NewTek to Give Away $100,000 in Prizes at NAB 2011

NewTek is going to give away four TriCaster™ TCXD850 HD portable live production systems as part of its TriCaster-A-Day Giveaway at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show. NAB attendees can find registration postcards on the front of the Show Daily distributed on Monday, April 11, and at the NewTek smart car HD portable live production vehicle parked in front of South Hall. Registration cards will also be available at NewTek Booth SL4514.

Drawings will be held once a day beginning Monday, April 11 through Thursday, April 14. Winners will be notified by email.

In addition to the TriCaster-A-Day Giveaway, NewTek will host their annual “Broadcast Minds” event, bringing together some of the most successful digital media strategists in the industry. Panelists will discuss how companies can capitalize on the digital market, effectively. This event will be held Tuesday, April 12 from 6-8 p.m. PT at the Renaissance Hotel Ballroom.

For more information regarding NewTek at the NAB Show, visit: http://www.newtek.com/nab. 

NAB Special Bundle Pricing: TriCaster TCXD850 and a TriCaster TCXD850 CS at $29,995

NewTek User Meetup 2011

This is the only party thrown FOR a company BY their customers.

Monday April 11th 2011, 6pm-9pm. 7pm is the first scheduled speech and door prize giveaway. 8pm. at the Las Vegas Marriott

Some more info here

HD Video Backgrounds

The other day I needed a few HD animated backgrounds for a project and while I've got hundreds of SD backgrounds from Digital Juice and 12 Inch Designs but I didn't have any in HD. So I fired up Google and went searching and I found a cool package and it's cheap! They're perfect for my TriCaster '850.

I thought the playback speed was a little,ok a lot, too high on some of the clips but SpeedEDIT's fine slo-mo to the rescue.

600 HD Animated Backgrounds, 300 3D Backgrounds and 1000 SD Animated Backgrounds. The package also comes with a bunch of audio loops and sound effects. Best part is it's on sale now for under $50.

Check out the Ultimate HD Video Background Box   The web site is a little cheesy (but wait! there's more!) but the content is nice. You actually buy via ClickBank so you are protected by their money back guarantee.

TriCaster TCXD850 Hands On Review (part 1)

The TriCaster TCXD850 is NewTek's biggest and baddest product ever. The latest addition to the TriCaster line is also the heir to their premier production product - the recently discontinued VT[5]. The '850 shipped in December and the rev 2 software that was released at the end of January brings the switcher up to 24 inputs.That's eight cameras inputs, eight 'Virtual Inputs' (sort of M/E buses), two network inputs (LiveText or iVGA) plus assorted media player modules and frame buffers. The TCXD850's switcher also sports two down stream key channels.

The '850 is housed in a heavy duty 4U rack mount case with a large ventilation grill on the left side of a hinged front cover. Under the cover you'll find a couple of USB ports and four caddy-less removable drive bays. The top bay is populated with a two terrebyte hard drive while the three lower bays are empty but can be filled with standard 7200 RPM SATA hard drives to expand the on-board stoarage.

The front cooling fan is quite noisy but NewTek has a quieter fan available that can be installed by your dealer. I'd recommend this upgrade unless the '850 is going to reside in a machine room. The power supply is a redundant, hot swappable unit. If one of the PS units fails it can be removed and replace while the '850 remains powered up by the other supply.

At 42 pounds the TriCaster isn't exactly light but it's manageable. If your shopping for a portable rack be aware that the unit is about nineteen inches deep so you might need a custom built case. There are no cooling vents on the top or sides to worry about.

Encrusted with I/O

The eight camera inputs will accept standard def composite, S-Video, component or SDI signals or high def  component or SDI. You can mix and match any of the input types.

The TCXD850 has two main outputs with the same assortment of connections. The output format (HD/SD) is set when you initially configure your session  A third 'aux' output can be configured as either a third copy of the main out, optionally at a different resolution or as a dedicated output from the program, preview, utility buses or directly from any one of the switcher sources. The '850 also has a dedicated HDMI output so it's easy to connect a HD monitor or projector.

NewTek went all in with the audio. The back of the unit has sixteen xlr connectors that can be used with either line level sources or microphones. If using condenser mics you can even switch on phantom power. There are also eight AES/EBU digital audio inputs and you can also use embedded SDI audio. These inputs are grouped into stereo pairs for the XLRs while the digital inputs support four channels each.

