 | Introduction to Wirecast: Affordable and Professional Video Podcast Production Softwareposted by Bo Bennett, Group AdministratorWednesday, February 17th 2010 @ 8:35 AM (not yet rated) |
Back in the old days (like a few weeks ago) my podcast videos consisted of a single camera that streamed myself and my co-host through Ustream. When I wanted to get fancy, I would record the video on a digital camera, import it into iMovie, add some titles and do some basic editing, export, then many moons later I would have our video. Boy did that suck. But thanks to a product called Wirecast, I took our podcast to the next level.
This is taken directly from the Telestream (company who markets Wirecast) website :
Wirecast is a live production tool that allows everyone to easily broadcast live events and create professional webcasts from any location – all you need is a computer and an internet connection. With the intuitive and fully integrated streaming capabilities, Wirecast makes it easy for anyone to share live experiences and build a global community. Wirecast lets you stream multiple live cameras while dynamically mixing in other media such as movies, images, sounds, etc. Features including Chroma Key (blue/green screen), transitions and built-in titles allow you to create beautiful, professional broadcast productions for live or on-demand distribution on the web.
Usually I think most marketing blurbs are over-hyped bull, but in this case, Wirecast does live up to it's promises. So far I have produced just three shows with Wirecast and I am impressed as are my listeners, err, viewers.
Live Editing / Production: The Key to Video Podcasting
If you are serious about producing regular video podcasts of any significant length (like over 20 minutes), editing locally the saving/converting would be so time wasting that you would quickly abandon the idea. I know, I have tried this many times. The secret is to produce and "edit" the podcast live, then simply upload when you are done. Wirecast allows you to do this (as long as you do not royally screw up that requires cutting out a section of the recording). This alone will save you hours per episode.
Visual Enhancements
The real magic of Wirecast is not the time saving, but the visual enhancements to an otherwise visually dry attempt at a video podcast. Instead of the single camera view, here are just some of the enhancements I was able to make right away thanks to Wirecast:
- Multiple camera views (even up to three on the same screen at the same time)
- smooth transitions
- titles
- showing videos
- showing screen captures / live desktop
- slideshows
- including remote video of guests (this with the help of Skype and other hardware/software)
With these additions, we officially launched a video version of our podcast (using Blip.tv) that appears on AppleTV, Roku, and many other places.
This is a podcast episode of our produced with Wirecast. Remember that this is just my third video podcast with the software and all of this was done live with no post production!
There are many technical how-to's on using Wirecast if you are interested. But if you are like me, you can use the free trial, dive right in and figure most of it out for yourself. The full product costs $449 which is not bad and in my opinion, worth the money. Ustream has their own version of Wirecast branded as "Ustream Producer" which is only $199, but missing some key features that I needed -- like the option to stream to any other site besides Ustream.
Video podcasts could open up your content to a whole new audience, but they can also take away from the quality of your audio podcasts through technical errors and distraction. But if you get it right, it is worth it!