Workflow Tour: Livestream Studio on the Studio HD51

Media Players

To the right of the GFX inputs in Figure 2 are two media players, Media 1 and Media 2, that contain disk-based content. In this example, the first is a screencam-based tutorial. In Media 2 is a video shot at Streaming Media West 2012. Studio can input any file that Media Player can play, but it has to transcode all videos before including them in a production.

You can cue your videos to the desired starting point (Figure 7, below) and elect Autoplay so they start playing when you take the feed live. You can play individual or all the files in the playlist by clicking the button to the right of the Autoplay checkbox (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Configure your Media 2 source(s) here. Click the image to see it at full size.

Remote Inputs

New in this version of Livestream Studio are two remote inputs (Figure 8, below), Remote Cameras 1 & 2. The first is pulling a PowerPoint screen from my HP Z1 G2 all-in-one computer, which is located on the same LAN as the Studio HD51. Remote Camera 2 is pulling a live Livestream feed from Livestream's Manhattan headquarters. Note that both remote videos have audio. We've got some mixing to do.

Figure 8. Our 2 remote feeds. Click the image to see it at full size.

Mixing a Live Event with Studio

Now let's talk about how you mix a live event with Livestream Studio. You control audio using the Audio Mixer at the bottom of the UI, shown in Figure 9 (below). 

Figure 9. Studio's Audio Mixer. Click the image to see it at full size.

The two playback windows you see in Figure 8 are the Preview (left) and Program (right) windows. To cue a video source to the Preview window, just click it in the Source panel. To make that source live, go to the Main Mix area on the upper right of the main UI (Figure 10, below) and click the Cut or Auto button. The Cut button gives you a straight cut; the Auto button plays the selected transition over the selected duration. As you'd expect, you can accomplish all these tasks via keyboard shortcuts. 

Figure 10. Click the Cut or Auto button to switch to the video in the Preview window.

Graphics have their own controls in the GFX Overlay section of the Main Mix area (Figure 10). To take the PiP in GFX 1 live, click their Air button under GFX 1. Likewise, to take GFX 2 live, click Air under GFX 2. Click the Air button again to remove the overlay.

Recording ISO Tracks

You can record up to 4 isolated (ISO) tracks by clicking the Settings button in the top-right corner of the UI shown in Figure 11 (below) and choosing Recording from the left-hand panel of the Settings Dialog (Figure 12, below Figure 11). This can include the Program stream (dirty), which is the final mix feed with all the graphics and overlays; or the Program stream (clean), which is the same switched feed without overlay graphics like logo bugs. The clean feed is useful when you want a pristine version of the mix for later editing. You can also record up to two camera inputs in their original form.

Figure 11. Click here to open the Settings dialog.

Figure 12. Choosing ISO recording settings.

After you've chosen the ISO streams you want to record, click the Record button at the top of the UI (Figure 13, below) to start recording.

Figure 13. Click Record to start recording your ISO streams.