How to host a Virtual Graduation with Wirecast, Zoom and NewBlue Titler Live
By Adam Noyes
With education taking place mostly at home during the pandemic, many high schools, colleges and grad schools have had to turn to performing graduation ceremonies- remotely. Telestream WireCast and NewBlue Titler Live luckily have the gear educational facilities need to perform these ceremonies.
Check out some highlights from this article from the Telestream blog to learn more.
Graduations are a time for families and schools to come together and celebrate the achievements of their students. This year, although many schools may not be able to hold on-site graduation ceremonies, that doesn’t mean you have to skip the celebration.
Here’s how schools can use Wirecast and Zoom to live stream a virtual graduation ceremony that will let students come together, and let families enjoy the celebration.
Overview:
This solution uses 3 technologies to bring your graduates together, stream the ceremony, and to display the name and photo of each student as their degree is conferred.
Zoom is a remote video conference software used to host meetings and webinars. Many schools and colleges are already using Zoom software to meet with their students for instruction. Here, you will use Zoom to bring in the live video of all your graduates and faculty, allow for speakers to give commencements live, and to confer degrees to all the graduates.
Wirecast is live streaming production software. The benefit of Wirecast is it allows you capture all the action in Zoom, plus add additional touches – like displaying a photo of each graduate when they accept their degree – and it can live stream the whole ceremony to YouTube, Facebook, or any other live streaming platform, so that family from all over the world can watch the ceremony live.
NewBlue Titler Live is an animated graphics and titling program that comes with Wirecast. You’ll use NewBlue Titler Live Present within Wirecast to display each graduate’s name and photo during the conferring of degrees.
How to Make a Virtual Graduation Ceremony Work
*This folder contains sample files to be used as a sample or starter file. For best results download the entire folder and it’s contents.
Just like a traditional graduation ceremony, there is a lot of work involved in getting a virtual graduation set up and ready. But here is a step-by-step tutorial to get you set up.
- Wirecast Pro running on a powerful computer. Download and purchase Wirecast on your streaming computer (be sure to see recommended tech specs). Ideally, the person running Wirecast should be hard-wired into the Internet and have sufficient upload bandwidth speed for live streaming. When you purchase Wirecast you’ll also get NewBlue Titler Live Present, which you’ll need to drive the display of graduate names/photos from your spreadsheet. * (NOTE: You can do this workflow with Wirecast Studio, but you need NewBlue Titler Live Present, which comes free when you buy Wirecast Pro. If you have Wirecast Studio, you can buy NBTL Present for $299, or you can upgrade to Wirecast Pro (and get Present), for $200.)
- Zoom meeting account: TheZoom Pro plan should be sufficient. The Zoom Pro plan allows for 100 meeting participants. Depending on how many graduates and staff you have, you’ll probably need to also purchase either a 500 person or 1000 person addon. The Pro plan gives you user management and admin control. You’ll need to download Zoom software on your computer. Also, you’ll need to direct all the graduates and participating faculty to download the Zoom app on their phones, tablets, or computers.
- An Excel spreadsheet (or CSV file) with the names of all your graduates. Ideally, you’ll also have pictures of each graduate that you can display when their name is read.