Hi everyone, hope you’re all staying safe and creative
Until now I’ve used Syphon Recorder to capture the output from VDMX, but I want to move to an external recorder on a HDMI output. 1080p at 60fps. There needs to be practically zero latency as the audio has to be perfectly synced.
I’ve been suggested the Blackmagic Video Assist: Is this as simple as running a cable from the Thunderbolt 2 port on my Macbook Pro into the HDMI port of the BM Video Assist and pressing record?
In the Projectile Objects post, it says all the devices from Cloner-Alliance work and spoof HDCP but there are many devices, and I’m assuming I’d be looking at the “Standalone Recording” devices rather than the “Capture and Stream” devices off their website?
From the reading I’ve done I’m guessing that I’d want one type of device to record my visual set from VDMX and another type of device to receive a camera feed into VDMX and output that to a screen (with minimum latency) - or is there something that can handle both?
Got some good tips on this Facebook post relating to a (now cancelled) gig where I’d have been receiving a video feed of a performer, Adrian Wyard suggested a thunderbolt Blackmagic Capture Device - is a “capture device” all about recording a video signal COMING IN to your computer from eg. a DSLR rather than recording the OUTPUT from VDMX as a movie file?
Right now the priority is recording high quality audiovisual mixes at as high a frame rate as possible with minimal lag. Willing to invest in something decent, hope this all makes sense.
Maybe look for some used Atomos Ninja or the like. Then you would also get a nice monitor to see what you are capturing. It has HDMI in and OUT. I think HDCP is nothing you need to take care of.
Do you actually need to record at 60fps? If you are recording your set to share or screen later 25/30fps would be fine. If you are recording clips to use in your set 60fps could be useful and you may also have to consider 3 or 4 channel capture (if you need alpha).
When I was last looking at this I think AJA was the only standalone device manufacturer who supported 4:4:4 RGB 8, 10-bit (deep color). Blackmagic Design Video Assist, Atmos and Datavideo standalone devices only supported 3 channel RGB recording. But this was always a mute point as I could never afford one of these devices so I can’t give you any feedback on performance or usability. For 4 channel clips I would look more at content origination than capture workflows… or you go with 3 channel green/blue screen and chroma key on the fly.
The Blackmagic Design and other vendor PCIe cards are low cost so one solution might be to build a dedicated machine for capture (Mac, OSX86, Linux, Windows). But there are challenges with this. The biggest issue I’ve had with building a dedicated machine is IO. I recently upgraded to M2 SSD on my capture machine and still I don’t have enough bandwidth for anything above 2k. It’s always a juggling match to try to get the right balance right between cost and performance. But high quality HD 1080 is easy to achieve at a budget.
Went for the 7" due to the mini-XLR inputs so I have the option to get the sound in from the audio artist if I ever want to record a show or performance live. Getting a custom cable made, 2 x male mini-XLR’s to a mini-jack (really hard to find mini-XLR cables for this exact purpose).
For home recording I’ll just use the HDMI for the video & audio.
I bought the newer version with the USB-C port so have option to record onto SSD as well + ability to record 4k @60fps - for an extra £80 I thought it made sense to future proof (since it’s quite pricey already) though my laptop won’t handle that of course but I may upgrade to an iMac or PC for TouchDesigner in future. 🤷Was tricky to know what was the best decision but I think it’s a good investment.
I think (hope!) this will cover a number of use cases like getting video feed with minimal latency from a DLSR and for streaming but I learn best by doing so will figure it out. Will probably add a Roland V-1HD in future as I want to expand my skillset to working with live video feeds.
Re the 60fps question, I notice a big difference when recording at 30fps vs 60fps, doesn’t feel as snappy. Vimeo accepts 60fps and I’d want to record at the same frame rate I’m outputting from VDMX.
Thanks for the tips around 4 channel RGB, not an issue for me. Not keen on a dedicated machine at the moment as I don’t feel inclined to build out what I need (ps. what is IO? - is that Input / Output?)
Small disclaimer, I feel very out of my depth here… so just sharing my experience in case it helps others!
This is all very helpful, thanks for laying it all out so thoroughly and clearly. Have you been happy with the Video Assist? I’ve been looking into that one as well as the Atomos Ninja 5.
Sorry, wish I would have replied sooner. Just seeing this post now. Thanks for mentioning that blog post. I’ve had my eye on the BlackMagic Video Assist for some time now (it wasn’t around when I first wrote that article). Do you have any issues capturing from your Mac? I’m curious if they removed some of the old HDCP issues from their devices. (It has become a lot more common to record a computer feed these days!)
Regarding @2bitpunk 4:4:4 10-bit is cool, but the files are MASSIVE and then you’ll have to run another level of compression over your clips to keep them manageable. Circa 2010 I had the first SSD shuttle recorder that Black Magic made. It was cool, recorded HDCP, but everything was uncompressed pro res files. It used to fill up 1TB drives fast, and at that time 16TB external hard drives were not all usb 3.0 and under $200.
If someone is looking for 1080p60 and willing to sacrifice some quality (mainly for streaming), there are 4K standalone recording devices now that capture H.264 and/or H.265 at high compression. The 4K boxes are 4K30p and 1080p60 (and lower). If you buy one from cloner Alliance it will be a bit more expensive. I ordered one directly from Alibaba last year and it’s been solid for everything. (I mainly use it to capture screen output for tutorials).
Let me know if you have any more questions. @Joelle please let me know what you think of the BMD Video assist and maybe I can get some info from you to update that article to include it!
Hello! Also late replying here. I’ve had the device now for over a year and I’m very happy with it, it’s not cheap but I haven’t had any issues recording. I plug into my Macbook Pro 2015 via HDMI at it works great capturing 1080p 60fps. Codec is either Pro Res 422 or 4444 depending on how much space I have or what the final output will be. Also used it at a gig to record my VDMX output and recorded the audio via the mini XLRs which was dope.
There is a defect - a red pixel on the screen which was present from the beginning, I didn’t send it back immediately as I needed the device to capture AV sets for streams during the lockdowns, have been speaking to their support now to see if it’s under warranty and if it can get fixed. Just mentioning this in case it’s something that happens again, as that’s not great obviously for such an expensive device.
I do this in a more clunky way but it works fine. I just use the video recorder plugin in VDMX to grab the visuals and record the audio separately (all my audio goes through ableton so I can record stems). I then just use a sync frame via sound driven visual at the start of the set and use that to align the a/v in a video editor afterwards.
An external hardware tool sounds more robust though.
