Blackmagic Pro Recorder v’s Canopus Box

photo (1)Last week I received my Blackmagic H.264 Pro Recorder, for anybody who hasn’t come across this device before it is a Video Encoder. Effectively it takes a camera feed converts it (in this case to H.264, currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video) and provides a connection to your laptop.

Why Do You Need It?

1) The old device – Canopus Box – used a Firewire connection into the laptop. Most PC’s no longer come with Firewire.

2) It has many more input types than the Canopus Box. The Canopus box takes an analogue signal in! Remember all that money you spent on a Digital Camera and then you run an analogue signal out of it convert that to a digital signal and put it back into your laptop. Now you no longer have to.

3) The Blackmagic takes digital inputs. Mainly HDMI, but there are other formats you can take in depending on your equipment.

4) It works on MAC and PC.

photo (3)5) The connection to your laptop is via USB – so there are no laptop compatibility issues.

6) It converts the footage. The Canopus box takes ‘raw’ video meaning the video files are large. The Blackmagic converts the footage so you get an easy to use file format and it’s not too big.

The downside is that it needs power, but if you can get around this it’s a great option. Price £369 on Amazon.

It is worth checking that your coding software can take the feed from this device. 

thevideoanalyst

thevideoanalyst

Rob Carroll. Founder of The Video Analyst.com Performance Analyst. Always learning.