Chess on Ice Online: Telestream Wirecast Pro and Matrox VS4 Live Stream Curling Championship

Producing the Content: Enter Matrox and Telestream

Publishing live video and Twitter feeds to an event web page would be remarkably easy for McAteer, but how would he produce the actual content? He explains, “We needed a solution that would let us connect cameras, offer live switching capabilities, and allow for a live scoreboard and titles. It would also need to offer virtual sets and keying, which would be used when we interviewed the participants in front of a green screen, and play pre-recorded clips. We found everything we were looking for within the Telestream Wirecast /Matrox solution.”

This solution also allowed the Matrox VS4 capture card to really show its worth, adding ISO recording and multi-camera production to the Wirecast environment. And with four independent video inputs on the card, McAteer was able to connect two Panasonic AG DVC 200 ENG cameras. Originally bought by the club for training purposes, they proved to great game broadcast cameras with their bright Canon optics. Although they are not HD cameras, McAteer was mindful of the internet bandwidth being used and the resulting image quality was more than adequate. In fact, a number of people mentioned that it was the best streaming video they have ever seen coming from a curling club.

Sixty feet of BNC cable ran from the two Panasonic cameras mounted behind the rink viewing glass to a makeshift studio where a PC, containing the Matrox VS4 card, was running Telestream Wirecast Pro live streaming production software. “The fact that Matrox VS4 was mated perfectly with Wirecast Pro meant that the learning curve to get broadcasting live was incredibly short,” explains McAteer, “The hardware immediately detected the two Panasonics on deck and the third Sony HD camera set up in the studio for interviews.”

Because Matrox VS4 has no difficulties acquiring SD and HD signals simultaneously, switching between cameras was instantaneous and the Wirecast/Matrox VS4 solution worked together flawlessly during the entire seven-day event.