Blackmagic Forum

I wrote a tiny little program for Windows that supports the H.264 streaming enabled devices by Blackmagic Design (H.264 Pro Recorder and ATEM Television Studio). It can show a preview of the H.264 stream when VLC is installed on the system. You can also use VLC simultaneously for streaming and previewing.

Further it supports recording the transport stream to a file on disk. Whenever a recording is being started the new stream is appended to the existing file. You also can select a new file if desired.

Well this this is just a early version and it is only a try to get rid of the original Media Express that writes MP4 files and is not able to stream. Maybe you to give MXPTiny a try and maybe you find this program as useful as I do.

I would appreciate any feedback.

http://ml.42u.de/download/MXPTinyinstall.exe

Deti

So essentially with this I can take the input and use VLC to stream it out to a CDN? If so this is fantastic. If no it's still amazing in that I don't need Media Express!

Nice work. MX Lite is a similar package developed for similar reasons.

Pat

iTech wrote:So essentially with this I can take the input and use VLC to stream it out to a CDN? If so this is fantastic. If no it's still amazing in that I don't need Media Express!

Yes you can use VLC for streaming - or any other program that can read from pipes. Just setup VLC to read from stream://\\\.\pipe\DeckLink.ts and you will be happy. Other programs like ffmpeg need just '\\.\pipe\DeckLink.ts' as input file (make sure VLC is not running simultaneously).

Deti

Much better then this MX Light tool!

Could you describe what makes this much better than MXLight?

Thanks

EDIT: Although re-reading it maybe you mean "MXLight is much better than this new tool". Might be a "lost in translation" type of thing.

Is there anyway that you can start a playback on a file that is still being written? I am thinking of instant replay where there is "timeshift and Chase Play" like some of the Panasonic DMR Hard drive recorders
This way you do not impact recording but can select where in the file being written you playback from

THANKS

sharyn wrote:Is there anyway that you can start a playback on a file that is still being written?

The file is being written in a way that other players can open, read and seek within it concurrently. To try it out simply start a recording and and then double click the resulting .TS file to open a player like VLC or Windows Media Player.

Deti

Liam Kennedy wrote:Could you describe what makes this much better than MXLight?

- It's free.
- It uses the official API provided by Blackmagic Design and it is much more stable and future proof as it does not use any internal TCP ports of the BMDStreamingServer.exe process.
- It deals with more than 1 device.
- The GUI is much easier to use.
- It comes with an installer.
- It uses the windows registry to store settings.

BUT: it's up to you using it or not.

Deti

Here are a couple of questions
Down loaded, it clicked on the exe, Asks permission to make changes, click yes, box for language, select english,select components to install, leave the three checked next, select destination folder (c:\program files (x86)\BayCom\MXPTiny select install get error MXPtiny is running,Please close it first. retry no change, cancel Install window has 7 blue progress blocks.
says BAYCom MXPTiny setup .02 completed, black box
Does not seem to run, on same pc same atem tvs and same usb, the MXlight works fine
Windows7
Sharyn

sharyn wrote:... get error MXPtiny is running,Please close it first. retry no change, cancel Install window has 7 blue progress blocks.

Ups, sorry. The installer should not be named like the installed program. To fix it, redownload it from http://ml.42u.de/download/MXPTinyinstall.exe or just rename the installer to MXPTinyinstall.exe

Deti

THAT FIXED IT
So it is really great, I can be recording and I can then go in and play from the file starting stopping etc all with the same open file.... So It looks like we have a time shift/chase play solution!!!! now if the player (VLC or ???) had a better interface to control and select playback.
BUT it definitely works
Sharyn

Question:
Can you connect multiple BMD H.264 to the same PC along with the TVS H.264 USB 2.0 Stream?
Can you run multiple copies of MXPtiny at the same time each assigned to a different h.264
At what point does USB2 run out of transfer capability>

As I said before I was looking at a simply way to have capture from each of the inputs (say 4 as H.264 Isos) so that it would be possible to select one of the streams for instant replay/timeshift/chase play

It certainly looks like this works on using the Program out USB h.264 connection.

Pretty exciting
Sharyn

This really is very neat (ability to play the file while it is recording). I'll have to give this a test over the next week.

