Tricaster Mini HDMI Encoder not writing H264 files.

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Frogman1206

Member
I have a sporadic problem I can't duplicate that my co-worker keeps having happen to him.

We have the Tricaster Mini HDMI that was purchased around 2021 so it is fairly new. The Encode option encodes 2 streams. We use one for our webcast and our second one we record direct to the Sessions folder on the D drive. Recently we have had the incident where everything appears to be working correctly. No errors from the stream or File Capture stopping. At the end of the program he goes to pull the file from the Sessions folder and it is either not there or very small (ex...108kb). The icon in the upper right that has warnings and errors never says there was a problem. We record that h.264 at 5mb just for our archives. We are also recoding to external recorders so we have not lost a program yet but it is much more work to get our replays published from the external recorders than that archive from the File Capture function.

Why is the file not recording. I told him to check the performance stats and make sure Drive D is functioning after the encoder starts. I am hoping it is a user issue but wanted to ask if this has happened to anyone else.

Thanks
 
BBZ Studios said:
Best to record the files as MX .mov then export them as .mxf h.264 files.

Cheers
Joe
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That recording for us is nothing more than an archive we can upload to our webcasting site for replays. We will often upload the mp4 direct. By saving to another format and then making an mp4 we then lose efficiency in our workflow. Then every program has to be edited which slows things down during our busy season. If I wanted to do that I would just use the redundant backup we create with an external recorder that records in ProRes Proxy.
 
Frogman1206 said:
I have a sporadic problem I can't duplicate that my co-worker keeps having happen to him.
...
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Are you saying you cannot duplicate this on another TC Mini unit, or just the same Mini HW like your co-worker, but maybe using anothers session like he is?

I´m pretty sure you are already on one of the recent TC SW Builds+corresponsing GPU driver version, correct?
 
FrankPW said:
Are you saying you cannot duplicate this on another TC Mini unit, or just the same Mini HW like your co-worker, but maybe using anothers session like he is?

I´m pretty sure you are already on one of the recent TC SW Builds+corresponsing GPU driver version, correct?
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He has had it happen on the unit he uses from his home office for productions and also the main unit we have in our corporate studio. Both are identical systems. I am going to watch his workflow tomorrow to see if I can uncover something unusual he is doing. I also have an identical system at my home studio and have not had the problem recording to the D drive sessions folder. We have both experienced issues recording to external USB C SSD drives so now we only record to the internal Sessions drive and then quickly copy the files to our external drive we use for archives.
 
FrankPW said:
are these 2 D:\ drives he is workung with running out of avaiable free space, compared to yours ?
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I just checked the one in our office studio today where it happened last week to him. There was 250+gb free of 1tb of space so plenty of room on the drive on that machine. I will have to find out about the home based machine. It does not get used that frequently so so I don't think it is full but I will check on that.
 
hmm..., ´purchased around 2021´ (some more thoughts from my end on this point):

- defrag D:\ drive(s) ?
- are systems in all aspects indeed ´identical´ (e.g. WIN Updates level, TC MIni HDMI SW version(s); ...)

and yes,
Kane mentioned recently in here he´s also not so ´happy´ with external USB SSD recording solutions :unsure:
Some Budgets available for a Network Storage Solution? ;)
 
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FrankPW said:
hmm..., ´purchased around 2021´ (some more thoughts from my end on this point):

- defrag D:\ drive(s) ?
- are systems in all aspects indeed ´identical´ (e.g. WIN Updates level, TC MIni HDMI SW version(s); ...)

and yes,
Kane mentioned recently in here he´s also not so ´happy´ with external USB SSD recording solutions :unsure:
Some Budgets available for a Network Storage Solution? ;)
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We gave up on external USBC recording because we both had problems. For the record our external drives are NVME m.2 drives in external enclosures that get well over 1000mbs read write speed. They are not your typical cheap external SSDs.

