Building a Micro HD-SDI Encoder

Some brief notes on building a tiny, low power, low cost HD-SDI encoder. The total power consumption of the encoder is less than 20 watts.

BOM:

Intel NUC with 2.5″ bay and M.2 Slot.

120GB 2.5″ SATA SSD

8GB DDR4

Blackmagic Design Decklink Micro

DeckLink SDI Micro Cable, order code: BDLKMICROSDI

The Decklink Micro fits perfectly into the M.2 slot on the Intel NUC board – the NUC has a heat-spreader on the 2.5″ Drive cage that makes contact with the Decklink Micro and should provide adequate heat dissipation.

The software used for the encoder will be Gstreamer,

Gstreamer supports both Intel QSV for offloaded H264 encoding, and the Blackmagic Device.