Thank you for releasing this tool. I think you may be on to a winning solution here.

-Liam

I was really excited, I just started up MXPtiny make sure you select the folder that you want to record to, then select record and started recording, then went into widows explorer, found the file, and brought up VLC. or media player worked great

It looks like VLC give a lot of customization and functions. So if you only need one captured file to use for your replay/chase/time shift etc, this looks like it can do the trick.


Sharyn

There is a new version of MXPTiny with configurable Preview/Streaming command line parameters available at http://ml.42u.de/download/MXPTinyinstall.exe

Deti

deti wrote:There is a new version of MXPTiny with configurable Preview/Streaming command line parameters available at http://ml.42u.de/download/MXPTinyinstall.exe

Deti

Hi Deti
Do you know if it is possible to have multiple BMD H.264 devices on the same computer? and If so would it be possible to associate different copies of MXPtiny with each of the devices, so that a single machine might be able to record multiple h.264 streams?

Thanks
Sharyn

sharyn wrote:Do you know if it is possible to have multiple BMD H.264 devices on the same computer? and If so would it be possible to associate different copies of MXPtiny with each of the devices, so that a single machine might be able to record multiple h.264 streams?

Yes for sure this will work, when you start MXPTiny multiple times, then select different input devices and finally start preview on all instances. Make sure you select different output files when recording the streams.



Deti

can someone point me in the right direction for direct CDN streaming using VLC? i search it on Google and came up with a few videos that do not explain anything. I DO NOT RECORD THROUGH SOFTWARE BUT WE ALWAYS STREAM SO WOULD LOVE TO FIGURE THIS OUT.



KONA

Looks great, just another question, since the TVS and the H.264 show up as different devices, if I had multiple BMD h.264 devices what is the easiest way to name them differently?
In some cases with the BMD h.264 and the TVS pricing being only twice the cost, it might be worth considering just getting another TVS

Sharyn

sharyn wrote:Looks great, just another question, since the TVS and the H.264 show up as different devices, if I had multiple BMD h.264 devices what is the easiest way to name them differently?

I am sorry, there is no way to name devices by yourself. The Windows device driver framework will name them like 'H.264 Pro Recorder', 'H.264 Pro Recorder1', 'H.264 Pro Recorder2', etc.

BTW: there is a new version 0.5 with custom encoding parameters available at http://ml.42u.de/download/MXPTinyinstall.exe

Deti

Thanks but at least it will increment the device so you can identify the different h.264 devices that are all attached. Any Idea on USB2 how many h.264 streams would work?

Just a suggestion but if you can put the version number in the Install name, the other day I think the link you put up was for .4 and so this one today is .5?

Thanks
Again looks great
Sharyn

sharyn wrote:Thanks but at least it will increment the device so you can identify the different h.264 devices that are all attached. Any Idea on USB2 how many h.264 streams would work?

Per USB 2.0 host port (root hub port) about 10-12 devices. Per USB 3.0 host port about 40-50 devices (when using USB 3.0 hubs).

sharyn wrote:Just a suggestion but if you can put the version number in the Install name, the other day I think the link you put up was for .4 and so this one today is .5?

I don't think this is a good idea as I would have to change the link in my initial posting all the time and I am really a lazy guy.

Deti

I was curious about how many H.264 recorders usb streams could be run over a USB 2.0 interface
NO problem you can take a break after all the good work
Sharyn

MXPTiny has reached version 0.7 and is from now on open source under GPLv3 license.

You can download the installer as usual from http://ml.42u.de/download/MXPTinyinstall.exe

The sources are available at GitHub: https://github.com/baycom/MXPTiny

Feel free to contribute to this program - it's free and it will stay free!

Deti

Very nice work! Thank you!

Bugs:
- There is sometimes a small problem with applying the custom encoding settings. They fall back to the standard preset settings.
- After restart the custom settings are lost and the native preset is active again.

Feature Requests:
- Custom configuration of audio settings: arate, abits, akbps
- (Auto) splitting of recording file
- Optional direct UDP and RTP multicast output of native TS (7 TS-Packets per IP-Packet).

I love how simple the UI is. Giving the user easy access to VLC ties the power of ATEM with the power of VLC... instant world domination deti, nice job!

