My video rig was really not portable, so I decided to try to build a compact workstation that can be easily transported. My goal was to not spend too much money.
I wasn't really recording much on my video workstation, so the installed Blackmagic capture card was hardly used. Also I wanted to try AV1 hardware encoding. With the new Intel Arc graphics cards there are now affordable options starting at € 110 for an A310.
The motherboard needed to have 2 PCI Express x16 slots. One PCIe 4.0 for the graphics card and one PCIe 3.0 for the capture card. Also, at least 1 M.2 PCIe 4.0 slot to add NVMe storage.
Mini ITX boards can only have 1 PCI Express x16 slot. So I went with a Micro ATX board. I chose one with 2 M.2 slots, so I could reuse a small NVMe drive that was left over from a laptop upgrade. This was used to install the operating system. The 2nd NVMe drive has a high writing speed, and is used for storing the video recordings.
I figured AMD Ryzen AM4 processors are fast enough (and affordable) for the new rig, because the graphics card will do most of the heavy lifting. A processor with a TDP of 65W, should not produce too much heat, so I could use a small CPU cooler.
In the beginning, I used a Noctua CPU cooler, but under full load the maximum allowed temperature was reached, when running Cinebench. Not an entirely realistic scenario, but a new "be quiet!" fan did better. And it also cools the memory. Additionally, I replaced the ATX PSU with a smaller SFX version to improve air flow.
As a case I used is the Jonsbo C6. They offer a variant with a handle, so you can carry it. In the front it has an USB-A and USB-C connection. So you can easily hook up an external drive to copy videos. For the bottom intake fan I had to use a 120mm fan with a low profile of 17mm, because a 140mm fan or a fan with a regular height of 25mm would not fit under the capture card. The top exhaust fan is a regular 140mm one.
The graphics card takes up the space of 2 slots. The motherboard has a PCI Express x1 slot below the first PCI Express slot, but this is blocked by the graphics card. Also the bottom M.2 slot is covered by the graphics card, so this is only accessible if you remove the card.
Initially, I installed Ubuntu Studio 24.04 LTS. This ships with OBS Studio. Unfortunately, this OBS build does not ship with an embedded web browser. That would make it possible to create screens with HTML and CSS, or embed webpages with live chats. OBS is available as a flatpak, that includes the embedded browser. But the flatpak does not support Blackmagic devices. So I basically would have to compile OBS Studio from source. I have done this before, but it is not something I want to do if it can be avoided. NixOS could be an option, because various packages for OBS are available.
With Linux you basically have 2 major problems. First, support for Blackmagic devices is not as good as on Windows. For example, Zoom does not recognise Blackmagic cards as a webcam. Second, support for Intel Arc cards is lagging behind. Hardware encoding was also not available in OBS. So in the end I decided to install Windows.
The total costs were around € 1300, but the capture card is by far the most expensive component, currently costing around € 525. The build cost is about the same as a Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Extreme ISO, but that can only record video up to 1080p/60.
This setup does not have wifi. Wifi is quite spotty, especially if you have to share bandwidth with other people. Wired connections are far more robust if you want to do video streaming. If you need to use a wireless connection, you would probably want to use something like the LiveU Solo, Teradek Prism, or Speedify, that provide network bonding over multiple and/or different types of connections.
So, was it worth it? I think so. Until now I had no real issues, but I haven't used it to do a full day of uninterrupted recording yet.
Here are some photos of the custom build and below the component list of this PC.
[Update] Because the graphics card was (too) close to the capture card, I replaced the motherboard with a better layout of the PCIe and M.2 slots. And slapped a Frapuu sticker on the back!
Components
- Case: Jonsbo C6 Handle
- Capture Card: Blackmagic Design DeckLink Quad HDMI Recorder
- Graphics card: ASRock Arc A310 Low Profile
- Motherboard:
Gigabyte B550M DS3H rev. 1.7ASRock B550M Phantom Gaming 4 - Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
- Memory: 2x16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX
- NVMe storage:
- Verbatim Vi7000G 2TB
- Samsung 256GB
- Fans:
- be quiet! Shadow Rock LP
- Endorfy Stratus 140 PWM
- Scythe Kaze Flex 120 Slim
- Power: Seasonic FOCUS SGX 650W