HyperDeck Studio: PLEASE give us h.264

I love my HyperDeck studio, except one thing..... I can only get about 61min. of recording on a 240 GB SSD. This is a big problem for me because I record live seminars and have an IPTV station for a living.
The average segment I record is 1 hr to 1.5hrs at a time and ususally for 6 - 8 hours straight.
And everyting I record is going on a webpage or on a DVD.
I found a cheap solution that I can record h.264 on a 500gb notebook harddrive and get 187 hrs of HQ h.264 that works well, but frankly I comes out of the consumer video gamer market.
It looks pretty riduclous to show up for a live event with a rack full of Blackmagic gear and this plastic box sitting on top of all of it as a "professional" recorder.
So PLEASE I want to throw away the plastic box and use my HyperDeck.
Is there any way to get it to record and playback in h.264
Please anyone else with this situation, chime in with your thoughts.
Thanks.

Didn't you not know the storage requirements before you purchased the Hyperdeck? Their H.264 Prorecorder sounds more like what you need - hardware compression - direct to H.264 format on an attached PC/MAC via USB2 port.

Also it seems like you are recording on the Hyperdeck in the default uncompressed mode. Do you know you can use Prores or DNxHD formats on the Hyperdeck Studio? They are still ridiculous quality/bit rate (220Mb/s) - but nevertheless provide a lot more compression than the default.

On a 240 GB drive you should be able to get around 2 hours with prores or DNxHD (still nothing like the 8 hours you need per day).

I purchased two 512GB drives (now cost about $399 a piece) so I can just about get 8 hours of recording across both drives.

There are many requests from users (me included) to have options for more available compression but so far I don't think we've seen any post from Black Magic about when or if they will implement something like that. I doubt that H.264 could be added as a firmware upgrade as their other devices have a hardware component that is likely missing from the Hyperdeck Studio. However if they could just implement a little more compression using Prores and DNxHD - maybe double the compression - I would be very happy.

Didn't you not know the storage requirements before you purchased the Hyperdeck?
I looked for this info before purchasing, did not find it. Assumed that 240GB SSD would at least give me several hours of recording.

Their H.264 Prorecorder sounds more like what you need
Sorry but no, that is not a good solution.
My onsite rack has the following:
- 1 BlackMagic Atem 1/me
- 4 Sennheiser Wireless Mics
- 2 - dbx softknee compressors (takes up 1U)
- 1 - Peavey Feedback Ferrret
- 4U Alesis 12channel Mixer
- 2U Storage drawer for mic's & Accesories
- 4U- i7 Computer with Wirecast Pro on it
- 2 - Furman power conditions

As you can see.....there is no more room (or back strength) for a second computer for recording with H.264 procorder is not a good solution for me.
I like the 1U design of the Hyperdeck, love the little lcd in it for reference.
In fact if they can fix the h.264 issue I will probably purchase a second one.
If they can't I will have to liquidate it because it will not be useful to me.

Thanks for your thoughts...keep'em coming.

Well... I have a lot of gear myself... and I never go to a live event with only one computer - as that leaves me open for a critical failure point (it has happened). So.. for me... I have a similar setup to you.. plus I have two computers (one for streaming and another for ATEM control... and a backup to the streaming machine).

The H.264 route doesn't require a very hefty laptop... as it's hardware encoding in their small little device and the connection is USB2. I like having this option as it provides a complete backup streaming approach should something go wrong. I actually have a 1ME and TVS (TVS has the H.264 encoder in it)

By the way...did you know Wirecast supports the 1/ME program out via it's USB3 port?

I also love my Hyperdeck - so I know what you mean there... But... what are you going to do for now - knowing that it won't fit your 8 hours of video on that 240Gb drive?

Don't hold your breath for H.264 support on the Hyperdeck. It's not something that is broken (or needs fixing) as Black Magic never said it would do H.264 compression on the product.

