New TriCaster Workflows to Debut at IBC

NewTek is hoping to draw a clear connection in customers' minds between key features on the new TriCaster 8000, which debuted at NAB, and revenue growth opportunities. Specifically, the company says the TriCaster 8000 has been designed to provide new ways to create multiple, branded outputs of a single program, allowing the show to be distributed into multiple regions, or with different sponsors attached. 

 

NewTek's Ellen Camloh said the company will demonstrate new TriCaster workflows at IBC to illustrate what's possible with the 8000 model, including enhanced integration with broadcast facilities. For instance, she noted that while the TriCaster 8000 has eight hardware inputs, the system's support for routers and macro commands means it can have unlimited camera inputs, depending on which router it's connected to.

 

"In theory, there is no practical limit," she said. "With the right macro and a router that has the response that you need, you can control any camera in the whole facility that's connected on the router and set it as an input."

 

Equally intriguing, especially for facilities that would like to easily create multiple versions of the same live program, is the 8000's ability to control a second TriCaster 8000 in a kind of slave mode. The second system (or systems) will execute the same commands, but drawing from a different set of assets (saved to folders on the second system that exactly match the directory structure of the primary Tricaster) for graphics and FX.

 

Another tech demo at IBC will show enhancements to NewTek's virtual-set technology, including "holographic" live sets sourced from smartphone or DSLR camera images. "We have the capability for a 3D environment that you've modeled in a 3D program to be used for your virtual set," Camloh said. "It's not a flat background with foreground layers, but a complete immersive environment, so that your virtual camera can look up and down and from side to side in a panoramic fashion."

 

 

Version 2.5 of NewTek's Virtual Set Editor set design software ($1495), which supports standard formats output from 3D modeling applications as well as layered Photoshop images, is slated to be available September 12.

 

"A lot of people are using virtual sets not only to economize, because it saves the construction and design of a new studio, but also to create that second identity [for a single live-action program]," Camloh said. "There are sponsorship opportunities in creating new streams of revenue just by changing the skin of the program you're creating."

 

Also shipping September 12 are three new TriCaster models — the 410 ($9995), the 460 ($15,995), and the 860 ($24,995). The TriCaster 8000, with an included control surface, is $39,995.