Vidblaster Vs Wirecast

[Spino]

I think this is the right place to write why, in my opinion, Wirecast is much better than Vidblaster. I write my opinions here and, as soon as, the new Wirecast version with Virtual camera is available (I’ve good reasons to think this happens very soon) I make a video that I’ll post on Youtube and Vimeo. You’ll excuse me for my bad English but I hope and I’m sure you understand.
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Before all, the question is: “Why people need Wirecast, Vidblaster or other software like those?” The simple answer is “Because they need to replay, with a quite low budget, a TV control room”.
In a professional TV control room, the heart of the system is the switcher and all the cameras, the video players, the video libraries, the graphics, etc…. are connected to it. The real problem in the professional TV is the synchronizing of all those signals and this the reason why a genlock or what we call a black color is used (we are used to synchronize two semifields of video signal but I don’t go ahead on technical problems because I could go on a complicated way). Luckily both Wirecast, Vidblaster and the appropriate hardware can do this operation so this isn’t a real problem.
Basically both these software can switch between cameras, videos, graphic files, they can overlay graphic (Vidblaster with some limit I explain afterwards), they can manage audio sources, etc… and at the end of this chain they can stream in Internet, can send to an external system and/or record video files.
I think that the big difference between those software is the way they can do that and the effects they have and analyzing this aspect I’ve no doubt, Wirecast can do that much much better. Let me go in details:
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VIDBLASTER
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This a software written by Mike Versteeg who is the owner of Combitech (a company with just one employer: Mike Versteeg himself). The architecture of the software is based on a modular approach, you can choose which module you need in your interface (program of course, cameras, videoplayers, videoeffects, streaming, recording, etc…) and you can load in that module the cameras or the files you need. At a first look this can appear an easy way to switch between all your devices but I think that it’s also its limit, you haven’t the flexibility that Wirecast can offer, with Vidblaster you have just the possibility to switch with just two transitions (cut and dissolve), you can resize the cameras just in a 2D world and you can make just a simple picture in picture, you can’t overlay a video with alpha channel (you can use a chromakey function but it isn’t flexible) and the video effects are limited to what is offered by the effect module and you can’t manage the shot in any way. Furthermore I see that the interface is becoming confused (why two camera modules? Why three video replay modules?). Ok, Vidblaster has a video replay and a playlist function but how many users really need a video replay? Probably just the sport producers and about the playlist, Wirecast can do that with an external software, anyway to be honest these two functions are not present in Wirecast but I don’t see anything else that Wirecast can’t do.
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WIRECAST
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This software is made by Telestream, a big company who has many other hardware and software products. The architecture of the software is based on a layer approach (something close to Photoshop) and at a first look this can appear more complicated than Vidblaster interface but it can give you the complete freedom to build your shots as you want. You have five main layers and in each main layer you can build your shot working on more layers. You can resize and move your elements in 3D world and you can use all your creativity to show what you want in the way you want. Furthermore you have the possibility to work with virtual sets (I think that this is good even if Telestream can improve this). In other words with Vidblaster you can’t do this live:
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http://www.maxsalino.it/index.php?op...nica&Itemid=57
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or this:
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http://www.maxsalino.it/index.php?op...nica&Itemid=57
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Just a couple of examples I made in a couple of minutes at a low resolution.
Another great feature of Wirecast is Desktop Presenter, with this third part you can not only capture portions of screen (Vidblaster can do this) but you can capture any remote desktop connected via LAN, you have just to write the correct IP and you have the video and the audio (delay included for the sync) in your system.
In Wirecast you have an audio mixer too (not present in Vidblaster).
Finally the CPU is much less stressed with Wirecast, Vidblaster requires a lot of CPU.
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STORE
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Wirecast has two versions: Studio and Pro for Windows and Mac (€395 and €795) The difference is that in Pro version you have virtualsets , audio mixer and graphic for sport score
Vidblaster has four versions: Home, Pro, Studio and Broadcast (€154, €392, €791 and €1582) The difference is the number of modules you can load.
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SUPPORT
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Both these products have a forum but in Wirecast there is practically just one moderator (CraigS) very friendly and when the problem is hard to solve, he gives an address of the support company who responds in just a couple of days. Furthermore there are some “Wirecast Insiders” that test new versions of the product before it is on the market.
In Vidblaster there are some good people who can help but the owner (Mike) is very rude and he doesn’t accept any criticism (I was banned because I wrote that in my opinion Wirecast is better than Vidblaster).
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There is much more to say and to see (as I said I’ll publish a video on Youtube and on Vimeo) but I don’t want be too long here and I’m not Mike Versteeg so I’m glad to discuss about these software here even if other opinions are different than mine.