Local recording using TVS

Hi,

I am borrowing a TVS for a production in a few months, and I am hoping to record the output to a PC using USB and Media Express. Is this possible, and what are the requirements of the PC. Would I be able to record to an external USB 2.0 HDD at 1080?

Also, what format would it record to, and approximately how much disk space would it use in an hour?

You don't need a very capable laptop at all as what you get from the TVS is a hardware encoded h.264 stream that media express pretty much just saves to the drive. The settings for the compression are configured using the record settings available within the ATEM control software (you don't even need to launch Media Express). I can't recall the file sizes per hour... But they are pretty modest due to the high compression. I mostly record to my hyperdeck studio using prores... Which still gobbles through my 512gb drives at quite a rate. The h.264 is at least an order of magnitude lower in file sizes.

Note. Be very careful when you start/stop/restart recording. Some have reported the recorded files being overwritten rather than incremented. Safest is to change the file name every time before recording again.

I would suggest you buy a little 3rd party utility called MXlight. This lets you record the H264 out of the TVS at a much better quality than media express provides (bypassing the deinterlace / field blend that media express uses). If you intend to edit the footage after recording then this will provide a much better final product.

http://mxlight.co.uk

I just checked out MXlight at their website. Sounds great - BUT, they don't support the Mac and according to their FAQ have no plans to. Seems extraordinary that in the world of video where (in my experience) the Mac is just as common-place as Windows that they taken this stance. Anyone know of a Mac-flavoured alternative?

There are some pearl scripts for mac around somewhere. Try searching on www.atemuser.com


I'd just use the windows version though. It's easy to get a windows machine, or install bootcamp and run like that.