Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:23 pm
I agree and have already done this. A reasonably low cost computer can capture the H.264 output from the ATEM TS's USB 2.0 interface. The same computer can also feed an HDMI output to the switcher at the same time. A modest modern computer can do this easily without maxing out memory, CPU, disk, etc. Using Black Magic Media Express software on my laptop to capture the USB 2.0 ATEM output at 20 Mb/s only loads my laptop at 22% CPU utilization.
However, if it will improve quality, I would like to do the same thing via a desktop computer equipped with SDI I/O interfaces instead, and this is where my worry about throughput and performance arise. I am uncertain if there is a quality improvement or not, as this depends on the quality of the ATEM's H.264 encoder running at its maximum data rate compared to the quality on the SDI. So the question still stands: How much horsepower is required in a computer to take the ATEM TS's SDI program out and capture / record it via one of BMD's SDI cards, while simultaneously using a separate BMD SDI port or card to supply a feed to the ATEM with everything running at 1080i59.94?