Wirecast 4.3 is out

Wirecast 4.3 Now Available
Telestream is pleased to announce the release of Wirecast 4.3 software. This free update
adds even more sophisticated capabilities for streaming mutlicamera live events.

Highlights include:

Live Thumbnails
The new live thumbnail feature in Wirecast 4.3 enables real-time monitoring of all live source
shots in the shot window. This allows users to see exactly what's happening on each live
input at any point in time, making the process of switching between multiple live cameras
faster and more manageable.

Countdown clock
Wirecast 4.3 adds a countdown clock under the Live Broadcast window whenever an
imported video clip is playing. When users switch to a recorded video, the countdown clock
will display the remaining time of that video, making it easier to prepare for the next switch.

Teradek integration
Live event broadcasting just got easier. Teradek's new Stream Reader (Windows only at the moment) plugin for Wirecast allows Cube, Brik, and Bond users to import live HD video directly into Telestream's software
platform.

Stream Reader is a powerful tool for live productions that use local or remote IP video feeds.
This means that Teradek users can pull low latency video into Wirecast straight from their
encoder or a Sputnik Server.

Stream Reader also offers a number of features to help you get the most out of a Wirecast
workflow, including adjustable options for jitter buffer and lip synchronization across several
Teradek video sources. To ensure your production is always in sync, the special
Synchronization Mode automatically determines and applies the optimal buffer delay to your
video feeds.

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Thumbnails allows you to disable or adjust frame rate from 1fps to 30fps so you can control CPU use.
Teradek integration allows much more control over latency and when using multiple Teradek devices, control sync between them.

In addition, using with Sputnik (in cloud or local Linux server) allows you to aggregate a 4G bonded stream from Teradek Bond and send to Wirecast. Basically it would allow you to have cameras miles away sending to a Wirecast "base station" much like a new or field event reporter would do.

Hey Craig,
Just wanted to let you know of a little bug I stumbled upon in the Mac Release. Seems like after a few seconds of recording or broadcasting, this interface becomes super "laggy" to the point it is unusable. VU Meter becomes choppy and unusable, clicking from shots to take live takes 3-5 seconds to change, and the interface just seems to lock up. The strange thing is that the broadcast or recording never drops frames or skips a beat. The interface just seems to be having issues.

I detailed my trouble shooting steps on the Telestream Forum Post HERE, and I found that I am not the only one having the issue.

Just wanted to let you know.

Thanks!

Since Telestream is transitioning from Carbon to Cocoa code on Mac they anticipated that some people may have interface related issues while they tweak the code.

Go int Wirecast Preferences Advanced and disable "Use Cocoa Framework" and restart Wirecast. That will change the interface back to Carbon Framework code.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by robistech

Hey Craig,
Just wanted to let you know of a little bug I stumbled upon in the Mac Release. Seems like after a few seconds of recording or broadcasting, this interface becomes super "laggy" to the point it is unusable. VU Meter becomes choppy and unusable, clicking from shots to take live takes 3-5 seconds to change, and the interface just seems to lock up. The strange thing is that the broadcast or recording never drops frames or skips a beat. The interface just seems to be having issues.

I detailed my trouble shooting steps on the Telestream Forum Post HERE, and I found that I am not the only one having the issue.

Just wanted to let you know.

Thanks!

---

Thanks for the info Craig. After more trouble shooting the problem actually seems to be appearing in previous versions of Wirecast. I explained more in the thread, and I've done all of the troubleshooting I can think of.

Any idea of what the issue might be?

Thanks!

I'll post this over in the wirecast forums later, but a problem I'm having with 4.3 is that my sound devices are mislabeled. What is labeled as my Line In is actually one of the mics on one of the webcams. I didn't discover this until about 30 minutes before a show, so I was hustling to try and figure it out. I kept cycling through the sound devices (this is on Windows) until I found the right one, which was definitely not what the label said.

I also had the recording error out three times during a show until I switched from recording in WMV to QuickTime. Never had that problem before. There was an error code, but considering I was doing a live show, I really didn't have time to make note of it. The actual live stream kept going without a problem.

Not sure how much help it would be, but here is the Activity Monitor Log.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...20Wirecast.txt

robistech, I'm getting can't find page with your link.

Do you have either Preview or Camera Preview open? Those are the only things that I know of in previous versions of Wirecast that might have some impact on the interface.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cseeman

robistech, I'm getting can't find page with your link.

Do you have either Preview or Camera Preview open? Those are the only things that I know of in previous versions of Wirecast that might have some impact on the interface.

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Sorry Craig, don't know what happened wo Dropbox. Here's the link
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...20Wirecast.txt

Yes Cam preview is on.

Seems the forum is doing something to the link. Dropbox still reports 404 can't find requested link.

Camera Preview might be the cause. Try turning that off and see how it performs.
If it's the issue it's something I should let the Telestream support folks know about.
There's a frame rate control in Camera Preview as well. Another thing to try is dropping its frame rate to the lowest level of 1fps and see if that has an impact.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cseeman

Seems the forum is doing something to the link. Dropbox still reports 404 can't find requested link.

Camera Preview might be the cause. Try turning that off and see how it performs.
If it's the issue it's something I should let the Telestream support folks know about.
There's a frame rate control in Camera Preview as well. Another thing to try is dropping its frame rate to the lowest level of 1fps and see if that has an impact.

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Sorry, Camera preview is off, I just have the regular PREVIEW window open in the main switcher. Sorry for the confusion, first thing I tried was turning cam preview off, and it is still off.

I'll give it one more shot with a bit.ly

http://bit.ly/ZrKNsf

Thanks!

That worked. Not obvious to me what would be the cause though from looking at it.
Given you're experiencing this with versions previous to 4.3 it would likely be something specific to your system (or few systems) since is not something that's been reported. I've seen Camera Preview and Preview result in performance hits but only on very underpowered machines (think old Core2Duo).

Strange. Also created multiple new User accounts, reinstalled software, and all to the same problem. Preview off "seems" to help, but CPU is not the issue in this case.

It would seem that it's system related.
I assume this is only impacting the interface and not the stream. That might indicate some background task but it's hard to figure out what.

Some things to look at are RAM, available vs use of VRAM. Sometimes other applications don't let go of RAM or lots of VRAM is used when the drive is low on space resulting in slow access. One can see this to some extent looking at RAM use at the bottom of Activity Monitor where the total system stats are displayed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cseeman

It would seem that it's system related.
I assume this is only impacting the interface and not the stream. That might indicate some background task but it's hard to figure out what.

Some things to look at are RAM, available vs use of VRAM. Sometimes other applications don't let go of RAM or lots of VRAM is used when the drive is low on space resulting in slow access. One can see this to some extent looking at RAM use at the bottom of Activity Monitor where the total system stats are displayed.

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Correct, Stream is not impacted, not dropping frames, just the interface.

Just upgraded the Macbook to 8GB of RAM, Activity Monitor says 4GB used / 4 Free

Only other apps opened are TTFN Midi and MidiPipe for Korg Nano Controller. Nothing else running in the background.

Long shot but does killing the Midi utilities and rebooting and not opening them have any impact?
I'm thinking of a couple of possibilities. Midi communication having an impact or a memory leak of some sort related to that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cseeman

Long shot but does killing the Midi utilities and rebooting and not opening them have any impact?
I'm thinking of a couple of possibilities. Midi communication having an impact or a memory leak of some sort related to that.

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I'll give it a try. I have definitely tried running Wirecast alone and closing the Midi programs, but the issue is still there. I'll try to reboot and not open the apps at all. I'll let you know how it goes.