Portable setup with Decklink 8K Pro and Thunderbolt chasiss

I’m trying to create an affordable portable multicam recording and streaming setup.

I’m thinking about the Decklink 8K Pro card inside a good Thunderbolt 3 Chassis connected to a Macbook Pro M1 Max.

I’m aware that a Thundebolt 3 chassis has a limit of PCIe gen 3 x4. This will certainly limit the possibilities of the card.

I’m wondering though whether I’d be able to simultaneously record the following inputs reliably. Two inputs with UHD 4K@25fps signals and at least one but preferrably two 1080p@25fps signals.

Anyone explored and experienced the limits of this type of setup?

Thanks in advance for any info.

Me to. Would this be possible with an M1 Mini or what would be needed.
I am thinking about a Setup with 2 of those chassis and 2 Cards. Would that be possible?

Me to. Would this be possible with an M1 Mini or what would be needed.
I am thinking about a Setup with 2 of those chassis and 2 Cards. Would that be possible?

AJA sells the IO 4K+ which has four 4K inputs and uses a Thunderbolt 3 connection. But I can’t seem to find a confirmation anywhere of whether that device allows for capturing all four inputs with a 4K signals at once. I’m starting to doubt that.

If the AJA IO 4K could capture all four 4K signals I was hoping a Decklink Quad HDMI or preferrably a Decklink 8K Pro card in the right TB 3 Chassis would also work. I need a minimum of three 4K inputs at 25 fps in a portable setup.

A Decklink 8K Pro card needs an 8 lane PCIe Gen 3 slot and the Sonnet Echo Express SE III chassis is stated as having an PCIe 8 lane slot but as far as I know Thunderbolt 3 is capable of only PCIe 4 lane speeds. The question for me is whether three inputs at 4K 25fps would work when connected to an M1 Max Macbook Pro with Thunderbolt 4 ports.

The other option is, like you suggested, to divide the load over two Thunderbolt 3 ports by using two Thunderbolt 3 chassis’ with two Decklink 8K Pro cards or an 8K Pro in one and for example a Decklink Studio 4K in the other. That I guess would work reliably for capturing three or four 4K signals at 25fps. But it is a lot more expensive and less portable. Prise wise you then aproach or maybe even surpass the AJA IO 4K+ territory which is a lot more portable.

I’ve spoken to a couple of retailers here but they have never tested this kind of setup either.

I’m trying to create an affordable portable multicam recording and streaming setup. I’m thinking about the Decklink 8K Pro card inside a good Thunderbolt 3 Chassis connected to a Macbook Pro M1 Max.

I don't think a MacBook Pro is going to have the throughput necessary to record multiple HD or 4K cameras simultaneously.

What I see done for (say) live rock concerts or comedy performances being done in auditoriums or arenas is they buy or rent racks and racks of Hyperdeck Studio Pros (HD or 4K), and record on at least one device per camera. In once-in-a-lifetime situations, they'll do two decks per camera. The Hyperdecks record in quite a few different formats, the timecode can be connected between multiple devices (like cameras and audio recorders) to make sure every recording has identical timecode, and it's fairly reliable. Again, you can rent these in large cities, so you don't necessarily have to buy a whole stack of them. I've seen trucks with literally walls of Hyperdecks being used in situations where formerly traditional HDCam or D5 broadcast videotape decks would be used in sports and so on. And the Hyperdecks are about a grand, vs. the $50,000+ the tape decks used to cost.

I get very antsy trying to do anything really mission-critical on a laptop, because the USB-C ports are fragile enough that one minor bump could take down the whole thing. If your situation is very cost-conscious, you could try one of the ATEM SDI Pro ISOs, which will record 4 inputs via HDMI or SDI inputs (depending on the model). It only records in H.264, but it's perfectly fine if you're just doing a show destined for YouTube or something like that.

What quality do you need?
Is it just for YouTube?
You can use old approach with SDI/HDMI + recorders or you could do new approach (if ProResLT/Standard quality is enough).
With old approach what is quite important is actual ingest tool. Most are quite simple and crap (eg. MediaExpress). They are unstable and can easily drop recording. With good tool like ToolsOnAir this could work.
Based one their performance sheets:
https://toolsonair.atlassian.net/wiki/s ... heet+v.5.5
M1 Max with ProRes media engines should do it, but issue can be with actual TB connection (2 xUHD 25p should work- 3 probably not, so you would need 2 cards). They could advise you.
When you look at it then it all quickly gets complex, with many hardware elements, connections etc.

