<p>To do this, you would need real time encoding hardware and some seriously high speed hard drives.  I know devices like the Matrox MX-02 will work for 1080p30, but I'm not sure about resolutions higher than that and at 60p.  I think Black Magic Design has some 4k real time encoders but I'm not sure if they support 60p.  Multiple SSDs would also pretty much be a requirement.  Probably on separate controllers and even then the bus rate might be a bottleneck with that much data.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-26T13:05:26.770Z
Throughput wouldn't be an issue here if we are talking about live capture and encoding, everything would stay in RAM for this and only the final video would be written to the disk which isn't much with h264 encoded video, a modern SSD would suffice for that.
timonsku
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-26T17:34:43.680Z
@ProfessorFartSparkle - "Preferably a lossless codec but I know at these massive rates it might not be feasible."  Even as H264, it can cover a very wide range of possible data rates, including some that would require extra SSDs to record to in parallel.
AJ Henderson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-26T21:08:50.380Z
I'm faced with that issue at my current job quite often, mostly concerning playback but its the same for writing when it comes to high-end synchronous SSDs.
Lets take a completely lossless approach. An uncompressed full HD frame is 5.93262 MB in size. JPEG2000 can compress a lossless frame at a ratio of 2:1 on average. Ususally even better. At 60 FPS that would mean we would need to write at 177,9786 MB/s per second. Times 3 we are at 533,9358 MB/s. Thats scratching at the limits of SATA3 SSDs but still possible when having a reasonably sized RAM buffer and no issue at all with PCI-E SSDs.
timonsku
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-26T21:16:48.840Z
Though the reason I mentioned h264 is that its one of the few codecs that have full hardware support in many devices. If you dont go for hardware encoding you will need a quite powerfull system, though if money is really not an issue at all you can just go for a crazy system with 64GB of RAM and 12+ cores. That will cost you about 2000-3000$ (self built) but will definitely get the job done if the software can keep up with that, not all capture card drivers are made for having multiple capture devices in the system.
timonsku
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-05-31T03:17:03.160Z
2013-05-31T03:17:03.160Z
AJ Henderson
<p>Does anyone know of what kind of hardware along with any good codecs that could reasonably encode 3 x 1920x1200 60fps DirectShow streams in real time? Preferably a lossless codec but I know at these massive rates it might not be feasible. I know there are some OpenCL/CUDA based codecs out there but don't know of what kind of hardware would be required to to this in real time. Price is non-issue but we are planning on using epiphan's DVI2PCIE capture cards.</p>

<video><software-recommendation><encoding>
Codec/Hardware Advice on real-time encoding multiple HD streams
mchoi
# Codec/Hardware Advice on real-time encoding multiple HD streams

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-05-31)

Does anyone know of what kind of hardware along with any good codecs that could reasonably encode 3 x 1920x1200 60fps DirectShow streams in real time? Preferably a lossless codec but I know at these massive rates it might not be feasible. I know there are some OpenCL/CUDA based codecs out there but don't know of what kind of hardware would be required to to this in real time. Price is non-issue but we are planning on using epiphan's DVI2PCIE capture cards.

**Tags:** video, software-recommendation, encoding


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2013-05-31. Score: 1

To do this, you would need real time encoding hardware and some seriously high speed hard drives. I know devices like the Matrox MX-02 will work for 1080p30, but I'm not sure about resolutions higher than that and at 60p. I think Black Magic Design has some 4k real time encoders but I'm not sure if they support 60p. Multiple SSDs would also pretty much be a requirement. Probably on separate controllers and even then the bus rate might be a bottleneck with that much data.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Throughput wouldn't be an issue here if we are talking about live capture and encoding, everything would stay in RAM for this and only the final video would be written to the disk which isn't much with h264 encoded video, a modern SSD would suffice for that.  
> **username_1**: @ProfessorFartSparkle - "Preferably a lossless codec but I know at these massive rates it might not be feasible."  Even as H264, it can cover a very wide range of possible data rates, including some that would require extra SSDs to record to in parallel.  
> **username_2**: I'm faced with that issue at my current job quite often, mostly concerning playback but its the same for writing when it comes to high-end synchronous SSDs. Lets take a completely lossless approach. An uncompressed full HD frame is 5.93262 MB in size. JPEG2000 can compress a lossless frame at a ratio of 2:1 on average. Ususally even better. At 60 FPS that would mean we would need to write at 177,9786 MB/s per second. Times 3 we are at 533,9358 MB/s. Thats scratching at the limits of SATA3 SSDs but still possible when having a reasonably sized RAM buffer and no issue at all with PCI-E SSDs.  
> **username_2**: Though the reason I mentioned h264 is that its one of the few codecs that have full hardware support in many devices. If you dont go for hardware encoding you will need a quite powerfull system, though if money is really not an issue at all you can just go for a crazy system with 64GB of RAM and 12+ cores. That will cost you about 2000-3000$ (self built) but will definitely get the job done if the software can keep up with that, not all capture card drivers are made for having multiple capture devices in the system.  

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