Telestream Announces Major Wirecast 5 Release

Wirecast delivers its most significant upgrade yet including x264 encoding, a redesigned user interface, program feed output and much more Nevada City, Calif., September 5, 2013 – Telestream®, the leading provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, today announced a major upgrade for its Wirecast® live streaming production software. Wirecast 5 adds enhanced encoding and playback options; a new, more efficient user interface; high-quality screen capture; and more flexible input/output integrations for easier, high-quality live streaming. “With Wirecast 5, we’ve solidified our position as the easy to use, all-in-one, live streaming production software,” said Filippa Hasselstrom, director of desktop product marketing at Telestream. “We’ve made it easier to bring live feeds in. We’ve also added exciting options for encoding and delivering live streams out. To top it off, we’ve improved the efficiency of the UI so that from input to production to live broadcast, streaming is easier, more powerful and more flexible.” “We needed to generate four different H.264 outputs, plus four HLS files for Apple devices and others, and an MPEG-2 transport stream,” explained Charles Lesoil, project manager at CANAL+. “We needed to strip out commercial breaks for the online version, do some content replacement where needed for rights management, and we wanted to insert logos and PG ratings where required.” New features and improvements in Wirecast 5 include:

• x264 encoding enables x264 live encoding with stunning quality at lower bit rates.
• High quality screen capture provides the ability to broadcast multiple application windows from the same computer, as well as HD screen capture in 60 FPS with amazing quality. This is great for game streaming, as well as online application demos.
• Updated UI has been redesigned to include new keyboard shortcuts, live preview swap, shot bin improvements and more.
• Output program feed permit output of SDI/HDMI program feeds to Blackmagic Design Intensity and DeckLink capture cards. This enables users to send live feeds directly into editing, effects and broadcast design systems.
• Web stream plugin allows an IP or web-based live feed to be used as a source, supporting RTMP, RTSP, MMS or HTTP as input sources into Wirecast. This enables a Wirecast live stream to be used as a source in another Wirecast.
• Improved H.264 playback delivers smoother playback of pre-recorded H.264 videos in Wirecast.
• Stream delay adds an optional time buffer between the live feed and final broadcast, preventing mistakes from airing live. This is a key feature for gamers wanting to delay their live on-screen action to hide their strategy from online competitors.
• Cross-platform Teradek plugin integration with Teradek Cube, Bond and Sputnik is now available for both Mac and PC. This adds flexible and economical live streaming options for easier capture of remote sources and more scalable publishing of local sources.

Wirecast 5 represents a major effort in refining every area of the live streaming workflow, and it also ships with an Output SDK. The SDK enables capture card manufacturers and other partners to easily develop program feed output integration with Wirecast. Wirecast is the only cross-platform, all-in-one live streaming production software that enables capture, live production, and encoding of live streams for broadcast to multiple servers and platforms simultaneously. Wirecast is ideal for streaming or recording live internet shows, broadcasting breaking news and sports, streaming live concerts and games, transmitting church services, corporate meetings, lectures and more. Wirecast is also available as part of numerous, ready-to-use, 4-channel turnkey systems integrated with the Matrox VS4 capture card. Pricing and availability Wirecast 5 will be released in late Q3 2013, and will be featured and demonstrated at the International Broadcast Conference (IBC) stand 7.C12. Wirecast Studio is priced at $495. Wirecast Pro, priced at $995, adds support for more advanced production features and additional input sources. Customers who own Wirecast can upgrade to Wirecast 5 Studio for $129 and to Wirecast Pro 5 for $295.