1.4.5 Streaming Software

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1.4.5 Streaming software

 

The image of a game being played is enough until the question is raised: “Who is playing?” and “Is this a tournament?”  The answers to these questions should be on the screen at all times, unless you have a commentator who is doing that job every minute.  Ultimately, that’s all you need.

 

However, viewers can be dazzled by flashy graphics, which for some reason makes them believe the event is premium.  Cynicism aside, it’s true: the more money and work put into something, the more valuable it looks and reputation will grow because of it.

 

The best streaming software out there is Wirecast (At time of writing they have released version 5). However, it costs $495 and the pro edition which supports more cameras and capture devices costs $995.  If you’re lucky you can catch them on Black Friday for a 30% reduction.  What sets it apart from the others?  The ability to manipulate sources (tilt, pan, zoom, etc), professional transitions, and ability to use lots of different kinds of media, lots of professional graphics for you to use, it can stream whatever is on your pc screen and it’s easy to use.  When running a video, you can control where it starts and stops, unlike XSplit.  Wirecast pro features an audio mixer which means as long as you can plug them in separately, you won’t need a mixing desk. For saving on luggage, this is great. Almost automatically you can have a show of high production value.  It did have some issues with recognising lesser known capture devices…

 

Wirecast Youtube is a (very) limited free version which allows you to stream to your youtube channel but at time of writing only allowed one source, which meant video and not even sound. It should allow for both so surely this will be fixed and will give you a glimpse of its capabilities (update! v5 certainly does).

 

Xsplit is the next best thing, and best of all, it comes in a free (limited) version.  The interface seems unstable however and the premium version will need to be purchased if the streamer has more precise needs, such as bandwidth quality (the free version caps the framerate at 25). It cannot perform the advanced manipulations that Wirecast can but it does have a plugin system that could allow it to match these features in the future.  While the premium version is nowhere as expensive as Wirecast, the cost is constant, as you will be charged every month, whether you are streaming or not… Xsplit Gamecaster streams the game without overlay but can add a webcam.

 

Open Broadcaster Software – OBS

100% Free but has issues with hardware compatibility. Wirecast and XSplit worked on my laptop, OBS didn’t (many laptop integrated VGA cards don’t support Directx 10, which OBS needs). OBS also has a stream delay, which makes no difference to you unless the commentator is watching the stream rather than the live feed, but that means his and the crowd reaction will be out of sync, so make sure output all goes to the stream at the end.

 

Flash Media Live Encoder – FMLE

Free and works well! The only problem is you won’t have any overlay, it simply sends the game video plus your desired audio (mic or game) to your stream channel. It doesn’t capture the desktop.

 

A quick shout out to Avermedia’s Rec Central, the software bundled with the LGP, which did a surprisingly great job of streaming content in a very automatic way and wouldn’t let me control the game volume, plus there was no overlay, but still streamed on a basic integrated graphics laptop where xsplit could not.

Flash Media Live Encoder

Open Broadcaster Software

Wirecast 4

XSplit 2x

Ad Free and No Watermark

free

free

Studio / Pro

personal / premium

Commercial Use

??

??

Y

prem

Capture Game Source

external Program needed

Y

Y

personal / premium

32 / 64 Bit Games

N

Y / Y

??

Y / Y

Video Capture Device

Y

Y

Y

Y

Screen Capture Source

N

Y

Y

Y

Simultaneous Broadcast

Y

nya

Y

personal / premium

multiple Bitrates

Y

nya (multiple Instances)

Y

Y

change Bitrate while streaming

N

Y

Y

Y

custom Output Resolutions

Y

Y

custom Bitrates

personal / premium

Local Streaming

N

N

N

prem

save Local Recording (no streaming)

Y

Y

Y

Y

save Stream Output

Y

Y

Y

Y

Stream Delay

N

Y

??

prem

Sources

1?

unlimited

unlimited

unlimited

Delay Sources

N

N*

N

N

Delay Devices

N

Y*

Y

personal? / premium

Resize

N

Y

Y

Y

Rotate

N

N

Y

Y

Crop

N

Y

Y

Y

Pan

N

N

Y

N

Tilt

N

N

Y

N

Zoom

N

N

Y

N

Transparency

N

Y

Y

Y

De-Interlacing

??

Y

Y

Y

Chroma Key

N

Y

Y

Y

Color

N

N

Y

Y

Gamma

N

Y

Y

Y

more

Volume

N

Y

Y

Y

Audio Mixer

N

plugin (alpha)

pro

nya

Multi-Camera support

N

Y

Y

Y

Hotkeys

N

Y

Y

Y

Scenes

N

unlimited

5 channels with

12 personal / 12 prem / 4 free

Layers (persistent through Scenes)

N

N

Y

nya

Transitions

N

nya

Y

Y

Templates

N

N

Y

N

Audio Codecs

MP3, Nelly Moser

MP3, AAC

??

Speex(free), AAC

Video Formats

FLV, F4V

FLV, MP4

QT / Flash / WM

FLV(free), MP4

Video Codecs

H264 / VP6

H264

H264

Frames Per Second

unlimited

unlimited

HD+ option / pro

personal / premium

Max Resolution

unlimited

unlimited

HD+ option / pro

personal / premium

Downscale

resize

resize/factor downscale

Y

resize

Plugins

N

Y

Y

Y

custom Plugins

N

Y

N

Y

Special:

AVerMedia HW Encoder

N

N

N

personal / premium

Image / Image Slideshow

N

Y / Y

Y

Y (plugin) / Y (plugin)

IP Camera

N

N

Y

Y (plugin)

Livestream

N

plugin (alpha)

Y

Y (plugin)

Media File Playback

N

Y (plugin)

Y

Y (plugin)

Remote Desktop Presenter / Capture

N

N

Y

nya

3D Virtual Sets

N

N

pro

N

Scoreboard

N

workaround

pro

Y (plugin)

Skype Video Capture

N

N

??

personal / premium

Thumbnail Scene Preview

N

N

??

personal / premium

Title / Text

N

Y

Y

Y (plugin)

Projector

N

N

Y

prem

Virtual Camera

N

N

Y

personal / premium/watermark

Flash / Browser support

N

Y (plugin)

??

Y / N

System Requirements

OS

Windows / MAC

Windows (DX10)

Windows / MAC

Windows

Processor

P3 1GHz / C2D 2GHz

2Ghz / Intel Based

Intel Dualcore or similar

RAM

256MB / 2GB

1GB / 2GB

??

Disk

30-50MB

15MB

200MB

90MB

Graphics

DirectX 9.0c+

DirectX 10+

DirectX 9.0c+

DirectX 9.0c+

Price

free

free

385 € – 1000€

15 $ – 150$

License Duration

unlimited

unlimited

unlimited

3 months – 3+ years

 

Comparison chart is dated Sep 2013 so probably wayyy outdated now since there are new versions of each software, but should still give you a basic comparison.

See also section 1.11 Streaming

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