SDI Capture to XDCAM codec

[nesburf]

Hi all,

I have a BM Ultrastudio Pro USB3 device. I'm looking to capture SDI video into the XDCAM EX format. All the software I can find that works with the BM device only does Uncompressed or MJPEG or DVCPROHD.

I am trying to archive a tape library for broadcast and the format we use use is XDCAM EX.

The software would ideally have RS422 time code support. Does anyone know if such a piece of software exists? Preferably free!

Thanks

[dellsam34]

Sony Vegas if you can afford it, I think Premiere has that output as well. Did you try the Desktop software from BlackMagic and it doesn't have that format on the list?

[nesburf]

I've tried Sony Vegas...only option other than uncompressed is XDCAM HD422(50mbps). It's a bit overkill for what I'm looking to do. Unless I'm missing something? Was hoping to keep it to XDCAM EX 35mbps. Also couldn't get deck control+timecode to work with Vegas for some reason.

Premiere only showed uncompressed, quicktime uncompressed and MJPEG.
Blackmagic Media Express had the same options as premiere.

I was able to find this software...https://www.magicsoft.tv/recorder.html however you need to purchase a license and get mailed a dongle. I tried the trial and it seemed to have a lot of codec options and worked ok however deck control and timecode also didn't seem to work in it. It looks like it used ffmpeg as the encoder.

Was hoping there would be some type of freeware software that used ffmpeg as the encoder with lots of codec options and also had RS422 support.

[dellsam34]

If you know the specs of the XDCAM EX someone here might be able to make a ffmpeg command for you.

[nesburf]

So this is the ffmpeg command I use if I want to convert a file to XDCAM EX

ffmpeg -i "input.mp4" -pix_fmt yuv420p -vcodec mpeg2video -flags +ildct+ilme -top 1 -dc 10 -qmin 1 -lmin "1*QP2LAMBDA" -vtag xdv3 -b:v 35000k -minrate 20000k -maxrate 35000k -bufsize 36408333 -g 15 -bf 2 -aspect 16:9 -r 30000/1001 -async 2 -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -filter_complex "[0:a]channelsplit[l][r]" -map 0:v -map "[l]" -map "[r]" -f mxf -y "output.MXF"

[dellsam34]

How do you start from a mp4 file? I though you are capturing lossless.

[nesburf]

Well the idea is that it's an on the fly encode while capturing. I do not want to be separately converting each captured tape. I've got over 1000 of them!

That's the command line I use if I need to convert any type of video file to XDCAM EX

[smrpix]

I've tried Sony Vegas...only option other than uncompressed is XDCAM HD422(50mbps). It's a bit overkill for what I'm looking to do. Unless I'm missing something? Was hoping to keep it to XDCAM EX 35mbps. Also couldn't get deck control+timecode to work with Vegas for some reason.
Was hoping there would be some type of freeware software that used ffmpeg as the encoder with lots of codec options and also had RS422 support.

If you can get that far with Vegas -- use it. Neither Premiere nor Avid will do a direct XDCam capture (except from already encoded XDCam sources.) 50mbps is standard for 1920x1080 material. You can use 35mbps for 1440x1080 or 1280x720 -- but be aware the 1440 will be squeezed.

RS422 deck control requires proper hardware, which your ultrastudio does not have (if I'm looking at the right model.)

[nesburf]

So I was able to capture video from the SDI output using this ffmpeg cmd line

ffmpeg -y -f dshow -video_size 1920x1080 -pixel_format uyvy422 -rtbufsize 702000 -framerate 29.97 -i video="Decklink Video Capture" -pix_fmt yuv420p -vcodec mpeg2video -flags +ildct+ilme -top 1 -dc 10 -qmin 1 -lmin "1*QP2LAMBDA" -vtag xdv3 -b:v 35000k -minrate 20000k -maxrate 35000k -bufsize 36408333 -g 15 -bf 2 -aspect 16:9 -r 30000/1001 -f mxf -y "output.MXF"

Now I couldn't get any audio yet and I was getting frame drops. I guessing that has to do with buffer settings.