A couple use-case questions:
- The "Preview" button can't work until the "Prv. Config" is correct. The default VLC location was wrong. Can the installer check this and set it?
- Does MXPTiny always record to disk? Or, does that depend on the VLC command line? Maybe change the "Record" button label to be "Start" instead.
- Similarly, is the "Prv. Config" just for configuring the preview? Maybe it should be just "Config".
- Could the path to VLC be set somewhere else so the Config window can just start with "vlc.exe"

I observed Uli's bugs as well. There were a couple others I noticed:
- The default "Folder" setting didn't exist, so the open dialog never showed up when I clicked the button.
- The "Record" button was always disabled, except during the few seconds of previewing.

Is there a place to share "Configs"? I've got a couple examples that others might find useful. And, I'd love to see how others are using it.

Hi Deti,

great work! Thank you for sharing!

I have two questions:

1) Is the h264 encoding done truly by the hardware of the ATEM?

2) Is it possible to decrease the bitrate to 500 kbit?

Best,

Frank

deti wrote:

iTech wrote:So essentially with this I can take the input and use VLC to stream it out to a CDN? If so this is fantastic. If no it's still amazing in that I don't need Media Express!

Yes you can use VLC for streaming - or any other program that can read from pipes. Just setup VLC to read from stream://\\\.\pipe\DeckLink.ts and you will be happy. Other programs like ffmpeg need just '\\.\pipe\DeckLink.ts' as input file (make sure VLC is not running simultaneously).

Deti

Hi,
Would it be possible to capture the Blackmagic TVS with MXPTiny and live stream it to a flash media server (or Red5 server) via rtmp please ? Any pointer on how to do that please ?

Thanks !

PS: I'm trying to live broadcast an event captured in HD for nonprofit organization.
I first tried to acquire the stream with a BlackMagic decklink studio card via hdmi and encode it with Flash Media Live Encoder on a beefy Mac Pro mid-2010, but for whatever reasons, the video/audio are out of sync and the Mac Pro "seems" overwhelmed by live encoding in h264 the 1080i/25 stream

I'm hoping that offloading the encoding to the BM TVS would workaround this issue but i'm not very clear on how to do that.

Is there a Mac version available for this? We have had issues with recording good quality and I am looking for a solution!

Thank you,
Paul

I cant seem to get the record button to activate? Any ideas?

Using ATEM TVS on Windows7

Do you have the USB cable plugged in to the TVS?

Yes, USB is plugged in. I see the record button active for a second when I hit the preview button but I cant click it fast enough.

The ATEM also shows listed as the source,which it doesn't do if the USB is unplugged so I assume its seeing the TVS no problem.

Does it work with Media Express or the Atem Sofware Control recording section?

Yes, I can record in Media Express and with the TVS USB recording.

Or do you mean does the MXPTiny work with these options, if thats what you mean I dont know how I would do that?

I was merely verifying if you can record via Media Express and/or the ATEM software OK. It seems that you can. If you could not do that.. .then something else is wrong.

You might want to send a private message to the developer of MXPTiny to see if he can help further.

Well, I got it to work now....with some issues. I have to have two instances of VLC open to make it work. If I close one the program exits record mode.

I will try MX Light and see if it works any better. Will also document my issues here more completely and send to developer.

Thanks for your help.

MXLight supports fully assignable hotkeys, which we map for mouse less control of recording. Would be great to be able to start multiple H.264 pro recorders with the touch of a single button, all recording to the same machine, for multi stream recording directly to h.264.

Regards.

Hi all,
seems very nice this tool.

we had some issues with audio using the Blackmagic Media Express tool (same as here viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6867).
we just want recording, not streaming.

so now we are trying to find a solution. Our config was :

ATEM TVS

Macmini late 2012 for recording [Media Express]

Dell laptop with vista pro for mixing [Atem Control]

since MXP Tiny is windows only, we are going to invert the config

I was about to pay for MX light but I want to give a try with MXP Tiny.

