Webcast

Webcast is a small-sized and portable application designed to help you connect DV cameras to a simple interface installed on a laptop with a wireless network connection, and then connect to a TV station for live streaming.

Since there is no setup pack involved, you can drop the program files anywhere on the disk or save them to a pen drive to directly run Webcast on any notebook you come in contact with, to quickly set up live streaming with a TV station. Unlike most installers, it doesn't modify the Windows registry settings, so it doesn't increase the risk of OS stability issues.

There are two separate tools included in Webcast's package: the encoder and the server. These are wrapped in a user-friendly interface which consists of a single configuration panel for each app, showing all options available.

When it comes to the encoder, you can connect the DV camera to the computer, as well as select the camera driver along with the audio and microphone device.

It's possible to adjust the volume level, edit the server name and port, change the resolution, capture rate, audio and video bandwidth along with the priority level, and preview the footage in the main window.

You can also embed images from local files as watermarks or banners (JPEG, BMP, ICO, EMF, WMF, PNG, TIF or GIF format), set their position on the screen (top left, top right, bottom left, or bottom right), and make them transparent if necessary. The entire configuration of the encoder can be saved when exiting it.

After launching Webcast's server, you can select the operator's IP address and port number, pick the audio device and adjust the volume level, as well as choose the studio driver. Live streaming can be initialized with one click, and you can also enter full screen mode. Once again, the configuration settings may be saved when exiting the server app.

We haven't come across any stability issues in our tests, since Webcast didn't hang, crash or display error messages. It had minimal impact on computer performance, using low CPU and RAM. Too bad that it hasn't been recently updated. Nevertheless, you can test it for yourself to find out if it meets your requirements.