Creating text graphics from a data feed

Question

Does anyone know how to create text/graphics from a data feed?

I'm streaming live events and need to take a text data, (mainly CSV files) containing names, clubs, points and position data and transform it into on-screen graphics. I'm struggling to find software that will do this.

I have been using Imagine Infocaster, but it has many drawbacks and uses a USB dongle that couldn't be replaced if damaged. I've also tried CasparCG which is far too complicated and has no useful tutorials.

Wirecast looked promising, but the scoreboard feature is far too basic and doesn't support live data feeds or customisation.

Anything that could do this task and send the result to a Blackmagic Decklink card or Ultrastudio would be magic.

Answer 1

The obligatory ffmpeg answer (not a very good one, other answers still needed):

You could feed your video through ffmpeg -vf drawtext=textfile=onscreen.txt:reload=1

With whatever other drawtext options you need to put your text where you want it, with the font you want.

reload=1 makes it check the text file for changes every frame, but doesn't give you a way to update the formatting, screen position, or anything else on the fly. (and you'd have to build your own custom thing to render your data into line-wrapped text. You could maybe control the on-screen position with leading spaces and newlines.) And -vf drawtext isn't very nice to use anyway.