Review of NewTek's TCXD850 EXTREME

The NewTek TriCaster 850 EXTREME is the latest addition to NewTek's TriCaster product line. The TriCaster 850 EXTREME includes all of the features and capabilities found with the previous NewTek TriCaster 850 and adds some unique capabilities including multi-track IsoCorder™ video recording technology, the ability to switch live Apple AirPlay sources as video and audio sources, and animated transitions with sound.

The IsoCorder technology is simply awesome. With previous TriCasters you could only record the live switch or program output. While extremely useful for capturing live-switched productions as a file to hard drive that could be further edited using the TriCasters SpeedEDIT NLE software or other editing software such as Final Cut Pro, Premiere or Vegas, the only way record each camera's individual output was to record to tape, a P2 or SD card, etc.

After recording a live-switched program to hard drive, if you needed to make changes to the master program file (add a graphic or title, insert a clip with a different camera angle, etc.) you had to ingest the appropriate footage into your TriCaster or NLE software, and then make the fix.

With the TriCaster 850 EXTREME you can record a program as you live-switch a show plus record up to 7 video cameras or other live video sources to hard drive as separate files. With all of the files available on the four media hard drives within your TriCaster 850 EXTREME, you can quickly and easily find those video clips of different camera angles, etc. that need to be inserted into the master program file.

Additionally, you can select different video codecs besides NewTek's MPEG-2 I-frame format to make your recordings with. The TriCaster 850 EXTREME includes QuickTime®, H.264, AVI support plus two flavors of NewTek's MPEG-2 I-frame formats. Each of the eight iso-recordings can use a different video codec. You don't have to record all eight files as QuickTimes or AVIs, etc.

The TriCaster 850 EXTREME includes four 2TB hot-swappable SATA drives for recording up to 200 hours of video and audio clips. The drives can be safely removed with the system turned on and running (of course, you don't want to be writing-to or playing-back from a drive when you remove it!).

By supporting Apple's® AirPlay® technology that delivers video and audio information to the TriCaster 850 EXTREME, you can feed two separate and indendent video sources to the TriCaster 850 EXTREME from an Apple iPad®, iPod®, or iPhone®.

The animated DVEs or transitions or very well done and add a new level of professionalism to the TriCaster line. These transitions, which include various themes such as Sports, Flags, Broadcast, and more allow you add interesting transitions when going from one video source to another including video cameras, video clips played back from the TriCaster 850 EXTREME's hard drives via the two DDRs, networked computer feeds, etc. Imagine a basketball bouncing across the screen, with sound, and bouncing into your face before transitioning to the other souce.

Additionally, you can create your own animated transitions with alpha channel and sound with the included transition editor.

Copied from NewTek's website, the following video formats are supported for playback purposes during a live production: DNxHD, DV, DVCPro, DVCProHD, MOV, MKV, MJPEG, MPEG (1,2 in all profiles, program or transport streams), AVI, MOV, DV, H.263, H.264, Flash FLV, WMV, MP4, WebM and more. Via the included Import module, you can perform batch copying with optional transcoding (including Apple ProRes) of files onto TriCaster.

Still formats include : PSD, PNG, TGA, BMP, JPEG, EXR, RAW, TIF, and more.
Audio formats include : WAV, MP3, AIFF and more.

Alpha channel is supported on applicable file types. Finally, you can playback Apple ProRes files from the 850 EXTREME's Media Players.

As of Sept. 9th, 2011, NewTek lowered the price of the TriCaster 850 EXTREME from $39,9995.00 to $34,995.00, a savings of $5,000.00!

More to come as time permits . . . .