How TechVi gets produced, and where web video should go

TechVi by Randall Bennett

We’ve been doing our thing for about a month and a half, and in that time we’ve had some great responses to the show (not to mention all the great guests who take time out to be on the show!). So far, the responses have been largely positive, but one lingering question seems to come up: How do you do that? How do you have two Skype video conferences going at once, and how do you mix the video together to look like regular TV? The short answer: Three long years of trial and error. Fortunately, computing is now to a point where this show is possible to do, and anyone who has some extra cash (and extra tech savvyness) can make it happen.

I’m used to producing shows that are fairly complex. (See background at the bottom if you want to see where I came from) After some trial and error, I decided that if I’m going to do a show, I have to be able to do everything by myself with no other interaction. I wanted a show that took less than an hour to do from start to finish, and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice render time for green screens, compression, or other issues… it had to be 60 minutes from start to finish. Oh yeah, and I wanted to be able to have all the flexibility I’d expect in a multi-million dollar professional TV studio in my bedroom.

The most basic element to TechVi, and the real heart of the concept is the switcher. Live switching, that is between cameras, video, and other sources, lets me skip post-production and get straight to posting content to the web. Previously, I had tried to use Final Cut Pro and a combination of other programs to create the TV-like feel of a live program, but the edit time is always much greater than the production time. Thanks to Wirecast, I’ve shaved 2-3 hours off of my productions, primarily because of real-time greenscreening, and not needing to convert video between formats to frequently. read more...