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Hak5's plan for HD


Darren Kitchen

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I know we've made mention of this on the show but I thought it would be good to put a thread together about our plan for HD. We've had many questions about what mixer and other equipment we're looking at so here it is.

Our original plans for going HD were based on the Edirol V-440 HD video mixer. Since then we have revised our plans based on the suggestions of the one and only David Randolph (Engineered the Rev3 studio). This setup should allow us to go HD sooner as the equipment costs about half that of the Edirol and includes and direct to disk capture solution (Mac Pro).

This solution is based on the Black Magic On-Air software. You can read more about it at http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/on-air/

Parts (italics have been purchased):

Three Panasonic HDC-SD9 HD Cameras with HDMI output, $1500

One Kramer VS-42HDMI 4×2 HDMI Switcher, $1200

One Black Magic Intensity PCI Express card, One Intensity Pro card, $600

HDMI cables, couplers, dongles, $200

VGA to HDMI converter, $220

VGA Active Switcher, $80

Mac Pro, $3000*

Total: 6800

*We're borrowing Paul's Mac Pro for the first tests but long term we'll need our own.

We're about a third of the way there already! The donations from http://www.hak5.org/stickers have helped out tremendously already. I think we should be able to go HD by the new year. Our Intensity cards come in today (Monday Sept. 15) so we'll be doing all sorts of testing this week.

Here's a spiffy diagram of how it all goes together.

Hak5_HD_Plan.png

This looks similar to our current setup except instead of HDMI everything is Composite, and instead of switching software and a matrix switcher we're using an Edirol V-1 analog video mixer. Oh yeah, and instead of recording to disk we're recording to tape via one of our spare DV cameras. So yeah, quality will go through the roof once we make this happen. I'm super excited :)

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I sounds nice to have the video digital all the way through the system, at least from the cameras. I hope that this also will improve the quality of the screens on the computers, so you don't have to use the zoom function which doesn't seem to be as smooth for you to use :)

What kind of protocol is used for communicating with the mixer over ethernet? Is it proprietary?

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Protocol2000

Supposedly it's trivial to speak to the matrix switcher over ethernet. My hope is we can whip up some apple script that will control both the matrix switcher and the on-air software. Then it's just a matter of key mapping, and if we really want to take it a step further we could interface it with a pair of Wiimotes via bluetooth. :)

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Wow, I just checked the manual. The protocol is extensively documented, so there is a basis for geeking it out a bit around how it's controlled. You could probably also just make a PHP script which uses sockets to control it through, if you wanted :)

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Wow, I just checked the manual. The protocol is extensively documented, so there is a basis for geeking it out a bit around how it's controlled. You could probably also just make a PHP script which uses sockets to control it through, if you wanted :)

Probably. Might be easier in apple script. I only wish they had a 6x2 or 8x2 matrix switcher. It would be awesome to add another few cameras to the mix. I think each set could use a secondary camera to be honest.

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Who ever controls the mixer + HDMI switcher + VGA switcher + The Mac will have to be totally autistic to do it flawlessly.

In an absolutely ideal world you would want to get switches that are USB controllable (or some other madness) so you can just script it, then when each segment has been configured by the script, switch manually between the camera and the screens of the laptops to show to relevant picture at each talking point.

I can imagine that such hardware would probably increase cost by a few thousand. At that point you may aswell go for the full on video mixing desk that is also software controllable.

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@Sparda

It's completely doable with apple script. The Matrix Switcher speaks protocol2000 over ethernet and the on-air software is highly scriptable.

But yes, regardless switching live video does take a different kind of thought process and we're lucky to have someone as talented as Paul who has an eye for this sort of thing.

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Dude...thats hawt... now i know this may sound stupid...but have you guys ever thought about Ebay?...i know im cheap so i love it

i worked for an ISP that was "powered by ebay" it was great till stuff broke and the owners refused to carry maint on the equipment. Needless to say they arent an ISP any more.

Used is cool at times however i would think Darren and the Hak5 crew would want a warranty and support for the "new platform". Should there ever be an epic fail its nice to know it will be fixed.

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Mac Pro on normal PC hardware with an efi-x dongle: http://gizmodo.com/5049756/review-efix-don...forms-pc-to-mac

Take a look before you blow it off as it lets you just install the latest Mac OS and all its updates as if it were a normal Mac Pro box without having to use any pirated or hacked version to run on the pc. (Not a VM!)

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