Hey Rüdiger,

so we have to do an additional decoding and re-encoding to h.264 for the
> streaming.


Doesn't your Hauppauge model provide a "raw" video output? Have you
considered using it instead the mpeg2-encoded one? We have tested two or
three different models and all of them "created" three devices in the OS:
one corresponding to the raw audio, other to the raw video, and other to
the mpeg2-encoded combination of the former. I know that decoding mpeg2 is
not very cpu-consuming, but you can give it a try anyway.

Best regards

2012/2/9 Ruediger Rolf <[email protected]>

> Hi Kevin,
>
> we only use two i7 for capturing. One of these is a Windows PC using the
> Blackmagic H.264 Pro Recorder box (that's why windows) for HD-recording.
> But as this box is still missing the APIs that Blackmagic promissed the
> recording is still manual. The machine is quite over-powered (20-30% CPU
> load while capturing 1280x800 vga and 1080i video simultanous).
> The second i7 is in use for our live streaming test system, that we use
> for over a semester now. If we record, enable confidence monitoring and do
> h.264-live-streaming for 2 streams (SD-video only) with the Matterhorn
> Capture Agent we are getting to 40-50% CPU load. So again this machine
> could be slower.  I production we used only single stream live-streaming,
> which ran at about 30% CPU load. We are using the Hauppauge PVR-150 in all
> our machines, so we have to do an additional decoding and re-encoding to
> h.264 for the streaming.
> Both machines are Dell Optiplex MT 980 with the cheapest quad-core i7 and
> 4 GB RAM.
>
> In general we use Dell Optiplex 780 as recorders with a Pentium 4 Dual
> Core with 2.8 Ghz and 4GB RAM. They run at 70-80% CPU load while recording
> 2 streams. With the optimisations in Matterhorn 1.3 these machines can do
> recording and live streaming at 90-100% CPU load, what may cause some frame
> drops if we are unfortunate. For only recordings the general CPU load will
> go down significantly too with 1.3. Again we are using Hauppauge PVR-150
> and epiphan VGA2USB LR on all of these machines.
>
> Currently if I would need to buy new computers as recorders I would
> recommend a Dell Optiplex MT 790 with a i5-2400. As this would probably
> have enough power for reliable live-streaming at least.
>
> If you are interested I can try to check how much CPU load it will take on
> the i7 to capture from the epiphan device and a Blackmagic Intensity Pro
> HD-capture-card. This is already on my to do list, but I had no time to
> evaluate this yet. The capture card is lying on my desk for a a while
> already...
>
> Rüdiger
>
> Am 08.02.2012 18:14, schrieb Kevin Chan:
>
>  Hi Nils,
>>
>> Thanks for your info. While I have heard of other universities running
>> different hardware, this is the first documented case (as far as I know) of
>> someone specifically stating that someone is running capture agents using
>> i5/i7 cores.
>>
>> At UC Berkeley, we are likely to need some higher powered capture agents
>> to do some HD camera captures (and possibly for SD camera captures) and
>> that's why I have been trying to get the Opencast Community to share their
>> hardware/software/config setup on this list (and even better would be on
>> the Opencast Wiki).
>>
>> As such, can you share some basic information about your setup (perhaps
>> with a note on the path that led you to your particular setup)?
>>
>> Even though we are still in our very early stages of testing/silent
>> piloting, if I have a few minutes today, I will try to get a "capture agent
>> setup page" for UC Berkeley started on the Opencast wiki so that others can
>> benefit from this information.
>>
>>  Kevin Chan
>>
>>  Operations Team
>>  Educational Technology Services
>>  UC Berkeley
>>
>>
>> On 2/7/12 10:46 PM, Nils Birnbaum wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Kevin,
>>> besides Gallicaster, this is a general problem. Most Universities run i5
>>> or i7 processor to capture sufficient framerates for 2-stream-recording.
>>> So you have a trade off between CPU-Power and framerate (and some RAM) to
>>> get a result that match with the needs of your institution.
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Nils
>>>
>>>
>>>  Hi Ruben,
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the info, your approach sounds reasonable to me.
>>>>
>>>> I am still unclear on what hardware setup you are using. I found this
>>>> page - http://wiki.teltek.es/display/**Galicaster/Hardware+**
>>>> recommendations<http://wiki.teltek.es/display/Galicaster/Hardware+recommendations>
>>>> - so I am guessing you are probably running your captures against an
>>>> Intel i3 processor with some sort of Hauppauge card.
>>>>
>>>> So in summary:
>>>>
>>>> a) using the above hardware setup, you had some video sync/dropped frame
>>>> rate issues
>>>> b) these issues were fixed with "a different pipeline structure with the
>>>> element 'videorate' to guarantee the video stream synchronization"
>>>>
>>>> In theory, adding "videorate" to the MH capture agent pipeline should
>>>> also fix this issue, but the placement of this element is probably key
>>>> to the whole thing!
>>>>
>>>> Let me know if I got any of the above wrong.
>>>>
>>>>    Kevin Chan
>>>>
>>>>    Operations Team
>>>>    Educational Technology Services
>>>>    UC Berkeley
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2/6/12 4:51 AM, Rubén Pérez wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> The pipeline we are using in Galicaster is rather different than the
>>>>> one used in the standard capture agent in many ways, the first one
>>>>> coming to my mind being the fact that Galicaster needs to provide
>>>>> video feedback and the CA doesn't.
>>>>>
>>>>> Still, I will take a look and see if we can commit some changes to
