Review: Telestream Wirecast Gear 3
Telestream创建了Wirecast Gear，作为一个经过验证的、功能强大的基于windows的Wirecast硬件平台, its live streaming production program. 新发布的Wirecast Gear 3结合了从英特尔到AMD cpu的变化和重新架构的软件引擎，Telestream声称“比以前的版本节省了60%的计算机百家乐软件”.” In this review, 我测试了新版本的硬件和软件的极限，给我留下了深刻的印象.
In particular, the Gear unit I tested was very efficient for 4K mixing, 使它成为一个非常坚实的平台，为现场投影和/或流制作. As with previous Gear units, the NVIDIA-based H.264编解码器需要很少的系统百家乐软件，使其非常适合流媒体和程序输出. However, ISO streams must be stored in either ProRes or x264, 哪个效率较低，不适合用于一个或两个以上的4K ISO流.
About Gear
Wirecast Gear 3有四种配置:1080p和4K，支持HDMI和SDI. All come with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x 6-core CPU running at 3.7 GHz, 16 GB RAM，运行Windows 10物联网企业LTSC版本21H2. I’m not familiar with AMD chipsets, so I jumped over to AMD’s site 发现CPU是多线程的，有12个线程，运行速度最高为3.7GHz.
At Tom’s Hardware, I learned that, in encoding-related tests, “The Ryzen 5 5600X... easily beats its nearest Intel competitor, the 10600K, across the board. The 5600X's performance in HandBrake, in both AVX-light x264 and AVX-heavy x265 flavors, is incredibly impressive as it trades blows with the more expensive 10700K.”
Encoding isn’t live switching, but it’s pretty intense processing. 作者后来表示，AMD的“Zen 3已经完全颠覆了英特尔的桌面PC芯片，在它竞争的每个价格点上。, and we're excited to see what the future Ryzen 3 and APUs have in store.”
At Amazon, I saw that the chip has a five-star rating with more than 10,398 reviews. Most are gaming-related, but some come from content creators as well. 所有这些都是非常有说服力的证据，证明Telestream并没有为了增加毛利润而从英特尔转向AMD, but to improve performance.
Gear Models
You see the various models and their pricing in Figure 1 (below). 所有这些都可以安装在一个桌面大小的机箱中，可以在桌面或其他表面上安装或操作. HD models come with the NVIDIA Quadro T400 graphics card and the 4K models with the NVIDIA Quadro T1000; both cards supply hardware-based H.264 and (soon) HEVC encoding.
Figure 1. Gear models with pricing and specifications
All systems ship with a 250 GB NVME M.2 drive and a 1 TB SATA 3 storage drive, both SSD. For more on the various configurations, check out this spec sheet. I tested the Wirecast Gear 3 4K SDI system.
Using Wirecast
As you probably know, Wirecast是一个非常有特色的程序，具有广泛和灵活的设计, streaming, and recording functionality. You see a simple project in Figure 2 (below), with multiple shots on the timeline on the bottom, a preview window in the middle top, and the program window on the right. Like most timelines, Wirecast从下往上呈现视频，并在底层之上的另一个显示上分层. 在这种方式下，第二层的标题显示在第三层的视频和其他镜头之上.
Figure 2. The basic Wirecast interface shows shots on level 3 and titles on level 2, and the shot creation window on the upper left.
Wirecast的一个关键优势是易于使用:你可以通过在时间轴上点击一个镜头来显示它, which loads it into the preview window. Then you click the transition arrow button to take it live. 或者，您可以将镜头配置为在单击它时启动，我通常更喜欢这种方式. To remove it from the program output, click Clear Layer on that layer and then the transition arrow button. Or, 你可以在同一层上选择另一个镜头，按下过渡箭头，新的内容将取代旧的.
Wirecast can input videos from a very wide range of sources, including:
- Capture cards in the unit
- Remote guests via WebRTC using a feature called Rendezvous
- Devices that connect via the Network Device Interface (NDI)
- 智能手机和平板电脑可以通过Telestream免费的Wirecast Go应用程序连接到同一个网络
- 通过Telestream的免费桌面演示器软件从同一网络上的计算机屏幕
- Input from webcams and other devices attached via USB
- Web pages
- Web streams for which you have the necessary credentials
- VOD content on disk
您可以按原样呈现所有这些内容，也可以使用色度键控件将它们覆盖在背景上. You also can adjust the sizing, color, brightness, rotation, and drop shadow of any content, and control remote PTZ cameras.
Telestream supplies a full range of production elements like titles, still image and video backgrounds, and background audio tracks. Plus, you can bring in data from social media platforms, and add live scoreboards and clocks and other elements.
你可以在整个或部分屏幕上显示这些单独的元素，或者在界面左上角的Shot编辑器中组装它们. 如图2所示[LINK]是一个网络研讨会风格的组合，中间有两个演讲者和一个PowerPoint文件, accessed via Desktop Presenter. The top video window is from a webcam attached to the system, the bottom from an iPhone connected via NDI.
Composing Your Shots
One fabulous new-ish feature are Shot Templates, shown in Figure 3 (below). To create the webinar composition shown in Figure 2, I loaded the 2 by 1 template (second row, third from the right) into the timeline, then clicked it to open it in the Shot Editor. 然后我在右边加载Desktop Presenter提要，在左边加载两个视频窗口, which Wirecast resized and positioned automatically. To complete the picture, I loaded a blue background from the media library. Total composition time was about 3 minutes; prior to this feature, 我本可以手动创建同样的合成，但要花20分钟甚至更长时间才能把所有的东西都调整好大小和位置. 当然，合成是完全可编辑的，所以你可以根据自己的喜好进行调整.
Figure 3. 镜头模板可以简单地快速创建具有多个输入的高质量构图.
Wirecast offers much more functionality that I won’t get into, 特别是音频混音，这是大多数产品的成败功能. 简单地说，如果您需要现场制作的功能，Wirecast几乎肯定有.
Going Live
一旦你有生产元素收集和所有镜头组成，它的时间去生活. Like all video mixers, 无线广播可以流到多个网站，无论是社交媒体(Facebook/YouTube), for fee service provider (DaCast/Wowza), or any service with an RTMP or similar address. Access to the most popular sites is template-driven; for example, with YouTube and Facebook, 您在Wirecast界面中登录您的帐户，Wirecast会自动获取必要的详细信息. Otherwise, 你必须手动复制并粘贴服务器地址和流名称到Wirecast, and supply login name and password.
When streaming to these services, Wirecast can use one of three codecs, x264, NVIDIA, and MainConcept, 尽管Telestream表示MainConcept是用于遗留目的，不应该用于大多数通用流媒体. HEVC is still not available, 尽管Telestream计划在不久的将来添加基于nvidia的硬件HEVC编码.
You can record the program output to disk in MP4 (x264/NVIDIA/MainConcept), MOV (ProRes/MJPEG), and (gulp) Windows Media format (MWV 7-9). 您可以将任何镜头或任何源记录为ISO流，将其保存为与程序流分离的离散资产. 您可以保存ISO流只能在QuickTime格式，无论是五种风格的ProRes之一或H.264/x264 format, both with separate uncompressed audio.
That’s a high-level overview of Wirecast's capabilities and workflows. Now we’ll create several projects to test Wirecast Gear’s performance.
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