And one last question... are you using it in uncompressed mode or not? (with Prores or DNxHD you should be able to get 2 hours on that drive)

I doubt we will ever see H264 on the Hyperdeck. I'd prefer to see low bitrate DNxHD or ProRes implemented for extended recording times, these codecs are better archive / edit formats. H264 is a great web delivery format, but BMD already have solutions for H264 encoders with direct web streaming (via 3rd party software such as mxlight). The Hyperdeck is clearly designed as a high quality recorder, if it had H264 it would likely be recording it at a bitrate which would require re-encoding for web upload anyway, at which point you may as well record in a codec more suited to editing.

All that said I would strongly support a lower bitrate recording format on the hyperdeck as many of our events require archive recordings where disk space is a real issue with video quality being less important.

Liam, tell me more about the USB3 with wirecast.
Also I agree, have to have a backup for everything.
I like the idea of adding a ATEM TV studio as a switcher backup.

I'm using a Toshiba i7 laptop for the ATEM Control and a 17" i7 Macbook as an overal backup.
I'm transistioning into the ATEM's have been using TriCasters for several years.
(I use an TC850 for my IPTV station and a TC300 & Studio for live events.)
Did I read it right that you feeding the signal from your 1 M/E into the TV studio to use it as
a h.264 encoder, is that correct?

Tom, I think you are right on the idea to take current codec's and make a lower bit rate option.
The codec's offered by the HyperDeck Studio work fine in all the NLE's I use.
I'm just mentally stuck in h.264 land because everything I do winds up embedded on a website.
So all I ususally work with is h.264 and then mpeg2 because of the Tricasters.

Keep it coming guy's, this is very helpful.
Thanks
Dave

Dave. So... If you know about the other codecs on the hyperdeck how come you are only getting 61 minutes on a 240gb drive? One more time... What codec are you using that only gets 61 minutes on a 240gb drive? Sounds like the default uncompressed to me..

Liam,
Since the codecs on the device are not what I ususally use, I ran a test on all of them.
They all came out +/- 3 min. recording time.
Can you recommend some setting to try?
Thanks,
Dave

Well... that doesn't sound quite right. I can get almost 4 hours on my 512GB drives with ProRes.

To me that means you should be able to get almost 2 hours on that drive with ProRes (DNxHD should be just about the same)

Are you SURE you set the codec correctly on the device? One of them (the default uncompressed) should have been much smaller capacity than the other two) - so if they all came out +/- 3 min - that definitely indicates something went wrong.

Please run through the steps you performed to set the codec on the Hyperdeck

EDIT: Forgot... I am recording in 720p5994... so that may give me more recording time than if you are running in 1080i5994. I never stream in 1080i.... so I always keep everything in 720p resolutions. What format/resolution have you set your ATEM in?

The demands on placed on the system by H.264 recording from the BMD H.264 Pro Recorder are pretty minimal. Given that the encoding is performed in hardware it's really using the computer only for disk I/O. So you could probably use your existing i7 computer for this.

The 1M/E also has basically an UltraStudio SDI built into it. If you connect it via USB3 to a supported computer it's available to software in the same way the an UltraStudio or DeckLink device would be.

Either of those options may help in your situation.

I'd say it's unlikely they'll add H.264 to the HyperDeck Studio given the primary purpose of the device is a high-end VTR replacement. That said, a small H.264 encoder with the ability to record directly to removable storage (SD card etc) could be awesome for many purposes especially if id had HDMI and SDI input.

Yep - everything Dylan mentioned.

So... it does in fact seem as though you have all the gear you need for the H.264 Pro Recorder. It will hardly break your back to add that device to your gear... and you will end up with another useful way to record your shows (a lot better quality than that consumer grade recorder I would imagine).

Just connect your i7 Laptop (if it has a supported USB3 port) to the 1 M/E and will be able to receive the program out in uncompressed format. The USB port on the 1 M/E receives the output configured for the AUX 1 of the switcher - so you have to configure the appropriate output in the ATEM Control Software for Aux 1 to be Program Out (or whatever you prefer).

Note: My powerful desktop machine (an ASUS) does not have a USB3 port that is supported by the ATEM 1 M/E. However my Fujitsu Laptop's USB3 port works just fine.

In Wirecast it sees the ATEM as a supported video device - and I just add it as a source to my project. Works very smoothly.

MJPEG would also be a good addition, imo.