>>>>> improve the synchronization quality. I cannot guarantee though.
>>>>>
>>>>> The pipeline used is in the code of Galicaster, available at
>>>>> www.galicaster.org<http://www.**galicaster.org<http://www.galicaster.org>>
>>>>>  .
>>>>>
>>>>> Sorry I cannot be more specific right now. When I have some spare time
>>>>> I'll try to document myself on this topic and try to apply a patch
>>>>> based on our research in Galicaster, if that's feasible without
>>>>> altering the current CA pipeline too much. Does this sound reasonable?
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>>
>>>>> 2012/2/2 Kevin Chan<[email protected]
>>>>> <mailto:[email protected].**edu <[email protected]>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>     Hi Ruben,
>>>>>
>>>>>     Was this "fix" done against the referenced MH capture hardware or
>>>>>     some other hardware setup?
>>>>>
>>>>>     In any case, thanks for the info, it would be great if you can
>>>>>     provide this info for the MH developers in:
>>>>>     
>>>>> http://opencast.jira.com/**browse/MH-8505<http://opencast.jira.com/browse/MH-8505>
>>>>>
>>>>>     Also, if you can provide the full pipeline structure, that would
>>>>>     be great (for novice pipeline constructors like me).
>>>>>
>>>>>        Kevin Chan
>>>>>
>>>>>        Operations Team
>>>>>        Educational Technology Services
>>>>>        UC Berkeley
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>     On 1/30/12 5:38 AM, Tobias Wunden wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>     Hi Ruben,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     any chance that fix will make it back into trunk anytime soon? It
>>>>>>     would have been great to have this in for 1.3 as well, given that
>>>>>>     you seem to have sorted out that issue a while ago.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     Tobias
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     On 30.01.2012, at 09:15, Rubén Pérez<[email protected]
>>>>>> <mailto:[email protected]>>  wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>      Hi Kevin,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     I can also confirm that we experienced the same frame drop/out
>>>>>>>     of sync problem in long recordings, both in the capture agent
>>>>>>>     and also in Galicaster's development stages. Finally, we
>>>>>>>     discovered that the key was a different pipeline structure with
>>>>>>>     the element 'videorate' to guarantee the video stream
>>>>>>>     synchronization.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     Maybe you could try and add this element to the CA's standard
>>>>>>>     pipeline, and see what happens. Of course, you can also try
>>>>>>>     Galicaster :)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     Good luck
>>>>>>>     Rubén
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     On 25 Xan, 2012 07:18, "Kevin Chan"<[email protected]
>>>>>>> <mailto:[email protected].**edu <[email protected]>>>
>>>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>         Hi all,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>         During preliminary testing of a 2h 15m capture (which we
>>>>>>>         intend to post produce for YouTube), UC Berkeley discovered
>>>>>>>         that the capture files for video and screen were off by 15m
>>>>>>>         (with the screen capture via Epiphan being 15m short), which
>>>>>>>         is more or less unacceptable to our post production folks
>>>>>>>         (as it is very difficult for them to stitch this back
>>>>>>>         together). This is likely to be due to dropped frame rate,
>>>>>>>         but it is a bit difficult to confirm.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>         I am wondering if anyone else (besides Saskatchewan folks,
>>>>>>>         who confirmed this issue) has encounter this issue and how
>>>>>>>         they are working around it. I imagine that lowering
>>>>>>>         framerates and bitrates would work, though some initial
>>>>>>>         testing using various capture agent configurations seems to
>>>>>>>         suggest that the capture files are still off by a few
>>>>>>>         minutes even with the CPUs being not fully taxed.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>         We are using the reference capture agent hardware and very
>>>>>>>         basic capture agent settings. This issue has been filed in
>>>>>>>         MH Jira if anyone is interested:
>>>>>>>         
>>>>>>> http://opencast.jira.com/**browse/MH-8505<http://opencast.jira.com/browse/MH-8505>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>         Finally, we have heard that there are various hardware and
>>>>>>>         configuration setups for Matterhorn Capture Agents in
>>>>>>>         production. I think it would be great if that we, as a
>>>>>>>         community, can share this information (via the MH wiki) to
>>>>>>>         help each other understand and learn about the various use
>>>>>>>         cases and setups that are employed.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>         Thanks,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>         --
>>>>>>>            Kevin Chan
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>            Operations Team
>>>>>>>            Educational Technology Services
>>>>>>>            UC Berkeley
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
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>>
>
> --
>
> ______________________________**__________________
> Rüdiger Rolf, M.A.
> Universität Osnabrück - Zentrum virtUOS
> Heger-Tor-Wall 12, 49069 Osnabrück
> Telefon: (0541) 969-6511 - Fax: (0541) 969-16511
> E-Mail: [email protected]
> Internet: www.virtuos.uni-osnabrueck.de
>
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