Current Issue

May 2012

Print Article     Email Article

  Page 1 of 4   >>

Video Review: NewTek TriCaster Broadcast

by Michael Parks

NewTek, the company that brought us the Emmy award-winning Amiga Video Toaster in the 1990s, sets out to provide video producers with an all-in-one video control room in a box. NewTek TriCaster covers all of the main areas of video production, including live switching, video capture, audio mixing, nonlinear editing and project distribution via Internet streaming or standard definition video outputs. While primarily designed to be a mobile unit, serving the needs of remote video shoots, TriCaster also offers some possible solutions for small- and medium-sized churches looking for an affordable, user-friendly entry into multi-camera video production. This unit can see the production of a service or event video through to just short of actually burning the final DVD.

NewTek offers five models of TriCaster to meet varying production and budget needs. A side-by-side comparison of features on the company’s website will help zero in on the best model for a particular ministry’s needs. The most simplified and inexpensive version, TriCaster DUO, runs $2,995 and is only available to educational facilities. From there, the prices run from $4,995 to $11,995. Differences include the quantity of video and audio inputs, choosing from either three- or six-camera inputs, live virtual sets, two or four mic inputs and hard drive capacity. Only the top model, TriCaster BROADCAST, has a preview out for an external monitor. For this review, I worked with BROADCAST.

Setup
TriCaster comes with a very helpful quick-start guide that gets setup and basic operations underway, though more configuration diagrams would have been helpful. Cameras plug right into the BNC inputs, either directly or with adapters, and a few input setup options have them up and running within a few minutes. I ran my tests with an assortment of cameras, from a simple one-chip consumer camcorder to a new prosumer HD camera. I also field-tested the unit in our church video room by plugging our three Y/C camera lines into TriCaster, which then configured the inputs using the camera’s color bars. Audio is just as fast, accommodating a line from a mixer or an assortment of mics. You provide the monitor, and a video mixer with a T-bar controller is available for $995.

TriCaster does not feature digital inputs for live switching, such as the FireWire media cables common in digital camcorders. But NewTek has a reason for this. A digital video signal making its way through the Windows operating system and then the switcher would take up to eight frames to reach the program output. This would create a synchronization problem in live and IMAG presentations. Analog signals, on the other hand, take about two or three frames, which most people don’t notice.

TriCaster runs on Windows XP Pro, but after logging on, the machine goes directly to the switcher, with access to the Windows operating system through the Admin management utility. This lets the user focus on video production rather than computer issues, such as the temptation to play FreeCell, while still making options like installing Photoshop and other graphics programs possible.

  Page 1 of 4   next page >>

Michael Parks heads up the video ministry at Hilltop Community Church in Richmond, Calif. He has been involved in film and video production for 25 years and is the author of the blog “Close-Up on One” at www.churchproduction.com/michaelparks.