Blackmagic Media Express timer and graphics.

The H.264 Pro Recorder is very robust and versatile - I have two here at my work hooked to MacPro's for recording of shows from stage. Native settings (we use 720p50 in our house - like the Swedish National Television SVT) in highest quality (around 20 Mbps) is sufficient for archivation.
The other one use the "YouTube" profile at 2 Mbps - it's for files that have to be delivered immediately to opera professionals around the globe. I use our own FTP-server or file transfer services out there on the net.

I miss two things in Blackmagic Media Express:

1. Timer settings for recording.
2. Adding layered graphics - in my case a logo and copyright watermark.

Timer - autonomy or even connected to OSX Calendar (like ToolsOnAir does it) would be fantastic for me and I suppose many others. Today I often have to start and stop recordings (static full scen picture - I'm not in the house) with remote desktop solutions (TeamVeawer for example). And that's not robust at all - it have happened that I've recorded many hours of the curtain and scene workers building and demounting - huge files that I have to edit after before I can deliver them . I forgot to stop the recording or the network connection screwed up. The net and my brain is not robust enough . Over the mobile net and my iPhone or iPad it's also very small and it lags to use remote desktop solutions - when I'm home at a Mac works good though - here in Sweden it's all about 100-1000 Mbps broadband for both companies and citizens at home.
A timer function in Media Express would be fantastic!

The second wish is possible in ATEM Software Controls recording function (I think - have not studied this...just used ATEM Software Control to cut live gigs so far and I don't want to record on the old simple Mac Mini I use for ATEM Software Control anyway).
I suppose it's another trick with the H.264 Pro Recorder than recording with other Blackmagic cards and QuickTime Prores etc. - the H.264 Pro Recorder is "autonomy" and USB. But shouldn't it be possible? To make Media Express talk and do stuff inside the H.264 box? Or does it need a graphic motor/card to do this - and there is no such thing in the H.264 box?

A simple computer recording solution for video directly to files (today H.264) is very hard to find and to set up for example ToolsOnAir's solution - or a VOD-server - is financial and technical overkill for most companies, organisations and institutions. Or a VOD. To put everything up in the cloud is nothing for theaters like us - it's enormous amounts of material for very few users.
I'm sure there is a good market for a simple and user friendly solution in this area. Blackmagic is the Apple of professional video and to develop Media Express could be something very interesting .

Best wishes and regards from Jörgen Gustafson • Video producer • Royal Swedish Opera

Hi Jorgen,

I think Media Express is designed more to be a proof-of-concept/test application than real use software. What you need sounds like it easily could be done with some simple custom software now that Gstreamer is working properly with Decklink hardware. I have used it for playback on Decklink SDI cards and found it easy to make pipelines, although I've not tried it with the capture half of the card (nor the h264 recorder). You would need a simple pipeline, something like: decklinksrc ! overlay ! encoder ! filesink and you could incorporate any kind of remote control in the same software.

Regards,

Dave.

No, Media Express is made for ingesting tapes (it feels like long time ago but it was just "yesterday")). The whole TV/video/broadcast world was rolling on tapes and when and when digitization and video cards came it was a key factor to have an app that made it easy to start the tape deck and record the video directly to hard disk (Media Express can control professional video decks). I've dumped many beta tapes into computers in my days and Media Express is the best, most intuitive to use and "cleanest" app for that on the market (a market that's fading away now of course, but still many back catalogues have to be ingested to file format on computer disks and Media Express is the answer if you don't work in a big media company or state funded archive organisation...they use more automated technics and stuff for millions of dollars.
Either Media Express will disappear or it - as I see it - can be developed for a new task; timer recording. That can be the new job for this fine little app

Thanks for your example of other solution, but that's not user friendly and all. There is tons of solutions if you are savvy and like the tech (I am myself a nerd and I could solve it all with a script and existing app - for example Media Express - but that's not the point here).
I think that Media Express - a professional program - could be the solution for our bizniz - a bizniz where most people can't use something like Gstreamer - but Media Express - with the beautiful GUI and a new calendar/times setting possibility is in my eyes a winner...and there is no competition at all.
To understand what I mean; imagine the people in the media industry that are the target for this app - the people that have the job to set a recording of something. It should be easy, good looking, clean and a nice user experience - like setting the wake signal on your iPhone or why not a post in your Mac/iOS Calendar. Blackmagic can do things like that. That's what I'm talking about. There is no such app out there - the closest you get is very complex and expensive solutions where the timer recording function is just a little detail in a system.
On Windows I've heard of an app called "Total Recorder" - it's even free I think. But for Mac? Nothing.

Maybe I - when I have time - will make a script whit Automator that activates Media Express'es "Capture" trigged by a date and time setting, and deactivates it trigged by another date and time setting. Yes, that's what it's all about - nothing more, nothing less. A virtual mouse click on "Capture" and the another click on the same GUI button when recording is finishing.

But - if I owned the app Media Express; I would develope it and give it a new life and purpose. No - I can'r program like that, but I would give the task to a programmer...and I'm sure it's a small project... in context a very simple project.

A timer would be a great addition.
Clients ranging from small churches recording a service to television stations ingesting commercials and syndicated programming.

Not everyone can afford systems from Grass Valley or have paid staff to write code.