TriCaster

Value:  Setup:  Features:  Quality:  Support:  Overall:  The Best Choice for Live Events TriCaster has proven time and time again to be the best choice for producing live events. With its ability to simultaneously output to a projector, video monitor, and the web, it's a very versatile tool. The internal harddrive lets you load video, still images, titles, and any other graphics you will want to incorporate into your production, as well as record your video for later editing. You can also hook up external drives for additional storage. The fact that TriCaster can take input from networked computers is invaluable! It allows many other people to participate in the presentation without being in the room. PowerPoint slides, sermon notes, and song lyrics can also be projected through TriCaster. I also recommend Serious Magic's new product Ovation for PowerPoint users - it adds an extra dimension of "cool" to the presentation. The three camera inputs are usually plenty for the typical church, school, board meeting or concert, although larger productions may require more - in which case I suggest TriCaster's big brother, the VT4. The interface is VERY easy to learn. No computer experience necessary! It's clear and concise - NewTek has taken all the guesswork out of producing live events. And the best part is the pricetag - this is truly a breakthrough for churches and other organizations who need professional capabilities, but cannot afford the five-figure (and higher!) price tags of many similar setups. Ease of use, many industry awards (including an Emmy nomination), and versatility make TriCaster my FIRST choice for live presentation, streaming, and editing devices. Reviewed on December 14, 2005 by Tiffani Banaszak (tiffani@...) of Safe Harbor Computers (www.sharbor.com).

Value:  Setup:  Features:  Quality:  Support:  Overall:  The TriCaster is the Faster Master I have only had my TriCaster for two weeks now, but it's already been through two live shoots. So far we love it! It's compact, lightweight...and the interface looks cool! Installation was a snap. The first time I plugged in a camera, I was amazed at how quickly (like immediate) the camera came online. In the past I was using an audio mixer, video mixer, quad splitter, three televisions, a laptop, and a DVD player to do our multicam live mixing for concerts. The TriCaster can do all of this in a fraction of the space. Did I mention that you can record directly to the hard drive? Well you can!!! That feature in itself is worth 1K bucks! The fact that you can run USB and firewire drives with it as well, makes the storage space endless. Imagine going to a live shoot, and recording directly to a firewire drive and then when the shoot is over, taking that drive to your normal editing station for immediate editing! Or even cooler yet, the TriCaster comes with its own edit suite. We do a lot of dance recitals, which from an editing standpoint, are pretty simple. We mix three cameras live, then in post we add opening titles, titles in between numbers, and then closing credits. We also make fixes to any errors we may have made while shooting. Imagine this, with the TriCaster, I could have the titles already pretyped in and cued up in my playlist. Then when we mix live, we can throw the titles into the mix live. Huge time savor! Absolutely huge!!! We do a lot of weddings as well. A few times a year we get asked if we can webcast it. I always sidestep the question by saying that there is a lot involved in doing that. The truth was, I had no idea of what steps I would have had to have taken. I had even asked salespeople and tech people, but because you are often dealing with a hardware solution on your end, and an internet streaming solution on the other end, it's like I could never get a straight answer. The TriCaster can stream directly to the internet, all you need is a fast upload line and you can have up to 10 people enter the mms number you provide them. They do this through Windows Media Player (open: url) and bam, they get your stream. Of course there are limitations based on what your upload speed is. But let's say that the groom's mother can't make it because she lives in England and is afraid to fly, you can stream directly to her. Of course, for larger audiences you can always purchase space on a streaming server which will handle whatever you give it. Switching between the three cameras comes off without a problem. In fact, I found that by using the standard keyboard that comes with the unit, I can rest my first three fingers of my left hand on the hot keys for each camera source (1,2,3 respectively), and my thumb on the space bar (hot key to engage the transition). I could switch at an abosultely amazing speed. With the MX1 and the MXPro DV the switching was always delayed by several seconds. Not the TriCaster, as soon as I select the source, bam, it's ready for me to come to it! There are so many cool features to this product that we are able to leverage our marketing and direct it towards new clients, bigger dollar clients! From a cost standpoint the TriCaster is a no brainer. Think of what it can do for you. Video Mixer: $2500 Audio Mixer: $500 Editing Computer: $2000 Streaming Encoder: $500 Streaming Server: $??? Hard Disk recorder: $1000 Scan Converter both up and down stream: $500 Time and space saver: PRICELESS!!! The Tricaster truly is the Faster Master Reviewed on May 26, 2005 by lance lewis (lewis@...).