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Filed under: *VIDEO* •Audio •Cameras •compression •Distribution •Editing •Hardware •Post Production •Production •Software •Vendor Channels •

NewTek’s TriCaster TCXD300 ignites 3rd multicam revolution, now in HD

Virtual sets and virtual live cameras

The TriCaster TCXD300 has a virtual set that to my eyes look as good as a CNN set… and that’s before seeing the demonstration of the virtual live cameras and the digital zoom. If you have a very good HD camera, you can set it for a wide shot, and then have the TriCaster TCXD300 zoom in electronically, and not see any visible degradation. When doing this electronic zoom with the TCXD300, the camera image and the virtual background or foreground are in perfect perspective sync, and move with the exact same speed. You can also preset a virtual close-up and then cut or dissolve from any of the other cameras to the close-up version. You have simultaneous access to the close-up and the wide shot.

Character generator keyboard compatibility

As a person who in a prior life configured Video Toasters in the Commodore Amiga computer with Spanish keyboards for Latin America, I was particularly concerned about the compatibility of the TriCaster TCXD300 with “foreign” keyboards. Back in the day, with the original Amiga Video Toaster, we had to perform three unusual tasks in order to achieve compatibility:

• Import Commodore Spanish keyboards from Germany, 100-pieces at a time. (The Amiga did not work with PC or Mac keyboards.)
• Hire a programmer to create a resident application to re-activate the so-called “dead” keys, since the original Video Toaster’s character generator in the Amiga would not recognize them. (On non-USA keyboards, the dead keys were born on the mechanical typewriter so that when typing a diacritical mark, the carriage would not advance, awaiting the character to be modified by the diacritical mark. This was then simulated on the computer versions of those keyboards.)
• Hire a program to create full ASCII fonts for the Amiga Video Toaster, since the original ones from NewTek were missing the extra characters used in other languages.

The above took a lot of time and money to make it happen. Fortunately, everything went smoother with the TriCaster TCXD300. I brought a Spanish ISO keyboard to the demo and explained the past situations to Jorge Dighero. We reconfigured the underlying operating system (Windows, which is normally invisible to the TriCaster operator) for the Spanish ISO keyboard, and everything worked wonderfully with the TCXD300 character generator.

The 19 “extra” characters required to type in Castilian, which have direct access from the Spanish ISO keyboard, but not directly available on the standard USA keyboard.

I personally tested all of the 19 “extra” characters required to type in Castilian (many of which are common to Catalán, French, Italian, and Portuguese), and everything worked wonderfully with the TCXD300 character generator’s default font. What a relief! I gave the Spanish ISO keyboard to Jorge as a gift!

Sidebar: All about black levels, pedestal, and setup

Back in 2002, I published a 3-page article called Los negros todavía no tienen igualdad for the Latin American magazine Producción & Distribución. About a week later, Adam Wilt published a similar, 1-page article for DV magazine. If I remember correctly, Adam’s article was entitled We’ve been setup. Although both articles covered the same topic, each offered different types of solutions. About a month later, JVC Professional released a cute 5-minute tutorial called Dirty Little Secrets about the same topic which apparently was inspired by my article. It was extremely well done, although it neglected to cover the international aspects. (That would have been very difficult to do so gracefully, in such a short duration.)

Here’s a very concise summary:

7.5 ire is part of the analog NTSC signal in NTSC-countries in the Americas, but it does not exist at all in analog NTSC in Japan (sometimes called NTSC-J), analog PAL in any country, analog HD of any type in any country, or digital video of any type in any country. In a digital 8-bit system, standard black level must always be at digital level 16 in any country (regardless of whether an SD analog output may or may not have 7.5 ire pedestal, depending upon other factors). In a digital 10-bit system, the standard black must be at digital level 64 (regardless of whether an SD analog output may or may not have 7.5 ire pedestal, depending upon other factors). In fact, the standard black level on an HD-SDI signal from an HD camera must always be digital level 64, regardless of where the HD camera is sold or delivered anywhere in the world, since the HD-SDI standard is always 10-bit (even though certain JVC HD cameras actually derive the 10-bit signal from an internal 8-bit signal, even in live mode).

