Blackmagic DesignUltrastudio Mini Recorder Video Editing Card, Hardware Encoder

So I bought this on Amazon in 2015, I really never used it. I bought for a specific job and didn't need it I didn't have the time to learn it - until now June 2020. My company had a huge live streaming show to make. We had up to 40 different phones from all over the world feeding into a switching truck. My boss asked me to get a device that we can capture the live feed that was going to YouTube. The truck gave me a feed with all the graphics just like the stream. Previously I downloaded the latest Desktop Studio (11.5.1) and installed it. Blackmagic uses this software for many of its capture devices. I was using an older Mac Pro "the trashcan" it was great for this because it has the Thunderbolt 2 connections which are the same as the Mini Recorder. Install the software before you hook up the Mini Recorder so when you connect it can find it. When you plug in the T-Bolt cable you will see a little light on the box. That is the power indicator. I had to give the Mac permission to install as the Sys settings were set semi tight. The drive I was using for capture is a small 2 - 2.5" SSD drive enclosure that has a hardware RAID. I opened the utility and change the setting from HDMI to SDI as that was my feed. I left that window open just to always confirm it hadn't changed. Connected the box, added the SDI cable, and the drive.There is a simple piece of software in the install that you can use, Blackmagic Media Express, this will allow you to do a capture of the feed. In BM Media Express preferences, pick the Capture Video format you want, and the destination disk the files go to. That is about it, I had a couple of days to practice because the tech team did rehearsals. It is tricky in this program to name the files but I finally found the answer buried in BM support forum. The name is a combination of the Description, Reel all the things below name. You hit the little plus sign to the right of these choices and it populates the name. You can't just type the name, I kept it simple. It was frustrating and took me a while to find the answer. You are welcome. There isn't much documentation on this software. But it works really well, it did for me. Our 2 day program was divided into 6 events 3 a day. So I just made sure I hit capture before the show started and then stopped it by hitting capture again to stop it recording. Practice with it so you know it works before showtime.One annoying thing is you cannot monitor the audio while recording (if somebody can do this - post it please). But I did so many tests that I knew the embedded audio was there on the recording. Make sure to check your Mac audio input System Preferences to make sure the BM box is selected. I wasn't fed timecode but if I was it was supposed to be in the feed as well.So the 2 day show was streamed live and I found out after the first event my recordings were the source of the posted videos. Our editor took the files and trimmed stuff they didn't need and prepped them for YouTube upload. So these event recordings have been watched by over 100K of people. It worked really well.Only other thing is after I got familiar with the capture utility, I started using the box with - BM Davinci Resolve 16. It is more complicated than the included app, but that is what I used. I like the naming workflow better. The picture looked the same after I dialed in Resolve, but Resolve has way too many settings for someone starting out.Oh yes one of the captures was over 2.5 hours long and the Mini Recorder never overheated. Not super simple but it worked really well.

I am preparing to do a weekly live-streaming event for my organization. We're on a shoestring budget (who isn't in the NPO world?), and we're still evaluating streaming providers. The only hardware encoder under $500 is tied to a specific provider, which would simplify our setup but would tie us to that provider. (No, thanks.)The Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder was an intriguing, low-cost solution for interfacing our HDMI camera with a MacBook Pro we already own. This device allows us to put more of the encoding chain into software, giving us a choice of encoders and providers. I purchased it along with an Apple MD861ZM/A Thunderbolt Cable - 2.0 M (NEWEST VERSION).Thanks to the experiences many other reviewers have shared here, I knew to download the software directly from BMD, and installed it before plugging in any devices. The version current at this writing (Blackmagic Desktop Video 10.3.7) also installs four applications:* Blackmagic Disk Speed Test* Blackmagic LiveKey* Blackmagic Media Express* Blackmagic Multibridge UtilityLiveKey and Multibridge Utility don't seem to apply to this device at all. Disk Speed Test is what it sounds like, performing a "stress test" of write and read speeds to evaluate which video formats your current setup is likely to support. Media Express can capture, log, and play back video from the Mini Recorder and other devices.My experience with the Mini Recorder (interfacing a Canon HDMI camera to my MBP, and feeding it to Wirestream for a test YouTube live video event) was almost painless. I did not have a huge bundle of choices, but rather the format being ingested from HDMI. So, from my perspective, it really WAS "plug and play" with video and audio feeding from the camera into Wirestream.The box itself is both improbably small and unbelievably heavy. The outer shell seems to be 1/32-inch steel, and acts as a heat sink in operation--it does get uncomfortably warm. A single white LED next to the Thunderbolt port indicates output. The input ports are BNC and full-size HDMI (a good match for the HDMI/mini HDMI cable supplied with my camera). There is no power cable or adapter.I am quite impressed with the BMD Mini Recorder, and can say it has already earned a place in my setup.

This is a superb piece of engineering, with excellent picture quality. The fact that the drivers make it available as a standard QuickTime-compatible video/audio source is fantastic! Love it!I would give this a solid 5-out-of-5 except for one _tiny_ issue... its lowest capture resolution is 720p. You might think "who the h*ll uses HDMI for a signal less than 720p" and that's what I used to think too... until we tried using these to capture HDMI from laptop computers that were only able to do 1024x768 to a projector during conference presentations. It's obviously not the fault of Blackmagic; it was the fault of the laptops that couldn't send at least 720p out to projectors that did support that input resolution. However, I'm very surprised that a video resolution such as 1024x768 can be carried in the first place by HDMI, and displayed via the many different projectors we used at that conference, but this Blackmagic device couldn't capture it.I do feel a bit bad that the reason I can't give this device 5 stars is because of a problem with the input signal that wasn't up to this device's minimum resolution and therefore isn't really the fault of this device. However I do feel that it is a tiny limitation of the device and therefore I can't whole-heartedly give it a perfect 5 rating. If I could give it 4.5 stars I would, but since I can't I'm stuck giving it 4 stars.