Review: vMix Go Portable Live Production Solution

Overlays, Organization, and Control Surfaces

Overlays such as titles and bugs are critical to most productions. vMix includes four overlays that you can define as either full screen or picture-in-picture, and for which you can configure both the incoming and outgoing transition. Any input can be used as an overlay, and all inputs have four buttons on the bottom numbered 1-4 (Figure 4, below). To take any overlay live, click the number of the overlay you want to apply, then click it again to remove the overlay, or click the same number on another input to replace the overlay with that input. It’s a very usable approach that really simplifies using these overlays.

Figure 4. I’ve copied an input from the lower left of the vMix interface into the Program window. To take the title live, I click 1 to use that overlay. Click the image to see it at full size.

Streaming and Recording

vMix can stream to any RTMP-compatible live streaming services, but includes very few presets, which most competing products offer. Assuming that the thought of copying and pasting RTMP addresses and stream names doesn't give you hives, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal to connect to a service; I created a YouTube Live preset in a moment or two (Figure 5, below). Still, other products make this connection much simpler; you simply log into your account within the mixer’s interface, and all the technical details are taken care of behind the scenes. While not a critical weakness, it’s clearly an area where vMix can easily improve.

Figure 5. Creating a YouTube Live preset took about 30 seconds. Click the image to see it at full size.

vMix can record all camera feeds to disk, a feature typically called ISO recordings. It can also record the live output of your production to disk, with the ability to remove overlays from the recording to create a “clean feed.”

During actual production, vMix uses both the Nvidia GPU and CPU to render the various outputs. In my testing, the most challenging project involved two input cameras, which is hardly pushing the envelope. Still, we test what we can, and when I recorded the two feeds to disk, a dirty feed to disk, and pushed a 1080p 5 Mbps stream to YouTube Live, CPU utilization peaked at 26%. Since storage to SSD drives is hardly a CPU-intensive event, this tells me that even at full input capacity, the vMix GO system should be capable of producing much more complex projects without stressing the CPU/GPU combination.

Is vMix For You?

When choosing a live video mixer, start by listing all of your required inputs, outputs, and other features, and make sure all of your short-list candidates check all the checkboxes. Once you’ve excluded systems that don’t meet your requirements, next you should think about interface paradigm.

There are two basic approaches to designing live production software. The first, taken by NewTek (TriCaster) and Livestream (Studio), is to mimic the look and feel of hardware switchers. This works well for those converting over from these hardware switchers, though if you’re not, you’ll find the learning curve steep, and workflows highly structured.

The second is to ignore the hardware paradigm and create the interface from scratch, which is the approach taken by StudioCoast Pty Ltd and vMix, and Telestream Wirecast, for that matter. If you don’t have a hardware background, you’ll find the learning curve much easier to climb, and the workflows more natural and freeform.

As between programs like vMix and Wirecast, because they’re written from scratch without a template, it’s more a matter of taste than which one is better. Both products are mature and highly functional, and should be able to aptly serve the vast bulk of event producers. For the record, I found vMix very easy to use, and technically advanced, but as noted, there are some rough edges. Fortunately, you can download trial version of both programs. Though both are fully functional, Wirecast inserts both audio and video watermarks, so you probably won’t want to use it for an actual event. I definitely recommend that you download and try both before choosing between them.

If you like the vMix GO software, I recommend strongly considering the appropriate GO bundle. There are many things that can go wrong with a live production, and having a proven hardware configuration dramatically reduces the chances that a system meltdown is one of them.