InterDirector ReCast, restreaming with a safety net
InterDirector ReCast is a server of your own in the cloud, for the hours you bought. It does two things:
- It saves your upload bandwidth. InterDirector sends ReCast one high-quality stream, and ReCast sends it on to every platform. The venue’s connection carries one stream, not one for every platform.
- Your viewers never see a spinner. If the venue’s upload dies, your platforms keep receiving a stream: ReCast switches to a slate saying the broadcast will continue as soon as possible, and back to your Program the moment it returns. Your audience sees a short pause, not a loading spinner or a broadcast that has ended. It is a professional safety net for a connection you cannot trust: a venue’s network, a mobile link, a busy event.
Straight from your Mac
- YouTube
- Twitch
- Kick
The venue’s upload 4 × 6 = 24 Mbit/s
Through InterDirector ReCast
- YouTube
- Twitch
- Kick
The venue’s upload 1 × 6 = 6 Mbit/s
If the venue’s connection drops, ReCast keeps every platform live on a slate, and your Program comes back by itself.
It needs a licensed InterDirector or one in its free trial, and a ReCast key, which you get when you buy hours: 24 hours, 48 hours or a week.
Start it
- Choose Tools ▸ ReCast…, or ReCast in the list down the side of the Streaming window.
- Paste your key and press Use Key. The key stays on this Mac; it is not saved in the Show.
- Choose the region nearest to you and your audience, and press Start ReCast.
It takes about a minute and a half to be ready. It follows your Show’s picture: if you change its size or frame rate, or open another Show, ReCast’s slate changes to match in about half a minute.
While it starts, Open ReCast shows it working. When it is ready, InterDirector says so and adds it to the Streaming window as a destination called ReCast, turned on; Streaming Settings… takes you there. Your other destinations stay as they are, so turn off the ones ReCast now sends to, or your platforms receive the stream twice. Then press Stream, as for any destination.
Set up your platforms
In the Streaming window, choose ReCast in the list down the side. Under its destination are ReCast’s six Outputs: four for your platforms and two portrait ones, 720 × 1280, for Instagram Live, TikTok or YouTube.
- Open an output’s row to paste the platform’s Server and Stream key.
- Its switch puts it on air to that platform, or takes it off; beside it, it says Live, Connecting or Off.
- Portrait layout chooses how both portrait outputs are made: Rotated, your picture turned a quarter turn to fill it, for a show you make on its side, or Fitted, the whole landscape picture inside it. It changes while neither is on air.
- Receiving InterDirector says whether ReCast is getting your stream.
Your outputs are saved in the Show, keys included, so anyone who can open the Show can stream to them. When you next start ReCast, it is given them at once, all off: switch on the ones you want.
You can also set them on ReCast’s own page: Open ReCast opens it in your browser, already signed in. The two stay in step, so a change on either is in the other within a few seconds. The page also shows a preview of what goes out, and can record what it receives. Copy Login copies the page’s address, user name and password, to give to a colleague who looks after the stream.
Its time
Your hours start when the key first starts ReCast, not when you buy it, so you can buy ahead of the show; start it within a year of buying it. From then the hours keep running, whether ReCast is running or not. The window and ReCast’s own page show the time left; InterDirector warns you half an hour and five minutes before the end. To keep it running longer, buy more hours and add the new key with Add Hours…: its hours are added after the ones already running.
End… stops it at once, and its recordings go with it, so download any you want first. Your hours keep running after it ends: until they are over, Start ReCast starts it again, with a new address and login, and gives it your Show’s outputs again.
Good to know
- Any Mac with the key can use ReCast during its time, though one Mac sends to it at a time.
- A Show in 4K sends to it over RTMP; every other Show over SRT.
- A loop you upload on its page plays only while your picture is in the same size and frame rate; when the picture changes, ReCast goes back to its own slate; upload the loop again in the new size and rate.
- If its server is lost, ReCast starts another with the same address and login, sets up your platforms as they were and starts sending to the ones that were streaming, so InterDirector and your platforms need nothing new. An uploaded loop and its recordings are not carried over: upload the loop again if you need it.