Bye Bye Wirecast! I Just bought vMix HD!!

My 60 day trial of vMix HD came to an end last week. My experience using vMix was so much better than recent experience with Wirecast that I decided to purchase a license.

That said, it wasn’t clear which version of vMix was appropriate. The trial license is the “Pro” version, which is all-bells-&-whistles enabled. The “Basic” version is free, but limited to SD resolution and the number of inputs that it can accept. The “Basic HD” version, just $60 USD, adds the ability to operate at resolutions up to 1920x1080p.

The company lists the limitation on the “Basic” editions to “4 Total Inputs” and 3 “Capture Inputs.” This terminology is not exactly obvious. So, I began by purchasing the Basic HD license to see if it would meet my needs.

By “meet my needs” I mean load my existing vMix presets. After all, I have built a dozen sets of presets during my time using the trial license.

When I loaded a past VUC preset into the Basic HD version it came up incomplete. This looks a lot like when assets are lost on disk, so I went about trying to remap them into the file. When I did this it complained explicitly about ‘”The input limit of this editing has been reached.”

On this basis, I infer that “4 total inputs” means no more than 4 elements of any sort. The VUC opening sequence itself is comprised of a dozen elements, mostly PNG still images layered over a QuickTime animation.

Since the $60 “Basic HD” version would not get me where I needed to be, I upgraded the license to the the $350 “HD” variant. This cost only the difference between the two licenses.

My wallet suitably lightened, this version loads all my existing presets in their entirety. So, I’m free to carry on using vMix as before.

This license lacks certain advance features, like instant replay, multi-source record to disk, or operation at 4k/UHD resolution. These are all things that I don’t need at present.

While this definitely isn’t a review of vMix, what greater recommendation can I offer than to say that, after a 60 day free trial, I actually bought the product!