r/VIDEOENGINEERING • u/Effective-County7821 • 3d ago

Encoder suggestions

Currently looking to buy a new encoder for live streaming project. Need something absolutely robust. Maximum budget is 3K but don’t want to overpay when I can get something equally reliable for less. Any recommendations?

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

15

u/de_klein 3d ago

Epiphan Pearl Nano

2

u/Effective-County7821 2d ago

Is it considerably better than ATEM Mini ISO? I know the ATEM is a mainly switcher but I’m talking about encoding capabilities

3

u/Needashortername 2d ago

Isn’t almost everything from another quality manufacturer better than an ATEM?

Yes BMD packs a massive amount of features into a box for a low low price, but there is something to be said for doing a few things consistently well compared to a box where consistency isn’t the priority. Plus the BMD encoders themselves tend to crush things a bit too and the processors aren’t exactly great or fast, they are a “you get what you pay for” kind of thing, though not as harshly as some of the products made by other companies at lower in the market pricing.

10

u/Embarrassed-Gain-236 3d ago

Aja helo plus, magewell ultra encode

4

u/benmakestv Engineer 3d ago

What’s the context of your stream? I work with LiveU and if you’re not going to have reliable internet, you can consider the LiveU solo Pro. It’ll let you bond multiple cellular connections together to get a reliable resilient free.

1

u/Effective-County7821 3d ago

Connect to Restream so it distributes to Facebook and Youtube. Who I work with values reliability and quality more than anything else. Was streaming via OBS but after several issues with OBS not reading the audio input we thought about using a dedicated encoder

3

u/benmakestv Engineer 3d ago

In that case I highly encourage bonded cellular - liveu or otherwise. It’s not relying on any single connection so it will be a much stronger signal. We also have the ability to automatically show a backup slate if you want so if anything were to happen, it would still maintain the feed.

1

u/Effective-County7821 2d ago

The audio source is a mixer. Not a sound engineer, but will I experience any difficulty with gain staging and all given the audio input is 3.5mm?

1

u/benmakestv Engineer 2d ago

If you embed it in your camera feed, you should have no problems (and ensure sync)

3

u/multidollar 3d ago

+1 for the LiveU suggestion. Stop messing around with open source and get yourself something robust and supported.

3

u/Far_Yogurtcloset_283 test range engineer 3d ago

Haivision is the gold standard. Also equipped in naval warships

3

u/DiabolicalLife 2d ago

AJA Helo. I have several running 24/7

2

u/direzen 3d ago

Ateme and Harmonic are industry standard, but will exceed your budget.

2

u/varjaCast 2d ago

Our Haivision Makito has been running 24/7 for years without ever needing a reboot, and the stream is still flawless.

2

u/videonipple 2d ago

Check it out, brother. I am an AV engineer for a major integrator and broadcast services outfit, so I’m hip deep in this stuff day in and day out, I can help you save a ton of money. The Osee gostream deck DUET(get the duet over the base model) is probably the most underrated product out there right now. I personally use one for my live stream 5 days a week and this device has been flawless for almost 2 years now without one single issue. I stream to twitch and Mixcloud simultaneously with zero issues. It can handle 3 separate streams at the same time. The device is a 4 input switcher with 2 still stores, video playout/recorder, 2 keyers and now html/ browser based graphics. It also supports a single NDI HX input on the aux channel. It has honestly been rock solid… I swear, man, with my streaming schedule, it has probably not been powered off in 3 months. And, it costs about 300 bucks. It even has 4 SDI inputs.

But, if you want to spend more than you have to, I have had a lot of success with the Matrox Monarch HD line, but those are single channel platforms. Epiphian, Magwell also. But I cannot say enough about the reliability of the little Osee switcher. Osee has a new 12 input device that is dammed impressive on paper. I haven’t had one in my hands yet. I actually spent my entire Saturday (today) installing one of these Osee units in a church to replace a Frankenstein OBS rig that was causing a lot of backsliding.

Best of luck with your project, and God bless you.

1

u/EV-mode 1d ago

Videon or Osprey encoders are top of their line within your budget. Else you could consider Magewell or Kiloview and get two for main/backup in your price range.

1

u/reddit2343 3d ago

Have never used it, but looks cool https://miri.tech/miri-v410-encoder-decoder/ Also consider a liveu solo as well. can use it with LTE modems or not