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For broadcasting with a digital HD source, we generally recommend products from Blackmagic Design
Other Capture Devices
When connecting your equipment to your encoder, select the best available port coming our of your camera and/or video switch. The list below shows video input options in order according to quality (best to worst).
If the best output your equipment has is S-Video or Composite, a high end capture card is not necessary. Typically a very low cost ($15-50) card will give you roughly the same quality as a $1000 card.
In most circumstances, we recommend Telestream Wirecast. $449.00. A church discount may be available if you call sales.
You may also use Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder. Free. Less features than wirecast. Does not support AAC audio on windows ($180.00 addon).
XSplit is an up and coming live streaming tool worth mentioning. It uses x264 for encoding, resulting in very high video quality. It is not as well tested as the other options, but is feature rich.
We recommend NOT using any of the following: