Telestream has been an industry leader in the field of streaming for some time. One of the interesting things about the company's software is that it's pretty much hardware-agnostic; with the right capture card, almost any camera or device could be utilized. Wirecast is also robust enough that with the proper hardware, it could handle all the live production, as well.
However, if you have ever built a computer from scratch, you know the pains of getting hardware that plays well together, getting it all integrated, and ensuring that it meets the system specs for the applications you are going to be running. It's a real pain to get all of that done right. It's even worse once you get into the video capture side of the build. The number of video cards on the market is enough to give even the most seasoned pro decision paralysis, which is why Wirecast has introduced Wirecast Gear. It's a turnkey system built from the ground up and optimized to run Wirecast.
What it does
Wirecast Gear is designed to be a streaming production tool. It comes with preset outputs for all the standard streaming companies, plus a few I didn't expect, like Facebook Live and YouTube. It will also locally record the program output as either an MOV, MP4, or Windows Media format. As an additional feature, Wirecast 7 Pro can also record a local ISO. This isolated input record can be any video input coming through the capture card. There is almost no limitation on the input type beyond the capture card because Wirecast 7 will take inputs from anywhere, including screen capture, webstream, and Twitter feeds.
For this review, I used the Wirecast Gear 110, which features four HDMI inputs for video sources. It also has Wirecast 7 Pro installed, reported to be the most feature-rich streaming software on the market. From the user standpoint, the software is easy to use; just select your shot and transition it to live. You can also utilize layers to add graphics or custom picture-in-picture layouts. This means you can set up custom looks well ahead of time and then easily apply them to your show live. One of the first things that caught my attention when testing this feature was how seamlessly it worked. When selecting a shot containing multiple cameras, the Wirecast Gear automatically scales and positions the picture-in-picture smoothly from the previous location to the next location. This is something you typically only see on very large production switchers.
Where it's right
When a software company builds a computer to run their product and markets it as a turnkey system, it better function seamlessly. The Wirecast Gear does. It is built rock-solid. In fact, the only moving part is the fan. As a result, this computer is road ready. It also features rack ears and can be mounted to the front as well as to the rear with optional rear rail ears. In the newer version of Wirecast, the company off loaded a lot of the processing from the CPU by utilizing GPU acceleration. This keeps the main processor from doing quite so much of the heavy lifting, which should make the whole system a little more stable. The Wirecast Gear is a fully functional Windows 10 computer, so it can handle running your NLE or graphic editing software, as well. This could substantially speed up some design, build, and delivery workflows. The Wirecast Gear 110 I demo'd went from off and cold to program open in well under 10 seconds, so the computer is no slouch.
Telestream also did a great job of keeping a laser focus on its product. Much like In-N-Out Burger, there are not a lot of options to choose from. You only need to answer two questions: “What input type do you need?” (HDMI or SDI) and “How much storage do you want?” The unit I tested had 250 GB of storage, which amounts to about five hours of HD video. The 220 model features 2 TB of storage—closer to 40 hours of HD video. This lack of options is a little unique in the live production video market where many products are built a-la-carte. Wirecast Gear also comes with NewBlueFX Titler Live, which is a fabulous plugin. It's very easy to use, but feature-rich enough that you can pull off broadcast looking graphics with a volunteer-friendly interface.
Where it missed
The interface itself tripped me up a little bit, but once I stopped trying to run it like a console, it started making more sense. Video editors will feel right at home in the Wirecast software. The layout and use are really similar to an NLE timeline in terms of how the layers work. The only tricky part is remembering that the layers build upon transitions. So, if you want to remove a layer you must add a clear layer, rather than just remove the layer. For example, if you want to remove a lower third graphic that is currently live, then you must rebuild your current shot and exclude that layer. When you transition it to live, the layer will be removed. This is very easy when you are only working with two or three layers, but the Wirecast Gear has five layers, and if you are using all of them it might be more problematic to remember what came from where.
On the form factor side, the Wirecast Gear unit itself is rack mountable, which is great. On the down side, it's 1.3 RU high. In the end this actually works, because the fan for the unit is located on the top. This is an odd position, but the 1.3 RU height of the unit guarantees you the .7 RU gap above to not block the fan. Unfortunately, it also means you are going to have some unusable rack space.
The other places the Wirecast gear missed were not egregious, but on the audio side I found myself wanting more. All the HDMI ports can receive embedded audio, and you could use any of those as your program audio. A potential workaround is to use the XLR inputs on your camera. This does require a little internal patching in Wirecast of each camera to the audio you want to record. On the upside, if you were using the audio from each camera, it's very easy to have an audio-follow-video set up where the audio of each camera is live when the camera is live. What I would have liked to see is the option for a pair of XLR audio inputs that could easily be assigned to program audio. There is a standard 3mm computer mic jack that could be used for program in, but it will still cost you an entire working layer to assign.
To Sum it up
I have always been a little hesitant when it comes to using software-based switching products. In my experience, computers are the weakest link in the live production world, because they are the most likely to fail. I have always been a diehard console advocate, but the Wirecast Gear may make me a convert. What stands out to me most is that with the Wirecast 7 software you can produce a very polished live production with very little training. With the addition of the NewBlueFX title packages, I could produce an entire show with just the Wirecast Gear and some cameras. As much as I hate to admit it, that show would look more polished than I get with my current flypack at a fraction of the price. Since the Wirecast Gear itself was designed and built for just this purpose, I think this product is as close to the console stable experience as you can get with a software-based switching product. When you consider the $4,995 price tag for the entire system, it's a competitive product at a competitive price.