I would like to record 4 channels of audio from the SDI stream as well as time code information over the RS422 control. Is this even possible?

[nesburf]

I've tried Sony Vegas...only option other than uncompressed is XDCAM HD422(50mbps). It's a bit overkill for what I'm looking to do. Unless I'm missing something? Was hoping to keep it to XDCAM EX 35mbps. Also couldn't get deck control+timecode to work with Vegas for some reason.
Was hoping there would be some type of freeware software that used ffmpeg as the encoder with lots of codec options and also had RS422 support.

If you can get that far with Vegas -- use it. Neither Premiere nor AVid will do a direct XDCam capture (except from already encoded XDCam sources.) 50mbps is standard for 1920x1080 material. You can use 35mbps for 1440x1080 or 1280x720 -- but be aware the 1440 will be squeezed.

RS422 requires proper hardware, which your ultrastudio does not have (if I'm looking at the right model.)

It definitely has an RS422 connection as I can get the time code and deck control working when using Premiere or media express. This is the UltraStudio Pro USB 3.0 device.

[nesburf]

I'm getting closer! Was able to get ffmpeg to record video and audio in XDCAM EX, 2ch for now, hoping for 4. However the audio sync seems to be out slightly. Wondering if that'll be fixed by using the ffmpeg build with decklink support. And then I'm still trying to figure out if it's possible to get time code from the RS422 controller.

Here is the cmd line I'm using

ffmpeg -y -threads 8 -f dshow -video_size 1920x1080 -pixel_format uyvy422 -rtbufsize 702000k -framerate 29.97 -i video="Decklink Video Capture":audio="Decklink Audio Capture" -pix_fmt yuv420p -vcodec mpeg2video -flags +ildct+ilme -top 1 -dc 10 -qmin 1 -lmin "1*QP2LAMBDA" -vtag xdv3 -b:v 35000k -minrate 20000k -maxrate 35000k -bufsize 36408333 -g 15 -bf 2 -aspect 16:9 -r 30000/1001 -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -filter_complex "[0:a]channelsplit[l][r]" -map 0:v -map "[l]" -map "[r]" -f mxf -y "output.MXF"

[nesburf]

So I've got a build of ffmpeg with the decklink feature enabled.

I run this command line to start a capture and transcode to XDCAM EX

ffmpeg -y -format_code Hi59 -draw_bars false -f decklink -i "UltraStudio Pro" -pix_fmt yuv420p -vcodec mpeg2video -flags +ildct+ilme -top 1 -dc 10 -qmin 1 -lmin "1*QP2LAMBDA" -vtag xdv3 -b:v 35000k -minrate 35000k -maxrate 35000k -bufsize 36408333 -g 15 -bf 2 -acodec pcm_s16le -ar 48000 -filter_complex "[0:a]channelsplit[l][r]" -map 0:v -map "[l]" -map "[r]" -f mxf -y "output.MXF"

It creates a fully usable file however the audio and video is out of sync. The audio is ahead by about 10-15 frames. Here is the ffmpeg output. Any ideas?

ffmpeg version N-93855-g21832b93d5 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers

