I like pushing technology in to new and unique spaces. Lets take a peek at my latest works with SpaceVidcast shall we? Today we stream at 320x240 with a stunning 23 frames per second (why 23 and not the standard 24 or 23.976 as it really should be I have no idea, ask
Ustream.tv.) I have decided that this isn't good enough. I want to stream at 640x360 (which is 16:9) and archive at 1280x720 for on-demand distribution. That would be High Definition for those of you wondering.
Problem is, HD switchers are scary expensive. I can get in to a starter switcher for around $20,000 USD but that doesn't include any of the cameras, DDRs (video deck), CGs (graphics), etc., When it is all said and done I'm probably looking at at $100,000 solution like the Slate 5000 from
Broadcast Pix. While that is an uber powerful solution that can do everything I want, and slice bread, and bear my firstborn it is a bit out of my league and even that is a entry-level system (although the high-end of the entry level. Come on, I need more than 1 M/E people.)
How about a video toaster you say? No HD. Tricaster? Same thing. Sony Anycast? Sham. HD inputs that scale to SD for the processing then back to HD for output (hint: that makes it SD, not HD.) So these companies can't do what I want today. I guess I'll build my own!
My thought process is actually brilliantly simple. Get a
Mac Pro and fill it with three
Blackmagic Intensity Pro cards. These cards allow me to capture standard definition analog, high definition analog and high definition digital via HDMI. The Mac Pro is about $3,000 while each Blackmagic card is $350.00. I'm going to round that to $4,000. By adding the
FREE CamTwist software I now have an HD switcher that can't do anything. Oh sure, I can switch between cameras, add graphics, roll DDR clips but I have no place to put these clips. HD is too processor intensive to stream on the same computer and, well, Adobe does not make a Flash Media Encoder for the Mac.
The next piece of the puzzle is to be able to stream that. My plan was to get yet another BlackMagic Intensity Pro card, plug it in to a cheap(ish) PC and run
Adobe Flash Media Encoder to stream live. This would be great! I take the second output of the Mac, tell CamTwist to display the full screen video on that screen, grab a $15.00 DVI to HDMI cable and plug the Mac in to the PC. Not only do I offload the computer processing for live streaming on to a completely different box, but I should keep a fairly nice signal since it is pretty much a DVI pass through from one to the other. And at first it looked like it would work!
CamTwist can see the Intensity board! The PC can see the secondary screen from the Mac, which was a worry because the Intensity Pro doesn't support RGB (luckily my Mac can spit out 4:2:2 YUV). I was almost done, all I needed to do was open Flash Media Encoder and stream to... oh no! Flash Media Encoder can see the Intensity board, but can't scale it down! The frame rate is an insane unsupported 60.4fps (wha?) and the video is locked to 1280x720. I'm not about to stream THAT on the Internet!
Here I thought I had a $6,000 solution that would make the likes of a $100,000 studio tremble, but I get slapped in the face by Adobe. Again.
As is the issue with all bleeding edge technology there's that one thing that juuuust doesn't work right. I found it. Now I need to find a clever workaround so I can get the output of the Mac in to the PC and stream it at 640x360 while archiving at 1280x720. No ideas just yet, but I feel I'm close. Then my dear friends, SpaceVidcast will be HD on-demand and have higher quality live video than even NASA has today for their own launches. Oh yes, I can do this for under $10,000! I just need to avoid using that cursed Flash Media Encoder. I think Adobe just has it out for me.
