FAQ

Saturn series video acquisition computers feature Magewell “Eco Capture” familly framegrabber modules.
http://www.magewell.com
Within the framegrabber, the high frequency serial input video (SDI or HDMI) is first desirialized. Audio signal is splitted from the video.

Video data is further processed according to which configuration is set by the user.
Following hardware processing is possible within the framegrabber:
Deinterlacing, Cropping, Color Adjustment, Hardware Timestamp, Color Space Conversion, Up/down Conversion and Aspect Ratio Conversion.
The parallel video and audio data is then transmitted to the host computer via a M.2 PCIe Gen2 x4 interface. The PCIe kernel driver uses a so-called scatter gather DMA transmission to import the data into the host PC.
The kernel driver is such, that it makes the framegrabber appear as a standard “sound, video and game controller” device which is compatible to DirectShow, DirectKS or Wave API/DirectSound/WASAPI for Windows and V4L2 or ALSA for Linux.
These low level APIs connect to application level frameworks such as OBS, vMix, Amcap etc.
These applications can route the video through the Intel GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) that applies further processing such as compression through its Intel Quick sync video interface prior to recording or streaming

A list can be found here:

http://www.magewell.com/compatible-software

Note that this list is not complete. Essentially all software based on standard multimedia low level APIs should work. Let us know if you have difficulties to make our modules work with your software and we will help you fixing it.

This is a huge topic that cannot be fully covered here.
Video needs to be compressed in order to be able to transmit it over limited bandwidth networks or to record it to storage disks without exploding the required space.
There are essentially two possibilities to compress the video (note that we mean combined audio and video when referring to video):
1-Software compression
2-Hardware compression
Software compression refers to pure CPU based video compression. X264 codec is a good example for this.
Hardware compression refers in our case to Intel Quick sync video (QSV) GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) based compression.
for more precision, please also refer to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video

Intel Cores embed a dedicated chip in a chip that is dedicated to video processing with special focus on compression (encoding) and decompression (decoding). This COmpression/DECompression capability is sometimes also referred to as CODEC.
Most popular compression formats are H.264, HEVC(or H.265), VC-1 and VP9. These formats vary in the way they use dedicated tools.

The respective standards actually specify how video should be decoded. This allows various algorithms to be implemented on the encoding side.
While H.264 is mainly used for 1080p HD video resolution, HEVC is seen as the successor intended to be used for 4K and higher resolutions.

After this initial step, one needs to combine audio and video in a so-called multiplexing format (also referred to as container formats) such as ASF, MP4, MKV, AVI etc.
These container formats also insert precise time stamps neededs to insure correct lip sync as well as correct playback. Inaccurate time stamps can lead to lip sync missmatches as well as increased delay in live transmissions.

The framegrabbers used on abateck video acquisition computers manage time stamps internally using high precision oscillators, thus making sure, all further processing modules inherit accurate timing. Abateck engineers have many years experience in all the topics covered in this item.
Feel free to contacts us if you need any precision regarding this.

This topic has already been covered on:

http://www.magewell.com/kb/eco-capture#/compatible-software

Compatible software to abateck video acquisition computers do each have dedicated ways to setup recording.
http://www.magewell.com/compatible-software

Most of the time it is as simple as clicking on a record button. Usually a pop-up window now asks for a full target path to the destination recording file.

The capture parameters are configured via so called “Directshow property page”.

This is possible via “Directshow property page” of the Magewell acquisition module.
Please refer to topic “How do I configure capture parameters on Saturn series video acquisition computers?” Where this has been discussed.

This is possible via “Directshow property page” of the Magewell acquisition module.
Please refer to topic “How do I configure capture parameters on Saturn series video acquisition computers?” Where this has been discussed.

This is possible via “Directshow property page” of the Magewell acquisition module.
Please refer to topic “How do I configure capture parameters on Saturn series video acquisition computers?” Where this has been discussed.