The systems are indeed all up to date and match. I don't see how network storage would help as that would also be an external drive that we have had issues with.

We have not defragged the D drive. Is it indeed ok to defrag a SSD drive. I have heard arguments on both side that you should and should not.
 
My experience with USB recording is most of these solutions are showing burst level specs. However, we are dealing with a workflow that doesn't care about burst performance but sustained performance. This is much harder to pin down from the specs.

A recording test of two or three channels video will likely work with about any solution for a few minutes, but how about over 30 minutes, 1 hour what about 2 hours in? After this you are beyond the caching aspects and dealing with raw drive performance. This is where you will find out if the solution really holds up.

On top of that, USB bring in another performance aspect that is hard to pin down. It's a shared bus, so other USB devices are there? There are two methods of USB file transmission (BoT and UASP). Not to mention there is overheard of the USB protocol on top of the drive communication, along with the different chipsets on both on the computer and external device. Sometimes, all it takes is the small jostle on the cable causing a disconnect/reconnect.

It's to many variables to pin down and why I'm always telling people to do a full-length recording test to see if it works. It's the only way to know.

As for NAS, I find these solutions address many of these aspects. Network storage communication protocols have gotten to be efficient, with little overhead. Most NAS solution are RAID protected offering better performance and security. No to mention that often the next step over recording is to copy the files somewhere else, with a NAS you can save the files directly to where they are needed. The main aspect to account for it network bandwidth between your recording needs and NDI traffic (if you are using these together).
 
kanep said:
My experience with USB recording is most of these solutions are showing burst level specs. However, we are dealing with a workflow that doesn't care about burst performance but sustained performance. This is much harder to pin down from the specs.

A recording test of two or three channels video will likely work with about any solution for a few minutes, but how about over 30 minutes, 1 hour what about 2 hours in? After this you are beyond the caching aspects and dealing with raw drive performance. This is where you will find out if the solution really holds up.

On top of that, USB bring in another performance aspect that is hard to pin down. It's a shared bus, so other USB devices are there? There a twomethods of USB file transmission (BoT and UASP). Not to mention there is overheard of the USB protocol on top of the drive communication, along with the different chipsets on both on the computer and external device. Sometimes, all it takes is the small jostle on the cable causing a disconnect/reconnect.

It's to many variables to pin down and why I'm always telling people to do a full-length recording test to see if it works. It's the only way to know.

As for NAS, I find these solutions address many of these aspects. Network storage communication protocols have gotten to be efficient, with little overhead. Most NAS solution are RAID protected offering better performance and security. No to mention that often the next step over recording is to copy the files somewhere else, with a NAS you can save the files directly to where they are needed. The main aspect to account for it network bandwidth between your recording needs and NDI traffic (if you are using these together).
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But I'm not trying to record to an external source. We tied the USB thing and quit because of issues from time to time. What we are having problems with is the recording from the Encoder that is mapped to record on the internal D drive to the projects default folder. What would cause it to not record. One from last friday had a file size of 108kb...basically 1 frame.
 
Understood - this was just to provide a bit more background on ´why (maybe not) USB´, if you or other readers of this thread may be interested in :)

Please give us your feedback if you saw something ´unusual´ while you looked your ´co-worker´ over the shoulder.
 
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It all worked great yesterday for our program. I checked his settings and they were correct. I showed him how to check the performance setting to see the D drive is writing data through the icon in the upper right that shows errors. It was showing 2 to 3% and there was a 14gb file there yesterday at the end of the program. It seems sporadic. He thinks there is a bug but I told him we need to see it happen and recreate it before we can report it. He asked what I would do if I saw it was not recording when all the indicators were checked to make it work. I told him to uncheck the box for the encoder File Capture. Exit the pop up and then recheck the box. Then check the performance again. We will have to see if anything happens when he is following those steps. I stressed for him to check the performance settings for the D drive everytime as soon as he starts the File Capture process.

We will see if his problem goes away now.
 
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