Can the Decklink Video Card capture and route a live stream?

Hi,

My first post on this forum might be a bit long and I apologize for that. Before asking for some help here, I have to explain the situation I'm dealing with.

My company offers its customer a live video stream access showing horses racing every days, for about 10 hours. We're bying a live stream on wich we're ading our own audio comments (see below for more infos).

Actually, my solution works like so:

1) I'm using VLC to play the live network stream.
2) This incoming stream is routed to a little software called Vcam (http://www.e2esoft.cn/vcam/). More precisly, this software comes with a plugin that enables VLC to output its signal (in my case, the stream) to Vcam. Why am I doing so? See point 3)

3) Vcam Is then used as a video source In procaster (a nice little software developped by Livestream). The result is that I'm able to send my initial stream directly into Procaster. PS: Livestream is the Broadcasting service I'm using.

4) In Procaster, I'm adding an extra audio source (mic) to enable voice comments on top of the stream. The whole thing is then broadcasted by livestream.

If hope that my explanations are clear enough...

I'm aware that this solution is more a dirty hack and I'm trying to find a better one.

Livestream indicates that the Decklink Studio capture card offers flawless integration with Livestream Procaster (meaning it's officialy supported) when coupled with a real camera.

The problem is: I'm not using any cameras... So finally, here comes my billion dollars question:

Is it possible to use the decklink video card to capture directly the VLC signal So I could use the card as an input source in Procaster?

It will preserve me from using Vcam, wich is buggy and tends to add a lot of lags, cuts and freezes to the final outputed stream...

Hope you guys will be able to help me a little bit.

Thank you by advance,

Regards

Here's an idea: have VLC output full screen to monitor #2 through HDMI, which you then take into the Decklink card.
Or another way, output VLC full screen to DVI, and use a mini converter from DVI to SDI, which you then connect to the Decklink.

Hi,

sorry for this late reply, and thank you for your answer
This could indeed be a solution, but the input stream we're getting has a pretty low quality and I'm afraid, that putting it on fullscreen before reducing it again might alter the final output...

Also, this means that if one of the commentators moove the mouse a little bit too much on the wrong screen, the cursor will display on the image right ?

What do you mean by "output VLC full screen to DVI" ? I'm not really used to technical terms and techniques when in comes to video production yet, sorry for that

Regards,
Erik

Do you have product who encode and stream signal ?
Sory about my bad english.

i think product in a box only for stream

What do you mean by "output VLC full screen to DVI" ? I'm not really used to technical terms and techniques when in comes to video production yet, sorry for that

What I mean is; the computer with VLC should be set up with one regular computer monitor. I don't know what connections you have available, but BMD have a solution for this if you have a DVI connection available. You could output DVI from the computer with VLC on it, and make it an SDI signal, and then take this into your computer with a Decklink card.

Computer
- Screen #1 goes to a physical computer monitor
- Set up the computer to output to Screen #2, and make it SD resolution (the equivalent of PAL or NTSC depending on your situation). This will hopefully calm your nerves in regards of the upscale/downscale issue you mention.
- Screen #2 goes to the DVI to SDI converter
- Force VLC to output fullscreen to screen #2. You can do this in the preferences for VLC. You can also set up that the controls will not be visible on this screen, so it stays clean and video only.

If the commentator moves the mouse, the controls should not become visible on Screen #2, and he should be able to do whatever he likes on Screen #1 without interrupting VLC and your production.



If you don't have DVI output, they have HDMI to SDI converters available too, and the process would be the same as above.