Yesterday, we had an event (live streaming of a
Corona Fundraising Event) and we used a lot of vMix instances.
1. We had 2 competitors (one in a kayak, one triathlete) and we wanted to follow their progress by using vMix call to record them on the route where each had a primary and a secondary vMix session
2. We had 10 interviews during the event - again, using vMix call for those as well
Here's my experiences and, unfortunately, it's not all that great.
Initial setup not working as intentedFirst of all, I wanted to prepare both my production as well as the client by setting up all 14 inputs in advance, so our client could send the links for the interview session to the specific participants.
I quickly realized, that I couldn't prepare more than 4 instances - even though they were not actively in use. I would have a better understanding of this, if the amount of vMix calls was limited in terms of how many we could actually RUN at the same time, but I was baffled to see, that it is also a limitation on how many we could even prepare.
To make up for this, I went in to upgrade our 4K licens to Pro version to get at least 8 out of 12 prepared but even though I followed the guide, my upgrade was declined.
Hit and miss connectionEvery single one was comparable in terms of using iPhones and, thus, Safari browser.
Most of the calls went right through and worked as they should.
Some of them didn't - so we lost 4 of the calls because the attendees simply couldn't get through.
In the vMix window, we could see that they were logging in - we could see their names - but neither we nor they could see or hear anything from each other.
ThoughtsI'm an experienced vMix user but only recently started using vMix Call and experiences like this, really worries me.
If just we had a logic reason for the calls not to work, we could probably solve it - but when we have 4 out of 12 calls, seemingly randomly, not working with no clue as to why they didn't, it scares me.
How can I use vMix Call predictably going forward ?