That old black magic

Just a quick note on what I have been doing the last few weeks.
I am now back working on support for software codecs in express gui.

I believe that because of patent reasons the standard version of FFMPEG shipped
with most Linux distributions does not contain the required MPEG4, HEVC
and audio encoders.

This has meant I have had to build from source my own special version of FFMPEG
that includes the required codec support.

I have also downloaded and installed the Blackmagic DeckLink SDK so I can
capture video and audio from the DeckLink HDMI mini Recorder card I have.
Unfortunately it seems the audio block sizes are dependent on the video frame
interval. This means they are the wrong size for the audio codec so some
buffering is required to get the sound blocks the correct size.

So far I have been able to capture video from a Webcam, HDMI input and some old
SD video capture cards (based on SA7134 and SA7113 chips).  When it works the
Transport Stream looks very good (compared to the one from the Hauppauge) as the
PCR/DTS/PTS clocks are exactly how they should be.

The are so many options and combinations of parameters available now that it is
likely going to be very difficult to configure correctly. With the huge range of video
sources and formats available it is going to be extremely difficult to support.

For the time being the software codec support will not be made available in the
.deb distribution, if people want to use it they will have to build everything from
source (both Express and FFMPEG) themselves.

I have no idea of when the source code for codec support will be finished.
Currently I am still working on it and learning an awful lot about video as I go.
This is primarily a personal project.

In my next post I hope to do a write up on the 10 GHz VNA adapter I am making.