You get two outputs again both XLR and digital plus an aux output that can be configured as a dedicated output from the DDRs etc. The audio is rounded out by an actual 1/4 inch headphone jack.

The '850 has two DVI monitor ports. One for the main user interface and the second for a 'multiview' monitor. The multiview can be configured as a deducted program/preview output or in a number of different setups with source previews, waveform monitors and output windows. One of the biggest new feature is the ability to monitor all switcher sources on screen. The multiview lets you spread those previews across two monitors.

There are four USB ports on the back and two more on the front. These are used for mouse, keyboard and other external controllers such as the TimeWarp, LC-11 or 850CS.

Main Switcher
The main switcher has a program and preview row that both have twenty-four input sources. The program row selects the source that will appear on the output while the preview row lets you select the source you are going to to go to next. You then can use either the T-bar or the Auto/Take buttons to switch the inputs.

Rev 2 of the software introduces a new video layer paradigm to the switcher.  These layers are from back to front:

• Background - Your main source selected via the program bus of the switcher along with any transitions as you switch between sources.
• DSK1 - The first down stream keyer, you can key any of the sources available with the exception of virtual inputs. This can be positioned, resized and rotated.
• DSK2 - The second DSK with the same features as DSK 1.
• FTB - Fade to black. This lets you to fade to black without making any changes to the other three layers.

The main T-bar's function is assigned by the four buttons just above it. You can use the T-bar to control any of the video layers. If you select more then one function you can actually do things like cross fade the DSKs and do a transition on the BKGD layer with one pull of the T-bar.

To the right of the T-Bar are controls for the video layers (Fade to black has no additional controls). Here you can select between fades and various transition  for a layer and in the case of the DSKs - position, size and rotate the layer. The Fade and Take buttons let you fade or take an individual layer regardless of how the T-Bar delegate is set.

The third row on the switcher is the utility row. This row is used to select the sources that appears on the two DSKs, the Aux output and the FX bus. There are delegate buttons that change the utility row's mode making it easy to manage these sources even during a live switch. Here too you can multi-select and assign the utility row to multiple functions.

Part 2 in a day or two

Foo Fighters - Powered by TriCaster

Tonight, the Foo Fighters invade the home of a super-fan in the Los Angeles area to introduce the world premiere of their new music video, “Rope” (the first single from their upcoming seventh studio album, Wasting Light). Immediately following the live, on-air premiere, the band will stay on for an additional Q&A session, streamed live on MTV.com.

All powered by NewTek TriCaster.

Tonight
7:54 pm – 8:00 pm live on MTV
http://www.mtv.com

More Info

Get Out Of The Way

Amazing, I think we underestimate children:

March Madness

TriCaster STUDIO™. Get it NOW. Save $1000.

You want to deliver a show that's impactful and has the look of a large, network-style studio. But, you don't want the big expense. We have the solution. TriCaster STUDIO™ - the portable live production workhorse, is like having a giant, live TV truck that fits in your backpack. And throughout the month of March, NewTek is offering you a thousand more reasons to choose TriCaster STUDIO for your portable live production, by reducing the price by $1000.

TriCaster STUDIO is so easy to use that one person or a small team can:

• Broadcast, live stream, project and record - simultaneously
• Connect and switch up to six cameras - quickly
• Access live production tools, virtual monitors, on-board DDRs, titling, editing, and more - easily
• Deliver your show with the impact of a network-style studio, with the use of live virtual sets

From news and entertainment webcasts, sporting, school and corporate events - TriCaster STUDIO is easy, compact and now, more affordable than ever.

Get TriCaster STUDIO to meet your production needs now.

Virtual Set Editor Ships

Customize Your Own Virtual Sets and Double-Box Effects NewTek TriCaster™ Virtual Set Editor (VSE) lets you personalize your own network-style studio. For a limited time, you get three (PLUS three bonus) TriCaster VSE-compatible virtual set content files (PrimeTime, Skybox and Randomize), three Layer Sets, three double-box effects, 48 double-box frames, over 30 backgrounds and three PSD examples. VSE lets you: Edit a wide range of elements in TriCaster VSE Sets that produce real-time reflections and specular highlights Create original virtual sets and double-box effects, using your own artwork Compose layers in Adobe® Photoshop® and import into TriCaster VSE, which converts the PSD file into a Layer Set, for use in Virtual Set Editor  Compatible with the TriCaster TCXD300 and TriCaster TCXD850

The Illusion Of Life

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.