BoinxTV

As a video producer who produces live church service video podcasts for a few websites, I'm exicited about a new live video recording program for the Apple Mac called BoinxTV that is set to change the way many live video podcasts are produced and recorded.

According to the manufacturers of this new product Boinx Software which is currently in Alpha:

"BoinxTV is an amazing audiovisual mixing tool for recording video podcasts, sports events, concerts, interviews, sermons, lectures, speeches, seminars and more using just your Mac and up to three cameras.

A simple and acessible user interface will allow a single person to operate BoinxTV during the recording session. Because it runs on a MacBook Pro it can be used in the field easily.

Video podcasters currently have to spend many hours editing their takes to get a professional looking result. Post-production is a time-consuming part of their workflow. BoinxTV is a game changer. BoinxTV turns your Mac into a live-production studio and can reduce your overall production time dramatically." BoinxTV Website Promo Sept 2008.

Having downloaded the alpha version of BoinxTV software and played with it, I'm impressed with what it is capable of doing for the video podcaster especially when it comes to reducing or eliminating post production time needed before the recorded video is ready to be uploaded to a website. It has features that easily allows the podcaster to add graphic overlays, lower thirds, rss feeds, transistions and other professional effects to the video while recording, thus eliminating hours of post production time.

One podcaster has already produced a complete show with BoinxTV, and you can see one of the presenters add the titles and cue up video tutorials live during the recording session using thier apple mac laptop.

I'm looking forward to the first release of this new video recording software for the mac aimed at the serious video podcaster, though I doubt it is going to be a serious competitor to New Technology's Tricaster product another software live broadcast truck in a box developed for the windows XP platform.

BoinxTV was released to the public on November 11th 2008, and costs $499 or $199 for a sponsored edition.

Personally I think the software is a bit too expensive, and for the time being will not be adding it to the arsenal of church video production tools that I currently use. My intial tests have revealed that you need a very powerful Apple Mac to run the software, and the videos produced during my reviw had some stutter as the MacBook pro buckled under the strain, so it looks like that most laptop based live video production might not be possible, and I'll have to stick with my current hardware video mixer and monitors.

BoinxTV is just one of the few broadcasting truck in a box solutions, there is also the NewTek Tricaster suite of hardware products which could be seen as a rival, though the tricaster is based on the windows XP platform as opposed to the Apple Mac OS.