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Viz Artist User Guide

Version 5.0 | Published December 20, 2022 ©

NDI / TriCaster

Newtek’s TriCaster is a popular vision mixer for small to medium budget operations. With the Viz Engine integration for TriCaster, Viz Engine provides a fill and key IP stream which is automatically detected by TriCaster as a source for graphics overlay. Two different graphic streams can be assigned in the TriCaster (net1 and net2). Each stream is a fill key combination.

As part of the Viz Artist and TriCaster integration package, Viz Trio is included. If the integration package runs on a Viz Trio One Box, animated preview is available within Viz Trio. Viz Trio can also be controlled directly from the TriCaster through macros that can be mapped to keyboard and control panel shortcuts, and are routed to Viz Trio by Viz Engine. See To Set TriCaster Macros.

A second integration package includes Viz Trio on a HP ZBook, with still preview to create an ultra-portable graphics and video production solution for mobile production trucks (see Viz Trio and Viz Engine for a TriCaster Production on the Same Laptop).

This section contains the following topics and procedures:

System Requirements

  • Viz Artist/Engine: 3.6.3 and higher

  • TriCaster: All versions of TriCaster since:

    • Build Number: 2-2-150507B

    • Driver = 1.99 1-Apr-2014

    • Core = 24e8 29-Jul-2014

NDI Protocol

Support for the NDI protocol from vizrt group was introduced in Viz Artist/Engine 3.8.3, with the latest version of the TriCaster software. This enables dual channel output to the TriCaster on one system via named video pipes. Other Viz systems may also be sending on the same network. Systems still running the TriCaster Standard Edition software need to upgrade to the Advanced Edition 2.0 version. Contact Newtek to obtain the required installer.

Within the TriCaster, all Viz systems on the network can be seen and freely selected to any inputs. With NDI it is possible to check the number of clients actually connected to the Engine, and only render when they are connected. Thus it is possible to expose more channels than you want to actually render and only dedicate rendering time to those that are being used.

Similar to how Viz Artist configuration files are named, a particular Viz Engine appears to the TriCaster with the following naming convention: computerName-VizEngine-instance

The Newtek StudioMonitor tool, available from Newtek, allows any video source or output on the TriCaster and/or NDI network to be viewed.

To run Viz Engine in Tricaster mode with a video board installed on the system, set Check Video Card to None in the Video Board section of Viz Configuration.

To Connect a Viz Engine to TriCaster

  1. Open Viz Configuration.

  2. Select the Video Board section.

  3. Set Check Video Card to None.

  4. Set Software I/O Mode to NDI.

  5. Make sure the Viz Artist dongle has the TriCaster feature enabled.

  6. In the TriCaster user interface, click on the drop-down menu (next to net1 or net2).

  7. Using the drop-down menu from step 5, connect either net1 or net2.

To Enable Audio Passthrough from Viz Engine to TriCaster

To enable audio pass through from the Viz Engine to TriCaster, set AudioOn=1 in the Viz configuration file. This is most easily done via Artist > Config > Audio Settings > Audio Active button = On. With this option set, the network stream to the TriCaster has audio embedded in the signal.

To Set TriCaster Macros

  1. Open the macro configuration panel from the TriCaster Macros menu.

  2. Create a new macro called Trio Take.

  3. Edit the macro:

    • Shortcut: net1 (tells TriCaster that the network address is the one where Viz Trio is installed)

    • Value: vizrt

    • Key0: trio

    • Value0: take

  4. Assign a keyboard shortcut to the macro.

  5. Start streaming from the Viz Engine, which is on the same host as Viz Trio.

  6. Connect TriCaster net1 to it.

Viz Trio and Viz Engine for a TriCaster Production on the Same Laptop

On a laptop, there is only one GPU and it must be shared between Viz Trio preview and Viz Engine program out. Since this uses one GPU to create the preview and the program, it is advisable to use a ringbuffer on the Viz Engine output. Depending on how heavy the Scenes are, this can go up to 15 frames. To run Viz Trio and Viz Engine, Viz Engine should be installed for a Viz Trio One Box setup by selecting the Trio Box CG platform type during installation.

  1. Start Viz Trio client with the -vizpreview localhost:50010 command line option.

    Note: The 50010 port is a dedicated preview port (check in the Viz configuration file (<viz data folder>).

  2. Start Viz Engine.