I would go modern route. For 2K$ you get 4 channels (up to 4x UHD 60p) NDI recorder which is rather tiny box. You connect your cameras over 12g SDI and then box itself to 10gig network or directly to your machine (you need 10gig port though). With 75$ NDI recorder app you can record (it supports locked recording for many channels) in native NDI codec. There are no CPU needs for this as it's just copy. Premiere even supports editing while recording. I don't think you can make it cheaper (and reliable at the same time) than that (unless you have all hardware like cards and recorders).
Note- Resolve doesn't support native NDI files. I have not tested exactly this setup in real life either (just portions of it).

For h264/5 quality you may buy 4 simple recorders.
HDCAM, D5 what is this?

Thanks for the answers and appologies for my late reply. I’ve had to put the portable setup plans in the fridge for a while due to other projects.

I have been using a similar portable setup using 3G BMD Micro Recorders. But I’d like to upgrade this setup to 4K.

I’ve seen videos from Softron. They claim to have tested a Decklink 8K Pro card in a Sonnettech SEIII chassis. They don’t actually show it working but claim it is able to do:

8-bit
4 inputs of 2160p @ 25 and 30fps
2 inputs of UHD60 @ 50 and 60fps

10-bit
4 inputs of 2160p @ 25fps
3 inputs of 2160p @ 30fps
2 inputs of 2160p @ 50fps
1 input of 2160p @ 60fps

These numbers do make sense considering the ~32 Gigabit per second (Gbps) practical bandwidth of a single TB3 connection. Two 12G connections would sum to 24Gbps which a TB3 connection should be able to do. That is of course if you reserve a full TB3 bus without anything else connected. The Macbook Pro M1 Max has three separate 40Gbps TB3 buses.

I need at least three inputs preferably 10-bit and all 2160p @ 25fps.

So if I would use 6G connections it should be possible to do four 8-bit 2160p signals @ 25fps or 30fps which according to Softron should work.

It is definitely possible to do two 2160p @ 30fps inputs using two DeckLink Mini Recorder 4K cards in a Sonnettech SEIII chassis. I’ve seen a video from 9to5Mac where this is tested. So I could of course buy two chassis’ and three of those BMD cards. But that’s a lot more expensive than having a single card in a single chassis for three inputs and the Mini Recorder cards don’t have SDI. Besides I like to reduce as much clutter as possible and have a highly portable but of course reliable setup.

I had just hoped someone here would have been able to confirm from personal experience with an exact same type of setup before I shell out

I would like to see those number working reliably ( not for 1 min).
32gbit for TB3 data bus is only a theoretical speed. I have not seen anything pushing it. It’s more like 27Gbit in real world (3.3GB/sec).
If you could use all TB3 connections then this of course could work.

I would like to see those number working reliably ( not for 1 min).

That’s exactly why I placed my question here in the hope of finding someone with practical experience with a setup like this.

32gbit for TB3 data bus is only a theoretical speed. I have not seen anything pushing it. It’s more like 27Gbit in real world (3.3GB/sec).

In my experience ~32Gbps is the practical maximum speed that one can get out of TB3. But still, even at 27Gbps it should be able to handle three 6G inputs of 2160p @ 25fps. As long as nothing else connected like a hard drive for example that can steal away overhead bandwidth from the Thunderbolt Bus. I’d prefer 10-bit but if it’s not possible than 8-bit would suffice.

I might have to take the plunge. If I can’t get three inputs working reliably into a Decklink 8K Pro card, I can always expand to two chassis’.

If you are happy with around ProRes standard alike quality then I would not go to card setup.
What capture tool are you planing to use?
You need a bit of hacking to run multiple MediaExpress instances on Mac.
Also - it's not very reliable tool at all for long captures (1h+).

I am recording all individual inputs using Wirecast professional.

It supports NDI as source, so all what I would do is buy 4 channels SDI to NDI box which is 2K$. Hook it over 10gig to Mac and done. 4x 4K up to 60p and endless possibilities of further signal distribution.

Yes, i have looked at the birddog Quad 4K60p. Correct me if i’m wrong please, but the Birddog Quad 4K60 won’t allow me to do ISO recording in Wirecast of all individual camera’s connected to it right?

Unless of course I buy 4 individual SDI to NDI convertors correct?

Birddog Quad is a 4 channels box, so each camera will be an independent signal which can be further used as you wish. There are recorders which can keep sync between these signals (eg. for multicam recording), but they are all independent same way as if you had 4 single channel NDI boxes. You can buy 4 x1 channel boxes, but it will be more expensive and more kit to carry.
Not sure about ISO recording in Wirecast (never used it), but this:
https://www.telestream.net/download-fil ... hanges.pdf
seems to suggest opposite what you said. It should work.