NewTek tricaster advanced edition, User Manual, Page: 309 / 339

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B PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS
Your TriCaster
®
has been carefully designed to faithfully execute its duties under any
reasonable circumstances. Still, your production environment – especially in remote
locations – may impose limitations that you are wise to consider. This chapter discusses
a few matters that may help you get optimal performance in less than ideal settings.
B.1 TESTING, ONE TWO …
Professionals simply do not leap into new environments blindly. They prepare, plan, plan some more, and
then – most importantly – they test. This allows them to tackle the really tough jobs with confidence.
B.2 IVGA™ AND PERFORMANCE
Although iVGA™ is highly efficient, it does require significant system resources, especially when a large
portion of the display is refreshed. This is not normally problematic as – for iVGA purposes – the client
system is not required to perform other concurrent tasks. Its entire duties involve providing a video source
for the (downstream) TriCaster via the iVGA client software. However, it is very unwise to install and run
the iVGA client software directly on a TriCaster itself.
TriCaster’s live video processing requires unhindered CPU and GPU access. Adding the resource demands of
the iVGA client to TriCaster would almost certainly cause frames to be dropped on output, and should simply
never be done. The same warning applies to other ‘screen-sharing’ or ‘remote desktop’ applications, which
would actually be as bad or worse.
Of course iVGA benefits from the fastest possible network connections between remote clients and TriCaster
even when “used as directed”. This is especially true if you intend to stream high resolution motion graphics
to TriCaster using iVGA.
B.3 IMAG AND LATENCY
What’s IMAG? It’s a compression of the expression “Image MAGnification.” Typically in modern IMAG
applications, video cameras supply live imagery to projection systems, magnifying speakers and performers
so that audience members further back in large venues can still see what’s going on.
IMAG is a very tricky task at the best of times, one that calls for excellent planning, and where possible,
testing. Those designing an IMAG installation have, not just one, but two inter-related broadcasts to consider
– in the form of the audio and video streams.
B.3.1 RELATIVITY AND THE SPEED OF LIGHT
Wouldn’t it be nice if audio and video travelled from their respective broadcast devices at the same speed?
Then, wherever you were seated in the audience, the sound from hypothetically perfect speakers and the