL window will direct WMP to show the stream from your system on client computer system s connected to the Internet or intranet 4 12 3 PUSH AND FLASH STREAMING Browser Based Windows Media Push and Adobe Flash streaming are slightly more complex largely because they depend on external resources to distribute your stream to a wider viewing audience These may be provided in house by your organization or you may take advantage of a commercial or free advertising sponsored Content Delivery Network arrangements and requirements of various external streaming hosts are diverse but TriCaster s Streaming Configuration panel adapts to provide the necessary input and information fields for the various types More detail on these matters including connecting to a network and numerous useful tips on streaming strategies is found in Chapter 15 4 12 4 CAPTURING THE STREAM Whenever you are streaming your output TriCaster archives the live stream as a file Files are saved to DAMedialClipslsessionnamelsavedstreams This is a very usefu
306. y its name simply fading Program Output out completely to black It might help to think of FTB as DSK 3 since it represents a final video layer added above all others before ultimate Program output FTB has several unique characteristics however For one thing DSK 1 and 2 can display colorful video sources with or without transparency the FTB Video layer is always 100 opaque black and completely obscures everything below it Note Like the DSK layers hiding or displaying FTE triggers both Autoplay and Audia Follow Video when these settings are active for Media Players FTB also fades Master Audio to mute when displayed and back up again when hidden Also unlike other v deo layers FTB does not support custom transitions pressing Auto simply fades it on or aff or timing FTB s fade duration is drawn from the BKGD layer setting TAKE AND AUTO As we have seen clicking the main Take button keyboard shortcut Enter performs a straight cut for all video layers BKGD DSK 1 DSK 2 and FTB that are currently selected in the Transition Delegate group Likewise if you press Auto or the keyboard Spacebar transitions configured at right for all delegated video layers are performed 8 3 3 T BAR The T Bar mimics the similar control on a traditional video switcher and allows you to manually perform a transition between delegated video layers see Section 0 Video Layers FTB delegated show or hide the
307. y video sources These two sources are labeled Input A and B Selection is made using buttons in the lower part of the tabbed panel The number of buttons corresponds to the Switcher source count for the TriCaster model When a Virtual Input is displayed Input A appears above or if you prefer in front of Input B by default This means that when Input A is fully opaque it completely hides Input B However when LiveMatte settings for Input A result in transparency or the Input A source has transparency by Virtue of being a 32bit file or its active Position settings mean it does not completely cover Input B then input B will appear through the transparent regions in the result 12 2 POSITION Figure 193 Position controls for both Input A and Input B appear to the right of their respective selector button rows Figure 193 Click the double headed arrow button to open the Position panel Figure 194 for either input Enable or disable all settings using the switch provided at upper left Figure 198 At left is a group of controls labeled Crop Edges which provide identical but independent functionality to that found in the LiveMatte amp Crop tab of Input Configuration Position controls are grouped at right Located at the top of this section are three interactive buttons from left to right these represent Position Rotation and Size Click and drag on Position to adjust the location of the source within the output frame
308. yback speed between 25 40 Simply adjust the slider knob to suit the need Note that certain highly compressed video file formats cannot successfully be played back at rates beyond 200 even though Speed value is set to a higher value See Section 10 2 5 for more A 3 9 DEAL WITH DDR MEDIA PLAYER CLIPS THAT SEEM BLURRY When paused or stopped TriCasters DDRs perform motion removal to avoid unwanted flicker This can make the image seem slightly blurred when paused but it should look perfect during playback Recorded static title pages look their best when captured using the Grab function with De Interiace turned off A 3 10 GET STUBBORN CLIPS TO PLAY IN THE DDR First note that TriCaster has a two minute warm up period during which system software itializes During this period frames may be dropped during playback see Section 6 5 1 Fauicktime At the time of writing a 64bit version of Quicktime for Microsoft Windows is not available TriCaster provides internal support for many QuickTime file formats but not all of them Ifa QuickTime file fails to play smoothly or at all in the DDR we recommend converting it to a friendlier format Final Cut users might consider M JPEG MPEG2 DVCPRO HD or the DV Quicktime codec for SD lips only of course as intermediate formats In some cases you might be successful using SpeedEDIT to convert QuickTime files that fail in the DDR SpeedEDIT s Quickti
309. you produce Presets are named and conveniently display a small representative image taken from the first entry in the playlist As you move the mouse aver preset icons they expand to provide an enlarged view of the icon for the first playlist item To populate a new preset simply click a blank preset icon Figure 178 To modify the default name assigned to a preset right click a preset icon to open its context menu and select Rename from the list Other menu options include Delete Export and Import the file will be saved with the extension pst 10 2 5 SPEED Figure 180 The Speed control is only found in the DDR The DDR supports variable speed playback between 2556 and 400 of the normal rate 100 Speed can even be adjusted during playback Note that certain highly compressed video file formats cannot successfully be played back at rates beyond 200 even though Speed value is set to a higher value As is common for numeric input controls in TriCaster drag left or right to adjust the Speed value or click the slider to access a direct entry feld allowing you to type a value using the keyboard Hint Press Shift while double clicking Speed ta quickly reset to the 1 S default 10 3 FRAME BUFFERS TriCaster s Frome Buffer system provides a very convenient and important alternative source system for Virtual Inputs including their associated Overlay channels and the Switcher s two primary Over

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