My questions are:

- Does it work with Vista ?
- the dell laptop is quite old. is it ok?
- what's the deal with the recording issue?

thanks for your help and sorry for my english

French Guy Katsuiro

The new version 0.8 of MXPTiny has been released today with these changes:
- Create default folder for recordings if not present
- Fix behavior / crash when no USB device (ATEM TVS or Pro Recorder) has been connected / found
- Update byte counter when previewing / recording properly

You can get it from here:
http://ml.42u.de/download/MXPTinyinstall.exe

The updated source code repository can be found here: https://github.com/baycom/MXPTiny

Deti

Hi! Does this software solves audio out of sync problem? And also how much computer power this software need?

leze23 wrote:Hi! Does this software solves audio out of sync problem? And also how much computer power this software need?

Well, MXPTiny simply writes a transport stream that is sent directly from an ATEM Television Studio or a H.264 Pro Recorder. If there is something out of sync then your editing / processing software is not able to understand the time stamps of audio and video packets that are part of the transport stream.
In case a TS-Stream is not recognized by your software you need to recode the stream into something else like mp4:
ffmpeg -i test.ts -vcodec copy -copyts -acodec copy -absf aac_adtstoasc test.mp4

Deti

hello deti, is possible to add something to force pal 16:9 ?

dark_ata wrote:hello deti, is possible to add something to force pal 16:9 ?

I don't think you can force the format in that way. My guess is that the H.264 encoder in TVS (or H.264 Pro Recorder) is only able to encode the aspect ratio of the input signal.

Deti

First of all, I'd like to thank you for MXPTiny. I have an issue (not sure if its a bug or a limitation).

Started a recording, stopped it after about two hours and then restarted (about 6 minutes). MXPTiny updated the transport stream header to indicate that the duration was 6 minutes (not two hours and six minutes).

Pretty much every program I threw at the file was unable to edit beyond the six minute mark because of the incorrect header (Premiere Pro, Final Cut, MediaCoder64 etc.). I was able to salvage it with vlc (vlc played the whole thing and allowed me to repackage it as an .mp4).

If you consider this a bug (or limitation), would you consider one of the following solutions?

1. Append an incrementing number to each filename. That way, every time the user hits the record button, a new file is generated (this is how most capture programs I've used work)
2. If you prefer to append the file, please at least update the transport stream header to be the correct duration.

Thanks once again!

I'd like to sum up what I think the excitement is:

A. Blackmagic makes killer hardware. I love my ATEM TVS.

B. Everyone wants to record the awesome HD video, and many want to stream it to the internet.

C. All of the streaming companies that are popular with the lower end crowd (Twitch.TV, Livestream, Justin.TV, uStream) require use of Adobe Flash Encoders / h264 encoder software. These want multiple copies sent to them (low quality for low bandwidth, medium, high resolution.) They don't transcode on their end, it takes lots of resources to scale and compress video. 1080 streaming video is the grail.

D. All of the software for this streaming stuff sucks. None of it uses the GPU acceleration available in gamer video cards, and instead rely on buying tons of the fastest CPUs to try to brute force the speed. They can't use the h264 coprocessors from el gato and the like. The bad software from Adobe and others is holding things back.

E. People are looking to stack black magic h264 encoders up to generate the multiple bitrate streams (letting each encoder scale the hdmi input) to forward to these popular video streaming sites.

can you recommend an affordable streaming partner which needs only one stream and can deliver more different output streams?

raver wrote:can you recommend an affordable streaming partner which needs only one stream and can deliver more different output streams?

Youtube Live = Free (obviously with limitations though as far as monetizing things etc)

You just need 100 subscriptions to your YouTube channel to be able to apply.

leze23 wrote:Hi! Does this software solves audio out of sync problem? And also how much computer power this software need?

If you are having the same issues I am, then yes this does fix the problem. I just did two test recordings of 20 minutes each one using Media Express and the other using MXPTiny. The Media Express file was about a second out of sync by the end of the clip. The clip made by MXPTiny was perfectly in sync. It's definitely a problem with Media Express.

As one of linden's suggestions above, I would also love to see an option to append a number to the file when a new clip is started rather than continuing using the same file.

Thanks for the great program.

Hey all, deti application looks awesome.
I've installed on my Win7 machine, i can adjust settings for video etc i can preview and app says i am recording but i cannot find the recording folder..
I cant select the folder to be recorded to either, i click but nothing happens?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
George