Videomaker Telestream Wirecast 7 Review
By Jim Bask
At NAB this year, we were on the hunt for a Facebook Live solution that fit our unique need here at Videomaker. At the time, you could only use the camera built into your smartphone to stream to Facebook. While we did find products like the Mevo and heard rumblings of what would become DJI Go’s integration with Facebook Live, we needed to be able to switch between multiple sources to present the content and information in the way we wanted.
After meeting with Telestream, Wirecast showed itself to be a promising solution as the only switching software compatible with Facebook Live. We must note that not a month later Facebook opened up their API to run with any program with RTMP protocol. However, Wirecast 7 still holds a unique place in the market. Additionally, Wirecast is not limited to streaming over Facebook Live.
First impressions & Installation
Installation was simple. In fact, we first started using Wirecast 6 before 7 was released. A fresh install of Wirecast 6 on our Macbook Pro was completely uneventful. Soon thereafter, when 7 was released, the upgrade was so painless, we weren’t sure we had done it right — it was just that easy. Having used Wirecast 6 a few times for Facebook Live streams, we had selected our camera sources and were streaming live within five minutes. We were even able to do a simulcast to both Facebook and YouTube.
For our review of Wirecast 7, we wanted to get a better training than just jumping in and learning as we go. Luckily enough, Telestream offers some great learning resources and videos, and they even offered a webinar on the new features of version 7, which we found helpful….[continue reading]