Tutorial: vMix GO Portable Live Production Solution

Input Capabilities

The vMix software’s input capabilities are very extensive. To create an input, click the Add Input button (far left in the Footer bar) or drag and drop content from your desktop. This opens the Input Select window (Figure 3, below).

Figure 3. Loading videos from your hard drive via the Input Select window. Click the image to see it at full size.

When selecting inputs, use Video for disk-based files, as shown in Figure 3. You can input as many files as you would like to build a playlist; you’re not limited to a fixed number of DVRs.

Among the other Input Select options, Camera is where you access devices connected via SDI (Figure 4, below).

Figure 4. Accessing HD-SDI camera sources with Camera selected in the Input Select window. Click the image to see it at full size.

Note that you can create a virtual input for any input (Figure 5, below). That means you can define one full-resolution shot for presenting the video full screen and one tight shot for a picture-in-picture. This adds a lot of simple flexibility to your productions.

Figure 5. Creating virtual inputs. Click the image to see it at full size.

Desktop capture inputs the screen from any computer on the same local area network. The Stream option is for a live stream, while video delay is another name for instant replay. Select Images to load image for a logo overlay or image sequence for a slideshow. Select Photos to input multiple pictures from the same folder to create an automatic slideshow.

PowerPoint files import directly into the project. You can see in Figure 6 (below) that I am accessing the individual slides in the Program window, which I can also do when the file is live. That's a unique feature that makes it simple to incorporate high-quality PowerPoint files into your projects.

Figure 6. Working with a PowerPoint in a vMix project. Click the image to see it at full size.

Audio Input is for microphones, soundboards, or other devices connected to the I/O panel.

Titling and Virtual Sets

vMix features a titler--also accessible via the Input Select window, by selecting Title/XAML—which comes with lots of presets (Figure 7, below). You can buy more from the vMix site or create your own.

Figure 7. vMix title presets. Click the image to see it at full size.

vMix ships with virtual sets you can access at the bottom of the Input Select window, and use with the software’s GPU-based green screen function (Figure 8, below).

Figure 8. Choosing virtual sets. Click the image to see it at full size.

vMix is also compatible with third-party sets. You can use virtual sets to create your own compositions. I use the blank set shown top, left in Figure 8 to create the picture-in-picture webinar template with a custom background shown in Figure 9 (below). The background is in layer 3, as you can see at the top of Figure 9. The virtual input close-up is in layer 4, and the PowerPoint file is in layer 5. You can adjust the color and positioning of each layer individually.

Figure 9. A PiP webinar template created in vMix using 5 layers. Click the image to see it at full size.