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If you haven’t been watching the live titling space, you’ve missed the NDI revolution, and your productions may be falling behind in terms of graphics quality. In this article I’ll explain what NDI is and how it works, and I’ll explore how it enhances the titling capabilities of the NewTek TriCaster, Telestream Wirecast, and vMix GO. I’ll also look at the base capabilities of each system and discuss when it’s time to consider third-party offerings.
“Titles and graphics are absolutely integral to providing a high-quality experience,” says Mark Leblang, studio/live production manager for the Philadelphia Eagles. “In fact, there are no other production elements that can enhance a video presentation as much as high-quality graphics.” To incorporate graphics and titles into the Eagles’ live productions, Leblang uses two ChyronHego LyricIP systems (formerly named ChyronIP) connected to two NewTek TriCaster 8000 mixers running Advanced Edition.
While these systems may be too costly for many live event producers, the technology that powers the Lyric/TriCaster integration, called Network Device Interface (NDI), now enables similar workflows on less expensive systems. If you haven’t been watching the live titling space, you’ve missed the revolution, and your productions may be falling behind in terms of graphics quality.
But don’t worry. I’ll explain what NDI is and how it works, and I’ll explore how it enhances the titling capabilities of the NewTek TriCaster, Telestream Wirecast, and vMix GO. I’ll also look at the base capabilities of each system and explore when it’s time to consider third-party offerings.
Contents
NDI
NDI technology delivers extremely low-latency video streams over a local area network such as the 1Gbps Ethernet network in your office or studio. Previously, if you had two TriCaster systems in two different studios, you may have had to string an HD-SDI cable or fiber connection between them. Now, as long as the systems are connected on the same LAN, either system can send a stream to the other over the network.
NDI is not a new technology. NewTek has used NDI for years to enable complementary products to send content streams to the TriCaster for input via a network input in TriCaster. Now, NewTek has simply opened up the spec for others to use without any charge. In an interview in TV Technology, NewTek president and CTO Andrew Cross stated, “For years, we’ve had the ability to take video from a Vizrt virtual set system, for example, and send it over IP into a NewTek TriCaster. … We’ve been relatively open about giving anybody the ability to send us video. And we’ve had the SDK for a long time. What we’ve done now is [open] up all parts of this—the sending part is open, but now the receiving part is open. Even [to] those vendors making competitive products.”
Why would NewTek open up the spec? Basically, to promote IP-based video workflows, although the move benefits all producers of content creation products, as well as other live video mixers. It’s no surprise that Telestream has incorporated NDI into Wirecast while StudioCoast did the same for vMix. vMix is so excited about the new technology that if you Google “vMix NDI YouTube,” you’ll see more than 20 videos the company offers, discussing the technology and vMix’s implementation.
Under the hood, NDI uses discrete cosine transform (DCT), the technology used in JPEG, to compress the video signals, which sounds a lot like Motion JPEG or AVC-Intra. NewTek claims that an i7-based computer can compress a 1080p signal at 250 frames per second, with a peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) value in excess of 70dB. According to NewTek, this will deliver similar quality to ProRes or Avid DNxHD. File bandwidth depends on resolution, frame rate, and content, but NewTek says, “For a typical 1080i HD stream, 100Mbps per stream is a reasonable bandwidth estimate.”
NDI supports all resolutions, frame rates, and video streams, with and without alpha channel. NewTek expects most implementations to utilize 8-bit UYVY and RGBA video, though support for 10-bit and 16-bit is available. Once encoded into the NDI format, the video stays in the format until the final rendering, which NewTek calls “multigenerational stability.”
Working With NDI
NDI can be used for many purposes, including allowing titling products to communicate with live-switchers, which is our focus here. Looking beyond titling for a moment, NewTek has written a number of drivers and applications that enable computers to perform a variety of applications, from working as a telestrator to ISO recording, to allowing any computer to send between two and four streams from a webcam or camera/capture card to a TriCaster.
Figure 1 (below) shows a title created in After Effects sent to an NDI monitor on the same system. As you’ll see in Figure 5, vMix version 17, which is NDI-compatible, could import this stream, as well as TriCaster or any other NDI-compatible station on the same LAN. This essentially converts After Effects into a live titling engine and Adobe Premiere Pro CC into a highly flexible playout device. I’ll explore this function in more detail later.
Figure 1. Sending out an After Effects title via NDI: See this being received by vMix in Figure 4. Click this image to see it at full size.
Clearly, NDI is an exciting technology that will have a profound impact on all aspects of live production. For now, let’s resume our focus on titling, starting with the TriCaster.
