SimpleCaspar is NOT related with SVT or the CasparCG Team. The CasparCG. To play it, is that easy! Get it for Free on the itunes appStore View in App Store. CasparCG Server is a Windows and Linux software used to play out professional graphics, audio and video to multiple outputs as a layerbased real-time compositor. It has been in 24/7 broadcast production since 2006. And the best, it's free.
What do you think, Caspar or ProPresenter for basic title/playback functionality to use with a TVS and maybe a 2 M/E down the line? I'm a Mac guy so ProPresenter looks very appealing. This wouldn't be for a church setup, so PP has a lot of stuff I wouldn't likely use, but it seems like it does everything I need, and is more user-friendly than a Caspar system. I'd probably just use a luma or chroma key rather than spend the $1k for the alpha upgrade right away.
If I need a nice key I'll use the ATEM media. For example, I just need to play a 'standby' loop before a stream, roll in an opening, then maybe do some lower thirds or other simple titles. Would ProPresenter work? My only reservation is if I do end up wanting Alpha capability, the cost of ProPresenter would pay for an entire Caspar rig, but the Caspar interface is intimidating, so I'm torn. Please share any and all opinions.
For a very real cheap way of doing graphics we build them all on Photoshop with a Alpha Channel. Then we import them into Power Point.
Then we just key them in the switcher. When we do sports we make each Home team player what ever their number is. Then we can just type in their number in power point and their graphics shows up. For the visiting team we just ad a 1 to the front of their number. It works good if you make the Key prefect. Also it make is super fast for the graphics op to recall which ever player they are talking about as all they need to do it type in the player number then hit enter.
Hope this can help you out. He must be luma keying them in the switcher.
I messed around with Caspar CG, but really I need something that is just going to work. I don't want to code flash templates and such.
If you know what you're doing and familiar with flash then I could see how it is a great solution. ProPresenter is pretty much turn key. If you can use PowerPoint, you shouldn't have any issue learning PP. Sign up for the trial for PP and see how you like it.
You can always download Caspar CG and tinker around with it to see if it will work for your application since it's free. Also, Caspar CG still requires a PC for the server portion of the software. The client has PC and Mac versions. We use power-point as a key in one very specific situation, where the on-air talent is controlling the graphics. It's an online education thing, where they are putting up questions on the screen.
We have the professor make the background black, and use light colored or white font, and luma key it. Works fine as long as the graphic elements contain no black or drop-shadows. We are also using a black background in the video, so you wouldn't see much issues in the key if they were there.
(And we like our new light-board.) Questions in this vid are keyed with PowerPoint, drawings done on lit up glass light board. (We just started these with the light board. We have since added a little more light, and repositioned monitors so she isn't looking up quite so much. Learning curves.).
To lend a little support to CasparCG for balance. This discussion is comparing fairly unrelated things.
CasparCG is a fully featured-graphics renderer engine, so you can do things like: * Have many layers, each with it's own DVE engine * Template your graphics (essential if the pace of your day-to-day operation prohibit pre-rendering) * Have layers be the Key for other Layers. * Individually control the opacity of elements within layers & layers themselves for better composition. * Use Flash or HTML(5) or even custom 'producers' for dynamic elements. * Interrogate the state of your scene. * And of course, work with proper interlaced output if you need to be broadcast compatible. Most of the rest of the products mentioned are primarily play-out tools, sometimes with slight hat-tip to Graphics, but most don't support the features expected of a Graphics Renderer.
Although you can often 'find ways' to create the effects you desire with the other tools mentioned, you are 'hacking together' a graphics solution, not implementing one. CasparCG doesn't have a front-end, so it always surprises me to see people complaining about it, if you bought yourself a $20K Vizrt engine (IMO: there is nothing better), the Vizrt engine renderer software has no GUI, it looks exactly the same as CasparCG (a terminal style log window). And if you think that Caspar's AMCP protocol is tricky, you should try managing a Viz engine scene tree on their control socket. If you are a student just getting into the industry, or replicating how top-end productions get done at the budget end of the client market, CasparCG is a fantastic tool to learn and use, and many management tools exist help users operate at the point and click level if that's what they want. CasparCG 'engine' is fundamentally 'only missing 3D layer control with respect to Vizrt or Chyron' ( you can do 3D graphics with HTML5), and hence SVT should be given big respect for making this open-source project. CasparCG may require some time to learn, but it has a lot of features & capabilities, and therefore ( obviously depending on the use-case) it can be very worthwhile to invest the time. If you invested in Vizrt or Chyron or even Ross Renderers, you'd likely also invest in training courses, as Graphics can get very complicated very quickly.