BoinxTV vs Tricaster

The arrival of BoinxTV is going to bring a revolution to the way video podcasts are recorded especially for sole video content producers but is BoinxTV a real challenger for NewTek's Tricaster suite of products?

This is no BoinxTV Vs Tricaster shootout, just a few thoughts of mine giving a comparison between the two video production tools, and who might go for what.



Some similarities between BoinxTV and Tricaster basic edition.

Both products seem to be aimed at those who need small portable field video production facilities that can be operated by a single operator. They are computer based soutions, BoinxTV being apple mac based, while Tricaster uses the PC and Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Each video production system supports a maximum of 3 video sources, can add various studio effects to the mixer video output, can record to the hard drive and also output the Program to an external video connection, in the case of BoinxTV via the secondary monitor output.

There are however a lot of differences between BoinxTV which will have an effect on which product is chosen by various users.

1. Tricaster is a dedicated computer solution, and the computer can not be used for anything else, while BoinxTV is just another application, so the computer can be used for other things. Considering the cost, podcasters or small video producers are more likely to favour the BoinxTV over Tricaster for simple live recording.

2. There is always the Microsoft vs Apple dicotomy which will mean the various follwers might want to continue following their prefered operating system.

3. You might need extra hardware to connect your cameras to BoinxTV, while Tricaster already has all the interfaces to support composite and S Video camera connections, but doesn't support DV connections. BoinxTV can support DV cameras out of the Box (the number will depend on the firewire connections on the Mac being used.

4. Tricaser supports the traditional broadcast TV 'T Bar' switcher console, something that will be very useful while recording music concerts where fast cutting between cameras is required.

I personally would go tricaster, as my own experience of this Mac Video production software hasn't been very positive.