NAB 2018: Wowza Announces New Broadcaster Tools With Clearcaster Updates
At NAB 2018, Wowza Media Systems has announced updates to the Wowza ClearCaster appliance, aimed at meeting demands for today’s professional broadcasters. ClearCaster now provides automated redundancy setup, ensuring unparalleled reliability on Facebook Live, as well as the ability to simulcast streams through the Wowza Streaming Cloud service.
“From redundancy to simulcasting and new publishing tools, these latest updates are designed for professional broadcasters to deliver the best possible experience on Facebook Live and elsewhere,” says Dave Stubenvoll, CEO and co-founder, Wowza. “ClearCaster provides the only way to deliver the highest-quality 1080 streams to Facebook Live, while also powering one-click simulcasting and bulletproof reliability.”
ClearCaster’s built-in redundancy capabilities allow broadcasters to run multiple devices and failover or toggle between two or more paired machines. Broadcasters can also remotely manage ClearCaster through Wowza ClearCaster Manager, a user interface where users can start and stop streams, adjust settings, configure redundancy and many other features.
To help broadcasters deliver to audiences beyond Facebook Live, ClearCaster can now simulcast broadcast-quality streams through Wowza Streaming Cloud. Users simply pre-set a stream target in Wowza Streaming Cloud, then provide the connection code in ClearCaster Manager when setting up the stream to select their simulcast destination.
As part of this update, ClearCaster also offers several new native publishing features to increase audience reach and engagement. This includes the ability to restrict viewing audiences based on location, age or gender to aid with audience targeting and limit the viewership area for posts. Furthermore, ClearCaster supports embedded 608 captions, helping public broadcasters and news organizations satisfy FCC closed-captioning requirements for social audiences.
To increase the overall engagement of Facebook Live viewing on mobile devices, ClearCaster offers broadcast 1:1 aspect video options. Broadcasters simply select the Mobile Video Optimization checkbox in their ClearCaster settings, and the video is immediately cropped to fit, with the live preview of the cropped feed available on the Talent View display.