Telestream Intros Latest Version of Wirecast as User Base Swells

Following unprecedented growth of the global user base of its Wirecast live production and streaming platform, Telestream has announced the introduction of Wirecast 14, which will be available on the Telestream website very soon. In addition, Telestream has issued a “call to arms” to organizations that are looking to restructure their working practices as a consequence of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Contributing to this initiative,

Wirecast empowers corporations, churches, marketing teams, event companies, non-profits, and even schools and teachers to provide engaging, high quality interactions with their customers, members, employees, audiences and students, even though they can’t meet in person.

Wirecast 14 has been updated with new options for more accurate Chroma keying including spill suppression, edge coloring, and clipping ranges. Plus, a Luma Key (useful if you have a logo with a white or black background you wish to remove), and Color key (useful for images and logos) that have non-black and non-white backgrounds). New options have also been added for sizing and scaling sources, making it easier to precisely size videos and images on the canvas. Also, incoming sources are now scaled automatically, and will maintain their size based on user settings. And the status bar is moved to the bottom of the screen, giving more space to show System CPU and App CPU, as well as other streaming stats.

Pre-pandemic Telestream had a global Wirecast base in excess of 50,000 users and the company reports that since the on-set of COVID-19 the Wirecast community has grown at an unprecedented exponential rate. Telestream believes that it is seeing a profound change in the way that organizations worldwide communicate internally and externally. This driver is impacting many different types of organization: broadcast productions companies are harnessing Wirecast in their efforts to take workflows online, while increasing numbers of corporations, training companies and Houses of Worship are turning to Wirecast to strengthen their communication infrastructures.

Telestream CEO Dan Castles believes that there are important long-term implications for organizations of all sizes and scales as we move forward in 2020 and beyond. “I believe that two impacts will be felt long term,” he says. “This pandemic has shown organizations they need to have disaster recovery and remote operations capabilities. Many have learned by now that they did not have this in place. So, I see a continued emphasis on getting these operations more secure in case this ever happens again.

“Also, worldwide, massive numbers of staff are learning how to work from home. In the future there will be a balance and more people are open to including remote work in the mix. Based on Telestream’s experience, we believe remote working will be a more common practice: this will be one of the lasting impacts of COVID-19,” Castles added.

“In general, I think the digital media community will be stronger than ever. The need for the visual content and live content has not gone away: we just need to acquire new skillsets when working remotely.  Nothing from COVID-19 has changed the underpinnings of our industry and frankly, I think it has managed to remind everyone how important this industry is, especially during a crisis like this,” concludes Castles.