"It's a little bit different," Vandenberg says, "because we have a lot of people that just want to display a local feed of their streams and we were like, 'How do we go about this?' because NDI will need a decoder on the other end. So we thought we would try using HLS to provide a stream to just a local network. And then most smart televisions have a browser that allows you to just put that in and you can play it. The only problem with HLS is that it's about a 10-second delay to make sure that the everything's smooth. But typically if you're not viewing the same area, like if it's in a different room, it's usually fine. It's probably not perfect for everybody, but it's a solution for a lot of people."
It's important to have such "in-built solutions," Lam replies, "that aren't reliant on separate hardware decodes, because a lot of times in a live environment, the client comes and says, 'We have too many people in the room, now we have to have an overflow room. How can you help us? And by the way, the room is a thousand feet away and too far to run cable straight there.' So it's an option."
Vandenberg agrees. "And you don't want to run a stream and then have somebody load up YouTube on their phone in order to watch the stream that's in the next room and that type of thing."
What's New in vMix 26
NAB 2023 marks the public debut of vMix 26, the solution's latest full-step upgrade. "So what else is new under the hood in vMix?" Lam asks.
"26 has a stream delay for people that want to stop cheating with their eSports, where you can set a delay on the stream so people can't be like stream-sniping." Vandenberg says.
He also notes that the new version adds 15 new mix effects.
"I love the mix effects by the way," enthuses Lam. "When you brought out the initial few, I was like, 'I need more.' So tell viewers how does the mix effect work, and why do I love it so much?"
"It allows you to create a separate input, which can be an output," Vandenberg says. "So you can have, say, an overlay or an output that you're sending from vMix with its own transitions. You can have a submix. You can have your own separate sub-production within a production, and now you can have 15 of them for various things. So you could be sending a mix out to a big screen, but also overlaying that in vMix and using the transitions the same way."
"I use it all the time with templates," says Lam. "We'll have multiview templates with three remote panel presenters, and then a PowerPoint, and and bugs and logos. And then if the mix of presenters changes, I just simply switch in the mix effect, which one is assigned to that one. And it's just submixes. It gives me more tools so that I don't have so many inputs that I'm switching from--I'm just mixing the submix within input number two, for example. It's a great feature."
Vandenberg catalogs other new additions such as title templates and SRT replay, "so people can do remote replay, which is pretty handy if you're doing remote sports; and we added a bunch of vertical production stuff, so you could get high quality vertically and horizontally if you really want that."
"Vertical video makes me cringe a bit," concedes Lam, "but if there's a need for it..."
"You'd be surprised," says Vandenberg. "There are a lot of different avenues for vertical now. I know this is broadcast, but..."
"It definitely has huge usage for signage," says Lam. "There are a lot of vertical displays. It doesn't matter what we think of it. If it's needed, it's nice that you support it."