Titling and the TriCaster
TriCaster is a live video mixer produced by NewTek with analog-only models as low as $4,995 and pricing at about $35,000 for the TriCaster 8000. Each TriCaster comes with multiple levels of titling-related functionality and numerous title templates that you can edit and display in your live productions. There’s also a version of the LiveText program on the TriCaster that you can use to create additional templates when offline (not during a live production).
You can buy a version of LiveText for $995 that you can run on a separate Windows-based computer. As I’ll discuss later for Chyron and NewBlue titling programs, titles created with LiveText on the separate PC are input into the production via NDI. The obvious benefit of creating titles on a different computer is that you can have a separate producer creating titles during the live event and pushing those to the TriCaster.
The separate version of LiveText also comes with DataLink, which lets you link titles to real-time data sources such as scoreboard systems, RSS feeds, ASCII text files, and SQL databases. For data-driven productions, such as sporting events, the ability to grab data from a dynamic database can be—excuse the pun—a game-changer. For example, during the first quarter of a football game, you could display a graphic of the running back showing how many carries and yards he accumulated to that point. Later in the game, you could display the same title with all information updated automatically.
Another option from NewTek is Advanced Edition ($1,995), which adds DataLink integration to your titles without requiring the purchase of LiveText. You also get DataLink File Watcher, which can convert raw spreadsheet data in SCV, XML, or ASCII text into titles that can be updated in real time. With Advanced Edition, you can also use the Chrome plug-in, DataLink for TriCaster, to incorporate web-based data into a TriCaster plug-in. With the plug-in, which is the main TriCaster schema for adding Twitter and other feeds to a production, you select the data in Chrome, right-click, and identify the title to send it to.
Primarily, you don’t get motion graphics with NewTek’s native tools. Some users will also lack consistency with the graphics used in their own productions and creative parity with CG used in their competitor’s broadcast productions. For Leblang’s productions for Eagles fans, these were critical elements. “Our audience base is large enough and passionate enough to invest in top-of-the-line, purpose-built solutions that can rival the best they can see on any competitors, whether broadcast or online.”
The Eagles produce their traditional television and in-stadium broadcasts using ChyronHego Mosaic titling systems, and the team has invested heavily in both custom graphics and custom database links to feed the information-rich demands of its viewers. The fact that the ChyronHego Lyric system integrated so neatly into the TriCaster production via a network input (and now NDI) was also critical.
“We chose Lyric because it was an industry standard package that could leverage the money already spent on appearance and functionality,” Leblang continued. “During the season,” he added, “we’re producing nearly 24/7 with a lean staff, and we don’t have the personnel resources to allow for one person to be expert at one thing. We needed a system that several staffers could use for redundancy” (Figure 2, below).
Figure 2. An Eagles staffer creates the title on the LyricIP system, which is pushed to the TriCaster via NDI.
As an aside, Leblang is also a huge fan of NDI. Though relatively new to the technology at this point, the Eagles production staff used NDI during their NFL draft shows to link their two studios and their stadium production facilities, which share a robust network. Without NDI, these links would have required fiber connections or direct HD-SDI cable links. Leblang foresees the Creative Cloud NDI plug-in enhancing the quality and speed of all his productions.
For example, the Eagles staffers receive all camera angles for each play from the official NFL broadcast, which they can quickly access in their multiple Creative Cloud installations. Before NDI, trying to use a highlight in the postgame show required the operator to trim the clip in Premiere Pro, output a separate file, and transfer the file to the TriCaster. With NDI, the operator can trim the clip, click the spacebar to preview it, and send the preview directly to the TriCaster. According to Leblang, this could make the difference between showing the game-winning kick in the postgame show or simply talking about it.
NewBlue Titler Pro Live
Not all producers have the need, or the budget, for a CG package such as LyricIP. One very popular alternative is the NewBlue Titler Live Broadcast product ($1,499) . Titler Live Broadcast now supports NDI output, so it can work with TriCaster and any other NDI-compatible mixer. It has direct, NDI-based integration with Wirecast. Former ESPN producer Marty McPadden, who now produces live interviews and events for agency clients, is a recent purchaser of the NewBlue software.
McPadden’s specialty is remote interviews produced from his studio in Connecticut. Most of his clients are in Manhattan, and they transmit their streams, plus those of their interviewees, via Skype or Google Hangouts. McPadden mixes and outputs the streams with a TriCaster Mini. The latest TriCaster update converted the two network inputs to NDI inputs that are compatible with NewBlue. With the NewBlue package, McPadden can produce titles with fully animated graphics, which aren’t available on the Mini and are much closer to the graphics he used when working with ESPN.
Beyond ChyronHego and NewBlue, TriCaster enjoys tremendous support from other third-party products, including those listed on the NewTek Developer Network Graphics page. These include data-driven titles, telestration, state-of-the-art graphics packages, and advanced scoreboard systems. These products ensure that if TriCaster producers want to take their productions to the next level, they will have multiple alternatives.
