As the creative advantages to 4K video streaming and production have risen, cost and complexity have fallen.

It seems like only yesterday that professional content creators began capturing and producing video in high definition, particularly in 1080p 60 frames per second (FPS). But technology is always on the march. Today’s live video streaming professionals are now retooling for the next industry standard, Ultra High Definition (UHD), or 4K. As the demand to stream 4K video rises, content creators need to keep up to avoid being outpaced by competitors.

With the release of Wirecast 15, professional live streaming software now empowers users with greater CPU and GPU efficiency, flexible subscription plans, new social media content moderation, expanded production and monitoring tools, improved 4K support, a dedicated Music Mode for Rendezvous, and an improved user interface (UI) with bigger, brighter fonts, and tally lights. In this blog, we’ll look at the key modifications that work in tandem to upgrade Wirecast’s efficiency, stability, and reliability, starting with the platform’s optimized efficiency.

Telestream Vantage utilizes NexGuard to add imperceptible video watermarks during transcoding workflow

Media and entertainment companies, corporations and government agencies need to protect their high-value digital media assets from theft and unauthorized disclosure.

4K, 8K, HDR or UHD?

The talk on and around 4K/UHD video has increased considerably recently. Specifically, many TV manufacturers have been proclaiming that this will be the year in which higher resolution screens will become the norm. This is similar to what was said about higher frame rate sets a couple of years ago – even though at that time, the only video that could be watched at higher frame rates came from video gaming consoles.

Another post from our own Paul Turner:

I’m delighted to announce some big news on the Vantage front: we have just released the latest version of our Vantage software.  Vantage 7 contains a number of new features – let me detail some of them for you:

LIVE CAPTURE INCORPORATED INTO VANTAGE

Firstly, version 7 allows Vantage to incorporate the new Lightspeed Live Capture systems into a domain. This new Capture system takes in baseband video and can convert them into a number of high bitrate mezzanine formats. That video can come in via Lightspeed Live’s four SDI inputs, or via one of the 4x 10GigE ports. The system is also capable of ingesting 4K material, again via SDI or Ethernet. The integration takes place through a new origin action, which allows automated ingest directly into a workflow.

Another great contribution from our very own Paul Turner!

The Future of Resolution

You can’t have failed to notice that the volume of traffic discussing 4K/UHD video has increased considerably recently. Specifically, many TV manufacturers have been proclaiming that 2016 will be the year in which higher resolution screens will become the norm (if you remember, they did this with higher frame rate sets a couple of years ago – regardless of the fact that in reality, the only video you can watch at these higher frame rates comes from video gaming consoles).