-
H.264 Pro Recorder Test
-
From page 24 in the manual…
Consumer Level Analog Audio Signals
Can I use H.264 Pro Recorder with consumer level analog audio signals?…
Yes and no! H.264 Pro Recorder is designed to work with professional, balanced, analog audio equipment. It does not work directly with unbalanced, consumer level analog audio. In order to capture unbalanced audio from consumer equipment, a line level converter can be used.
It is not necessary to buy an expensive line level converter. Low cost models exist and do a great job.Please refer to the support note Working with Consumer Level Analog Audio Signals which contains more detailed information including any, inexpensive line level converters that we have tested and have found to work well.
—
Steadicam & Camera Operator -
Yes i know that Andrew, i’m one of the few that still reads manuals :D.
But out of the box it does not support it, so that’s why i asking what level converter people are using for this device. -
Markertek has a whole whack of unbalanced to balanced audio converters. Musicians use what they call DI boxes.
Here is one that is good bang for the buck. Good thing to have in your arsenal…
If you want more choice here is a search listing from the same site…
https://audio-video-supply.markertek.com/broadcasting/Balanced%20To%20Unbalanced%20Audio%20Converter
—
Steadicam & Camera Operator -
I’m using external firewire audio controller (Saffire) for the conversion. I have one in hand and it works well.
We returned the units. No matter what I do, I could not keep the video in sync (vertical sync) and audio sync drops after 1-2 hours – even though we use TBC. We reverted back to Blackmagic Intensity Pro cards and external encoding server. The server implementation is cheaper and faster anyways. X264 also produces better stream as you have total control of the H.264 options.
I would not recommend the unit for any SD material. Works pretty well with HD though and I think that the unit is mostly meant for users that need to get a lot of small clips online and fast. For archiving this is not robust enough.
M.D. Lauri Ahonen
Electronics and video processing enthusiast -
Ty andrew.
But i gonna stop using this device, after a lot of testing.
Software is not stable, quiting unexpected,
I only could install it on 1 of the 3 Imac i tried .
(driver wil not loading or somthing like that)And after 1/2 hours recording , video and audio are out of sync.
It is no good for vhs archieving.My conclusion : 400€ peace of “pro” crap… 🙁
I realy expected a lot more of this Black magic device. -
Same conclusion here. Definitely does not fit the bill, especially with analog (VHS) sources. Bad publicity for Blackmagic.
M.D. Lauri Ahonen
Electronics and video processing enthusiast -
Joshua, Might you be able to clarify the interlacing support issue? I’ve read this whole thread to get end-user feedback before buying, but am now only confused by contradictions in the feedback …
This comment seems to say the units do not accept interlaced sources …
[Heinz Bihlmeir] “As long as you don’t need encoding support for interlaced formats … Interlaced sources should be de-interlaced externally before encoding.”These two seem to say the units do accept interlaced sources …
[Scott Francis] “Since it states in the tech specs that it does 1080i (60) I suspect it will accept the signal from the camera”
[Joshua Helling] “As far as interlaced support, how it works now is that if you feed 1080i59.94 to the encoder it will output 1080p29.97. Same data rate, its just doing a deinterlace. I think we’d like to add proper interlaced support to it in the future.”This one seems to say both since a deinterlacer has to exist in order to be of bad quality. So, how can there be both a bad-quality deinterlacer AND “lack of support for interlaced encoding”?
[Lauri Ahonen] “… the only real concern is the bad quality of the deinterlacer and lack of support for interlaced encoding.” -
Okay…I can clear that up (forgive me I have not re-read the entire thread)
The H.264 Pro Recorder will accept interlaced signals. But it will also convert them to progressive.
The LACK of interlaced support is a statement that means the customer was hoping for native interlaced encoding (meaning they put 1080i in, and get 1080i out as h.264. As is currently implemented you put 1080i in and you get 1080p out.
The comment of the quality of the de-interlacer is probably suggesting that the conversion from 1080i to 1080p does not mean that particular users expectations. There are questions I’d have about this in particular. Most importantly would be under what conditions was the de-interlacer not good enough? I would imagine that going 1080i to 1080p is very easy and not to involved, but going from 1080i to 720p might be more so. So the conditions there are important.
Anyways…I hope that helps to clarify.
Sincerely,
Joshua
Director of Support
Blackmagic Design Inc. -
Joshua,
Like some other people here, I’m still hoping for an interlaced encoding mode in a near future. The lack of support for that feature in a pro device is somewhat strange.
As the video glitches looks to be gone, if the audio can stay in sync for long clip, it will only miss an interlaced encoding mode for this box to be perfect as the high CPU usage is related to MediaExpress.
Eric
-
Lauri Ahonen.
Have you found a setup voor VHS archiefing ?
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up