BlackMagic Intensity Pro: recording HD via HDMI/Component

[dadavo]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Do a forum search for blackmagic to see the many other times this idea (or some variation of it) has been brought up and shot down.

I am using the Intesity Pro from my recording on Sage TV and it works fine. I had to use a similar setup as recording through Firewire ( using Graphedit and SGR recorder to get it to work). Yes this card can use tons of disk space but however you can create a graph that does on the fly transcoding of the video to a file. My HTPC isn't a powerhouse either. 2.16 GHz Core Duo, 1 GB Ram, 500 GB Western Digital SATA II x2. Though this setup isn't great for 1080 capture. I only do 720p.

[ke6guj]

Woah! you've got an intensity pro recording in 720p in Sage? Details please. On-the-fly transcoding gets the file size how small?

It would help the Sage community if you would do a writeup of your config and post it up.

[dadavo]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

Woah! you've got an intensity pro recording in 720p in Sage? Details please. On-the-fly transcoding gets the file size how small?

It would help the Sage community if you would do a writeup of your config and post it up.

File size depends on the setting for the filter you are using. The GoMotion filter I am using can encode up to 100Mbits per second. I pretty much followed Step 2 - 10 for the instructions on how to record from Firewire using Sage.

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...achmentid=2218

There were a couple of modifications required.

1. When building your graph your video source is Decklink Video Capture. If you are recording audio via HDMI or the Left/Right audio input then you can use Decklink Audio Capture as your audio source. Otherwise if you are using component capture or prefer another capture device you should be able to add whatever audio device as an audio capture source.
2. I used GoMotion filter as my muxer which also does the transcoding. GoMotion was installed with ArcSoft ShowBiz which came with my Sony DVD burner. You can use any muxer you want. I have seen some muxer from ATI and PowerDVD that can also transcode.
3. Optional. I used Hip and HipWSend instead of Girder because it is free, so I don't know if any modifications have to be done with Girder.

As far as a step by step guide....I am not promising anything since it would be my first but I will see what I can do. Please don't hold your breath!

[stanger89]

What codec is the GoMotion filter? (looks like it's MPEG-2 probably)

You said you record at 720p, I take it the Intensity resizes on it's own? Is there an option to capture at the native input resolution?

How big are your recordings?

What's the CPU usage while recording? Can you timeshift?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by dadavo

File size depends on the setting for the filter you are using.

How about an approximate size? Are we talking about 5-10 gigs an hour? or 50+gigs per hour?

As far as a step by step guide....I am not promising anything since it would be my first but I will see what I can do. Please don't hold your breath!

Thats understandable. Just getting the data out is important. Maybe a new thread with the info that you do have would be a start that others can build on.

[stanger89]

Maybe Andy could split off a new thread with post 6, "Blackmagic Intensity in Sage" or something

[dadavo]

Originally Posted by stanger89

What codec is the GoMotion filter? (looks like it's MPEG-2 probably)

You said you record at 720p, I take it the Intensity resizes on it's own? Is there an option to capture at the native input resolution?

How big are your recordings?

What's the CPU usage while recording? Can you timeshift?

Yes Mpeg- 2 but it has options for a few others such as Mpeg-1 and Mpeg-4

Recording at variable bit rate high 15Mbit to low 12 Mbit about 4-6 gigs per hour. I have to double check. I have changed this often.

CPU usage while recording only 10 - 20 %. While watching and recording 35 - 52%. Watching,recording, and Comskip with play nice 50 - 79%.

Yes I can timeshift.

You can do uncompressed but however the filesize will be approximately 800MB - 1 GB per minute as an AVI file.

[stanger89]

What happens if you try 1080i? Why doesn't that work?

FWIW, personally I'd crank it to 20-25Mbps at least

[dadavo]

Originally Posted by stanger89

What happens if you try 1080i? Why doesn't that work?

FWIW, personally I'd crank it to 20-25Mbps at least

It is not that it does not work. The video is often choppy. Watching while recording does 60- 80% CPU power. Bringing up the guide will push 100% and often crashes Sage. I would need a faster processor to handle it. I have had my bit rate higher than that but, at least to my eyes, noticed little difference. It only became most apparent when watching fast scenes or sports shows. I am not even certain that Dish transmits HD at that high bit rate. I believe I read somewhere that it was more like 14 -19 Mbit. I could have been misinformed but either way my current setting is good enough for my eyes.

[bcjenkins]

Are there any hw boards you can offload the compression to?

B

[stanger89]

LSI has one, last I heard it was $20k.

[dadavo]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Are there any hw boards you can offload the compression to?

B

I have not done this or even know if it would be possible since the GoMotion Direct Show filter is doing the compression and there are no options to use hardware compression. Even if so I would imagine as stanger89 pointed out that it would be VERY expensive.

[Jesse]

Wow.

Jesse

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by dadavo

I am using the Intesity Pro from my recording on Sage TV and it works fine.

What is your source? HDMI or Component?

Soooo, who is going to be the first to replicate this? My cable provider already #&@*ed us out of half our HD channels here in Seattle through firewire. Recording component has to be at least a little better than recording an hour of 5c black screen.

[heffe2001]

If the Pro board wasn't 349, I'd grab one pretty quick. I could always use another tuner, especially one that could record all my HD stuff from pretty much any source .

Looks like it's about 318.00 from one of their vendors who's fairly local to me... Still more than I can justify this month :P.

[dadavo]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

What is your source? HDMI or Component?

Soooo, who is going to be the first to replicate this? My cable provider already #&@*ed us out of half our HD channels here in Seattle through firewire. Recording component has to be at least a little better than recording an hour of 5c black screen.

I have done both. You need the Pro version of the Intensity card to do component. The non-Pro version only has HDMI. Please also keep in mind that per the company this card does not use HDCP , so you will not be able to capture HDCP encrypted video via HDMI.

[mikejaner]

I would definately buy one or even two of these (probably would need two boxes), if I knew it would record HD in SageTV with no issues.

And if I read this right....

CPU usage while recording only 10 - 20 %. While watching and recording 35 - 52%. Watching,recording, and Comskip with play nice 50 - 79%

Having a sagetv server setup with HD extenders might be able to handle two cards at the same time recording 720P HD!!! 20-40%CPU

[Jesse]

So this thing is available pci-e only. I would need to upgrade my old server as I have no pci-e slots at all. If this could be verified to work then it would be a good excuse for a new server.

Jesse

[bcjenkins]

Sounds like justification for quad core to me

B

[Jesse]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Sounds like justification for quad core to me

B

Exactly what I was thinking.

Jesse