Titling and Wirecast
Telestream Wirecast is a live video-switching software program that offers two versions: Studio ($495) and Pro ($994). Both share basic 2D title creation capabilities with lots of templates to get you started, plus an excellent Twitter integration function that makes it simple to add a Twitter feed to your videos (Figure 3, below). The new version 7.0, which was announced in late June 2016, also offers the ability to type text directly into the live feed, to display a text file that automatically updates when changed, and to display an RSS feed. It also allows crawling and scrolling titles with enhanced alignment, justification, and font support.
Figure 3. Feeling the Bern with Wirecast 7.0
To enhance these capabilities with motion and 3D titles, you can integrate one of four versions of the NewBlue titling software directly into Wirecast for increasing levels of design and display functionality, including Titler Live Express ($99), Titler Live ($299), Titler Live Advance ($499), and Titler Live Broadcast ($1,499). Once installed, you can access templates or even design titles from within Wirecast and immediately display them as overlays in your productions (Figure 4, below).
Figure 4. Creating a title in Titler Pro Live from within Wirecast. Click the image to see it at full size.
You can also create a playlist of titles in the Titler product and import that into Wirecast. The playlist will update automatically each time you display and remove the title. If you have four guests on a show, you can create the title playlist with four entries in Titler and import that title into Wirecast. The names will update each time you display the title. If you buy the Titler Live Broadcast version, you can create your titles on a separate computer and transmit them to Wirecast via NDI.
Note that the initial release of Wirecast 7.0 doesn’t have full NDI support. It’s designed specifically to import titles from Titler Live Broadcast, so you may not be able to input sources of content from other NDI-compatible products. However, Telestream plans to include full support for NDI in a near-term future release.
Get in the Game
Wirecast is very popular for broadcasting high school and college sporting events. The Pro version comes with integrated scoreboard capability that you can use to manually update the score, but it doesn’t have a clock function. In addition, the Pro version can link directly with Sportzcast’s universal scoreboard interface to automatically pull live scoring data off the facility’s scoreboard into the live stream. However, scoreboard presentation, and the associated effects, are basic.
J.D. Fox is operations manager at Stretch Internet, a unique sports-oriented CDN that proactively monitors all feeds during games to optimize quality and quickly resolve any problems. When clients ask about an advanced scoreboard solution, Fox recommends NewBlue Titler Live Advance, or Titler Live Broadcast, usually for integration with Wirecast, but also for TriCaster for larger schools.
If the school doesn’t have a link to Sportzcast, the Titler Live version includes two live game clocks: One is for tracking game time, while the other is for ancillary timers, such as 24-second shot clocks or 30-second play clocks. You’ll have to start and stop them manually, but this is better than not having a clock at all. With the Sportzcast package, of course, the user has automatic access to all data displayed on the clock.
In terms of appearance, according to Fox, “The Live Advance version contains very high-quality templates, including stat and halftime graphics and scoreboards with much greater configurability, animation, and other effects than Wirecast alone.” Titler Live Broadcast also includes up to 16 channels of NDI output support, allowing it to send the scoreboard to TriCaster and other NDI-compatible systems, plus the ability to import and export CSV files to integrate that data within the titles.
Titling and vMix
vMix live production software comes in six different versions ranging in price from the free SD version to Pro ($1,200), which is 4K-compatible and enables instant replays from up to four camera sources. All versions come with a built-in titler with templates and the ability to design and add your own. You can update the text in all titles in real time during your production. Alternately, you can populate a single title with multiple text strings and switch between them during the production via right-click commands. This is a nice way to add multiple titles without cluttering up your interface. The Web Controller is another useful feature that lets you edit titles from a separate device with a web browser, such as a separate computer or even a tablet.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, vMix fully supports NDI version 17 and even produced its own desktop capture software that can capture a screen on a Mac or Windows computer and allow you to use that screen in a vMix production. This should also work with other NDI-compatible live mixers. Figure 5 (below) shows how NDI enables vMix to input the title created in After Effects shown on the bottom in Figure 1. In Figure 1, I’m using the free demo version, hence the logo overlay. The overlay will disappear if you opt for the $9.99 monthly subscription price.
Figure 5. vMix recognizes multiple sources from different NDI-compatible programs from different computers.
vMix also shows inputs from Titler Pro Live running on the same system, plus screens from an HP notebook from vMix desktop capture software. If you scrolled upward in the screen, you would also see input from Titler Pro Live running on a separate Mac on my office LAN.
Overall, NDI has done a fabulous job integrating content creation packages and live streaming software programs. Before buying a product in either class, you should make sure that it’s NDI-compatible.
