List price: $8,995
Not that long ago, streaming was a “nice to have” feature for churches. The fact that you had a webstream was enough. Now, however, it’s pretty much required. The statistics on how long potential visitors will watch services online before ever attending in person are staggering. If you aren’t streaming, you are missing a huge opportunity for your current congregation as well as potential new members. To meet this demand, the streaming industry has produced many different solutions and methods for this must-have service. Between hardware encoders, software encoders, and dedicated stream boxes and turnkey solutions, there are lots of options. When it comes to turnkey solutions, few are as well thought out as the Telestream Wirecast Gear 420.
Software
At the heart of Wirecast Gear 420 is the Wirecast Pro streaming software. Now, saying Wirecast is streaming software is like saying a Lamborghini is a car, it’s technically correct, but it doesn’t start to do it justice. Not only does Wirecast ingest your video stream, but it can also handle camera switching, graphics, scoreboards, PTZ camera control, you name it. It also has great built-in features that allow for some digital video effect (DVE) style effects that are easy to build and look amazing.The software is super intuitive to use, but it’s a little less intuitive to set up. Figuring out how you want to set up your shots and which layer should have which input and so forth takes a little forethought and planning. Once you have your inputs in their proper locations, the rest is easy.
When it comes to turnkey solutions, few are as well thought out as the Telestream Wirecast Gear 420.
The Wirecast Gear 420 can stream and/or record internally as well as ingest SDI, Network Device Interface (NDI), and Wirecast Rendezvous inputs for remote conferencing. The Wirecast Rendezvous inputs might be an interesting option for multisite churches, opening up some flexibility for things like campus hosts in other locations or even the option of campus hosts talking with campus hosts at other locations. It would also work great for live interviews with people who aren’t local. The NDI inputs are a gamechanger when it comes to flexibility. NDI is a software standard developed by NewTek to enable video-compatible products to communicate, deliver, and receive broadcast-quality video in a high quality, low latency manner that is frame-accurate and suitable for switching in a live production environment. One of the options NDI opens up is computer-based and virtual video inputs for things like Adobe products. This means your Premier or After Effects timeline can send full-resolution, real-time video with audio and transparency across the network, saving valuable time by eliminating the need to render and upload. All you need is the free download from NewTek for Adobe Creative Cloud.Titler Live Complete by New Blue is also included with Wirecast Gear, which is a title and graphics package software. With Titler Live you can create great-looking, broadcast-quality graphics, overlays, titles, and scoreboards that load right into Wirecast.
This software is fast enough that with a little notice it would be possible to produce a very slick-looking show. While there are a lot of built-in features and options that may not immediately be useful in the standard weekend service, like taking input from Adobe Character Animator or live scoreboards, these features could be fantastic for high school and middle school ministries.
Hardware
The Wirecast Gear 420 feels solidly built, housed in a tough 2RU rackmount frame, which is perfect for rack mounting, but it also has feet just in case you are simply setting it on a table. Inside that frame, the Wirecast Gear is outfitted with hardware-accelerated encoding, Xeon server architecture, a dedicated NVIDIA QUADRO graphics card. All this means this piece of gear is no slouch in the hardware department. NVIDIA QUADRO is a video graphics powerhouse, well known in the video industry as a go-to for video processing. The 420 also has 1 TB of storage for recording, which is good for about 20 hours of HD video 1080 29.97fps encoded at H.264.
… saying Wirecastis streaming software is like saying aLamborghini is a car. It’s technically correct, but it doesn’t start to do it justice.
The Wirecast Gear 420 also has four NVENC x264 encoders, which keep the heavy lifting of encoding video off the CPU. It can ingest 5 HD-SDI inputs, and a baseband SDI output as well as four dedicated display port outputs. On the audio side, the Wirecast 420 has two XLR/TRS combo jacks, perfect for receiving audio from front of house.The trial unit I was sent had the optional X-keys control surface with it, which was fantastic to use. If you aren’t familiar with X-keys they are essentially blank programmable keyboards. I have used them as control surfaces for other software-based switchers and I have seen churches use them as custom controllers for ProPresenter and intercom systems. All of that to say, they are super flexible, but using them to control Wirecast is an absolute win. The control surface speeds up the workflow and makes the software function like a top-of-the-line production switcher. If you are considering the Wirecast Gear, spend the extra money to get the X-keys controller, it’s absolutely worth it.
In use
My feelings about software-based switchers are well documented, I prefer hardware every day. That said, I will make an exception for the Wirecast Gear. If they could remove the Windows logo from the boot sequence, it would pretty much remove the last of my concerns. Make no mistake: this is a software-based switcher at heart, but it has the body of a hardware unit. This is not the first Wirecast Gear unit I have reviewed, and all of them have given me the confidence I expect from hardware-based switchers.
The NDI inputsare a gamechanger when it comesto flexibility.
The only issue I ever have with the Wirecast Gear is changing my mindset when using Wirecast for camera switching, especially with complex multi-layer video. Mainly because instead of using a key bus for all the effects, like a production switcher, with Wirecast you set up your cameras with multiple instances in multiple layers depending on what they are doing. Each “shot” is just a portion of a scene or look and by combining and layering these scenes you develop your broadcast. Honestly, it’s more like editing in an NLE than working with a production switcher. It’s not a difficult concept, it’s not even difficult to do, it’s just a different way of thinking. Even though I edit video every day in an NLE, I think the thousands of hours of production switcher bias make the Wirecast system feel less natural and more cumbersome to me. That said, the X-Keys control surface changes the Wirecast from cumbersome software to more of a large production switcher feel and workflow.
The one thing I didn’t get to test but would be interested to know is the latency of the entire system. When it comes to streaming, latency is not really an issue. Your audience has no idea how far behind the live event you are, as long as your lip-sync is good. The importance of this is not so much for streaming, but for live production. The baseband SDI output is a good start, if the system latency is small then the Wirecast Gear 420 might be a competitor in the live production market. If so, the $8,995 price tag for a video switcher, graphics, and streaming is a steal.Mark Hanna is a regular contributor to Church Production Magazine.
