NewTek Tricaster TCXD850, User Manual, Page: 246 / 336

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15.4.1 TESTING YOUR STREAM
When it comes to using your TriCaster in a professional live production environment (i.e., your
bread and butter depends on getting it right, and now - not tomorrow), failure to test
beforehand is not merely unwise - it can be professional suicide.
You should already be aware of the need for redundancy in a professional environment (you
didn’t bring just one camera, did you?) As reliable as any device may be, Murphy and his Law are
alive and well. So you plan for this, bringing the appropriate equipment, such as uninterruptable
power supplies, backup recording devices (there’s no shame in having a VCR backing up your
digital record – ‘low tech’ still has a place in the grand scheme.)
But you also need to perform onsite testing, to ensure your live stream is working well before
‘zero hour.’ No-one will thank you for excuses, no matter how brilliantly they point the finger at
forces beyond your control.
1. Set up and enable a test program stream from your TriCaster.
2. Use another system to open Windows Media Player™, and use its menu (in some
versions, you need to right-click WMP’s title bar to present the menu) to select
File>
Open URL .
3. Enter the IP address and port number for your stream here.
4. You should be able to connect and view your program stream.
Success at this point does not necessarily mean you’re done. You may be able to see the stream
locally, but can someone outside the local environment connect to it over the Internet? The best
way to find out is to have someone at a remote location verify that your stream is streaming
properly. If it is, great! Otherwise, keep reading…
FLASH® MEDIA LIVE ENCODER NOTES
Unfortunately, there are cases in which Flash® Media Live Encoder fails to report significant error
conditions. For example, no error message is displayed if the network cable is disconnected
while streaming, or if the connection to the remote server is lost.