I am including this sidebar to prepare you for the following alarm.

Why I was alarmed when I saw the TriCaster TCXD300’s waveform monitor

When I saw the graticule on the TriCaster TCXD300’s waveform monitor, I was shocked to see that there was a specific marker for 7.5 ire, since it didn’t belong there. I contacted NewTek’s executive VP of engineering, who acknowledged the above information, and responded to my alarm.  His response is in the next section.

NewTek’s response about the TriCaster TCXD300’s waveform monitor

Andrew Cross, executive VP of engineering at NewTek, replied:

This is a great observation and what is actually a slight bug in the product. Currently, we show the 7.5IRE marking even when in PAL and NTSC-J mode where it is not very useful (either). The actual calibrated IRE levels should however be correct. We are about to release a patch for TCXD300 and this version will remove the 7.5IRE line from the “non-pedestal” graticule for the waveform monitor.

What a relief!

Wish list for improvements on the TriCaster TCXD300

• For internal recording, add the option to have the system record the separate audio among any of the following: AAC (M4A), MP3, WAVE, or AIFF.
• Remove the 7.5 mark on the waveform monitor (as has already been promised).
• For the proc-amps (which currently allow saving settings per project, per input), allow saving and recalling presets for specific shots. This request is only in case that capability is not present in a CCU or mini-CCU, which is certainly much better in terms of signal-to-noise ratio.
• The current waveform monitor & color vectorscope are very good (except for the “7.5 bug” which is about to be fixed). However, currently they are rather small even in the best size Jorge was able to show me. I would like a Camera Setup mode “A”, where three waveform monitors (corresponding to the three camera inputs) are arranged side by side in such a way that they are occupying almost the entire raster to facilitate matching luma levels and black levels. As stated earlier, these adjustments are best made at the camera head, via the CCU or mini-CCU located near the TriCaster, but in case that’s not available, there should be access to the TCXD300’s proc-amp directly below each waveform monitor, to adjust black level and luma level. Camera Setup “B” would be the same thing, but show three huge vectorscopes side-by-side, with the proc-amp below each one, accessing the chroma saturation and hue (in the case of composite or Y/C sources only). Camera Setup “C” would be a huge waveform monitor (almost full raster) with each camera input signal superimposed over each other, but each one in a different color: perhaps red for input 1, green for input 2, and blue for input 3, with the three appropriate proc-amp access windows below. Camera Setup “D” would be a huge vectorscope (almost full raster) but (unlike when viewing a single source on the vectorscope with the colors), it would have the same single color per channel as in mode “C”.

Conclusions

I already love the TriCaster TCXD300 for all of the reasons stated in this article. I will love it even more after NewTek adds the wish list items you just read!

Allan Tépper’s articles and seminars

Get a full index of Allan Tépper’s articles and upcoming seminars and webinars at AllanTepper.com. Listen to his radio program TecnoTur, together with Tanya Castañeda, Rubén Abruña, and Liliana Marín, free via iTunes or at

TecnoTur.us. Very soon you will also be able to hear TecnoTur in English, plus two new programs from the TecnoTur network, one in Castilian and the other in English.

Disclosure, to comply with the FTC’s new rules

None of the manufacturers listed above is paying Allan Tépper or TecnoTur LLC specifically to write this article, and so far, none has sent him any samples or demonstration items as a gift. Some of the manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. At present, some of the manufacturers listed above are sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine, and others are not, but this did at not all affect Tépper’s criteria for evaluating the products mentioned.

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Thanks Allan,

How about that! I learn something new every day around here. I wasn’t aware that ProRes was available for Windows.

I’ve been a user and fan of Cineform so I really haven’t been paying much attention to ProRes.

Posted by wsmith  on  02/23  at  12:33 PM

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