Roundup: Simple and Affordable Videoconferencing Solutions

TalkShow

The essence of TalkShow is Skype in, broadcast-compatible 1080p out. If you’re adding Skype input into a true production environment, TalkShow should be at the top of your list. NewTek offers two hardware models. TalkShow VS 100 ($3,995), which we used in our tests, can host a single caller to your switcher. TalkShow VS 4000 ($7,995) can host up to four Skype callers. At the heart of both TalkShow models is Microsoft’s Skype TX, which is also available in hardware from Quicklink and Riedel.

The VS 100 is a full-length, rackmountable Windows 8 computer with an LCD panel showing the incoming screen on the front and capacious I/O on the back, including HD-SDI in/out, two XLR inputs, and tally and genlock support. You can use the hardware I/O to connect to your switcher or NDI if both devices are compatible and on the same network. We tested the VS 100 with a TriCaster Mini HDMI model using NDI, which worked perfectly.

Using TalkShow involves two programs. Specifically, you’ll use Skype TX to make and control your outbound calls and the TalkShow VS 100 software to configure and control everything else. Here are the steps involved:

1. Input VS 100 output into your mixer. In our scenario (TriCaster/NDI), we accomplished this via one of the network inputs in the Mini (Figure 7, below). Sorry about the quality of the TriCaster screens, but we had to capture them using a scan converter, which is never pretty.

Figure 7. Configuring TalkShow as an input into the TriCaster

2. Configure audio and video sent from your mixer to the VS 100. As you can see in Figure 8 (below), we used Follow 1 as the video output and sent audio input 3 back to the Skype call, as this was the audio feed from the host.

Figure 8. Configuring the audio and video going back out to VS 100

3. In the VS 100 software, configure the audio and video going back to the Skype guest. We did this in Figure 9 (below), setting both audio and video to the TriCaster NDI output.

Figure 9. Setting the return to caller audio and video feeds

Note that Input 1 in Figure 9 is the XLR connector on the back of the TalkShow hardware. Worst case, if you can’t configure an audio stream from your mixer to return to the Skype caller, you can input XLR audio into the hardware, and set that to your guest.

4. Exclude host audio in audio return to the host. As a final step, you’ll have to configure your video mixer to send the host audio with his or her input excluded. There are many ways to do this; the simplest is to solo the audio coming in from the guest in the Audio Mixer, which excludes all other audio sources.

Once you’ve set all of this up, you call the guest via Skype TX; they respond as normal via Skype, seeing and hearing the feeds that you send them. Working in the TalkShow VS 100 application, you can fine-tune the audio and video from your guest, as well as talk directly to them via the Talk Back button on the bottom.

We used a simple side-by-side display from the TriCaster live sets to contain our call; you can see this on the bottom right of Figure 10 (below).

Figure 10. Fine-tuning the Skype video in TalkShow

More so than with Wirecast or vMix, your ability to make this work will relate inversely to your experience with TriCaster and NDI. It will definitely take a while to understand how to work with the VS 100 software and Skype TX on the TalkShow hardware, and to overcome the revulsion of working in Windows 8. Following the steps outlined above will provide some structure, but I would budget at least a couple of hours to make it all work—more if you’re using NDI and are new to that as well.

Your reward will be video that behaves well in a broadcast environment, with genlock and advanced features such as the ability to set a minimum quality level, after which a still image replaces the video. Since you’ll likely be working with broadcast camera gear rather than a webcam, your host video will likely look better as well. Since this solution works with Skype, there’s no learning curve for your guests, and you can originate their call from any platform that Skype supports.

Note that the VS 100 tends to get noisy during a Skype call, and you definitely don’t want it close to your host speaker. If you need a solution that will fit in a single room with the host, this will be a significant issue.

Summary

This was one of those happy reviews where all products worked as advertised. Any of the three solutions can get the job done, with an obvious nod to the VS 100 when working in a broadcast environment (with a broadcast budget). With Wirecast and vMix, getting the conferencing side up and running is the easy part. Composing the shot is the hard part; be sure to budget plenty of time to get the shot looking right.

From my experience, the three things most likely to go wrong in a conferencing environment (or any live production for that matter), are audio, audio, and, of course, audio. Conferencing is more complex than other live events because of the multiple different feeds going back and forth between the host and guests. So run one or more practice calls from start to finish before you try your first real event. Finally, echo shouldn’t happen, but often does, so advise your guests (and host) to have earbuds handy in case that becomes a problem.