Overview Of Wirecast

A Brief Overview Of Commonly Used Features

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to quickly introduce the layout and interface of Wirecast as well as lead into further articles to teach anyone new to live streaming everything they will need to know to get started.

Contents

1. Launching Wirecast
2. Control/Status Bar
3. Broadcast Area
4. Shot Selection Area
5. Shot Editor Panel
6. Output Settings
7. Other Resources

Launching Wirecast

You must select your Wirecast template with the file extension '.wcst'. This template is often stored on the computer's desktop and named after the school. After finding and opening the template file, Wirecast will open with the presets already loaded. Below we see the interface.

1. Control/Status Bar
2. Broadcast Area
3. Shot Selection Area
4. Shot Editor Panel

Control and Status Bar

Below are two different views of the control and status bar. The first is is what the control bar looks like when you are streaming. The second can be found in the bottom right corner during a stream and contains information about the stream.

The status bar is a very important source of information on the health of your stream. If the stream button turns orange or red, you know there are problems with your stream. The most common problem when the button changes colors is when the internet has become slow or unstable.

Additionally, you can see if viewers are getting a smooth picture by checking the Dropped Frames. If there are too many dropped frames, the stream will look choppy. It can be normal for a few frames to drop when transitioning between shots in Wirecast. A problem can arise when the dropped frames number is continuously getting bigger.

Next, the Bitrate measures how much data is being sent per second. The more data, the clearer the picture will look, but the harder your computer and network will have to work.

Finally, the CPU might spike up for a moment but should never remain over 65% for long periods of time. High CPU can cause dropped frames, as discussed above. Another effect of high CPU usage is that it can cause a choppy live stream for the viewers without dropping any frames in Wirecast. This can only be verified by watching your stream on your channel.

Broadcast Area

The broadcast area is where you can see/hear what is going out to the viewers. The broadcast area can be divided into three parts, the preview area, the live broadcast area, and the transition controls area.

The preview area is on the left side and has its own set of audio controls and can preview the audio by clicking the headphones icon on the left side. Along the left side of the preview window is both a preview audio output display as well as a volume slider for preview audio.

The live broadcast area on the right is an exact representation of what viewers see. It too has audio controls, with the speaker icon allowing you to mute your stream and the headphone icon allowing you to listen to your stream. Along the right side of the live window is both a live audio output display as well as a volume slider for live volume. To learn more about how to mute/unmute audio in your stream, check out this article.

The transition controls, located at the bottom of the broadcast area, allow you to smoothly apply the changes made in the preview side to your live broadcast. This is done by clicking the above-labeled button with an arrow pointing to the right or pressing the space bar.

Shot Selection Area

The shot selection area is where shots live. A shot contains presets of inputs, assets, or any other media and how it should be displayed. For instance, a shot can contain a camera feed, an audio feed, and the scoreboard all at once. There are five layers which means there can be up to five shots active at once though most functionality can be achieved with only one shot active.

To learn how to add media to your Shot Selection Area, check out this article.

Shot Editor Panel

The shot editor panel is where all the fine adjustments of shots happen. To view the settings for a particular shot, simply select it in the shot selection area and open the shot editor panel by clicking the double arrows to the left of the broadcast area. The shot editor panel has six tabs. In order from left to right, they are the Shot Layers Tab, Shot Layer Properties Tab, Audio Properties Tab, Chroma Key Properties Tab, Smooth Transition Properties Tab, and Additional Properties Tab.

For now, we will only be going over the Shot Layers Tab, Shot Layer Properties Tab, and the Additional Properties Tab.

Shot Layers Tab

In this tab, you can:

• Rename your shot
• Add, remove, or reorder layers
• mute or hide layers
• select a layer to edit using the other five tabs

Shot Layer Properties Tab

In this tab, you can:

• Adjust the size, position, rotation, and opacity of the selected layer
• Crop off part of the layer
• Adjust the color settings of the layer
• Enable and adjust a drop shadow for the layer

 

Additional Properties Tab

This tab changes depending on what type of layer is selected for that reason, there is no image shown. It contains all settings specific to any type of input, whether screen capture, camera feed, or media file.

Output Settings

When it is time to send your stream to your Striv Channel, navigate to Wirecast and then to 'Output' on the top menu bar, and then select 'Output Settings.'

If setting up the output settings for the first time, your 'Output Settings' menu should look like the picture below.

Select the 'More' button on the right side of the pop-up box, and scroll down the list to make sure 'Striv TV' has a blue checkbox next to it. If it does, go ahead and hit 'OK,' and you'll return to the above pop-up. Select the box with the text 'RTMP Server' and select 'Striv TV' from the dropdown menu. Then select 'OK.'

Now we should be in a menu that looks like the image below.

As you can see in the middle, the 'Username' and 'Channel' spaces are empty. In the 'Username' space, you will type the email you use to access your Striv Dashboard. Then hit 'Authenticate' and type the password you created for your Dashboard. Once typed in, hit 'OK', and the 'Channel' space should automatically display your school's main channel. 

If you have two streams on your channel, this is where you can switch between streams. The number behind the name of your school corresponds to the order your channels are in from top to bottom.

Next, select your 'Encoding' settings. If you are a Bronze or Silver School, you want your setting to be 'Striv TV: Striv 720p'. If you are a Gold School and you want to stream at 1080p, please contact us at support1@striv.tv

Other Resources

For a full overview of Wirecast, the user guide is available here.