  built with gcc 8.3.0 (Rev2, Built by MSYS2 project)
  configuration:  --disable-autodetect --enable-amf --enable-bzlib --enable-cuda
 --enable-cuvid --enable-d3d11va --enable-dxva2 --enable-iconv --enable-lzma --e
nable-nvenc --enable-zlib --enable-sdl2 --disable-debug --enable-ffnvcodec --ena
ble-nvdec --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvp
x --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libdav1d --enable-fontconfig --enab
le-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmfx --enable-libmy
sofa --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg
--enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enabl
e-libtwolame --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libwavpack --e
nable-libwebp --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-libshine --enable-gpl -
-enable-avisynth --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom --enable-libopenmpt --enable-v
ersion3 --enable-chromaprint --enable-decklink --enable-frei0r --enable-libbs2b
--enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libflite --enable
-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libilbc --enable-libkvazaar
 --enable-libmodplug --enable-libopenh264 --enable-librtmp --enable-librubberban
d --enable-libssh --enable-libtesseract --enable-libxavs --enable-libzmq --enabl
e-libzvbi --enable-opencl --enable-opengl --enable-libvmaf --enable-libcodec2 --
enable-libsrt --enable-ladspa --enable-openssl --extra-cflags=-fopenmp --extra-l
ibs=-lgomp --extra-cflags=-DLIBTWOLAME_STATIC --extra-libs=-lstdc++ --extra-cfla
gs=-DLIBSSH_STATIC --extra-ldflags='-Wl,--allow-multiple-definition' --extra-cfl
ags=-DCACA_STATIC --extra-cflags=-DMODPLUG_STATIC --extra-cflags=-DCHROMAPRINT_N
ODLL --extra-libs=-lstdc++ --extra-cflags=-DZMQ_STATIC --extra-libs=-lpsapi --ex
tra-cflags=-DLIBXML_STATIC --extra-libs=-liconv --disable-w32threads --extra-cfl
ags=-DKVZ_STATIC_LIB --enable-nonfree
  libavutil      56. 27.100 / 56. 27.100
  libavcodec     58. 52.101 / 58. 52.101
  libavformat    58. 27.103 / 58. 27.103
  libavdevice    58.  7.100 / 58.  7.100
  libavfilter     7. 51.100 /  7. 51.100
  libswscale      5.  4.101 /  5.  4.101
  libswresample   3.  4.100 /  3.  4.100
  libpostproc    55.  4.100 / 55.  4.100
[decklink @ 0000000000a8da80] Found Decklink mode 1920 x 1080 with rate 29.97(i)

[decklink @ 0000000000a8da80] Frame received (#1) - No input signal detected - F
rames dropped 1
Guessed Channel Layout for Input Stream #0.0 : stereo
Input #0, decklink, from 'UltraStudio Pro':
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 995869 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 1536 kb/s
    Stream #0:1: Video: rawvideo (UYVY / 0x59565955), uyvy422(top first), 1920x1
080, 994333 kb/s, 29.97 tbr, 1000k tbn, 1000k tbc
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 (pcm_s16le) -> channelsplit (graph 0)
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:0 (rawvideo (native) -> mpeg2video (native))
  channelsplit:FL (graph 0) -> Stream #0:1 (pcm_s16le)
  channelsplit:FR (graph 0) -> Stream #0:2 (pcm_s16le)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[mpeg2video @ 0000000000aab200] Warning vbv_delay will be set to 0xFFFF (=VBR) a
s the specified vbv buffer is too large for the given bitrate!
[decklink @ 0000000000a8da80] Frame received (#10) - Input returned - Frames dro
pped 2
Output #0, mxf, to 'output.MXF':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf58.27.103
    Stream #0:0: Video: mpeg2video (Main) (xdv3 / 0x33766478), yuv420p(top coded
 first (swapped)), 1920x1080, q=1-31, 35000 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbn, 29.97 tb
c
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc58.52.101 mpeg2video
    Side data:
      cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 35000000/35000000/35000000 buffer size: 36408333
 vbv_delay: -1
    Stream #0:1: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, 1 channels (FL), s16, 768 kb/s
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc58.52.101 pcm_s16le
    Stream #0:2: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, 1 channels (FR), s16, 768 kb/s
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc58.52.101 pcm_s16le
frame=   16 fps=0.0 q=0.8 size=      85kB time=00:00:00.43 bitrate=1608.1kbits/s
frame=   31 fps= 31 q=0.8 size=    2050kB time=00:00:00.93 bitrate=17976.5kbits/
frame=   47 fps= 31 q=1.3 size=    4308kB time=00:00:01.46 bitrate=24036.1kbits/
frame=   62 fps= 30 q=1.3 size=    6715kB time=00:00:01.96 bitrate=27943.5kbits/
frame=   77 fps= 30 q=1.3 size=    8973kB time=00:00:02.46 bitrate=29769.1kbits/
frame=   92 fps= 30 q=1.3 size=   11230kB time=00:00:02.96 bitrate=30978.0kbits/
frame=  108 fps= 30 q=1.3 size=   13638kB time=00:00:03.50 bitrate=31888.0kbits/

[nesburf]

no one?