About recording

You can record a channel on Pearl-2 as AVI, MOV, MPEG-TS, MP4, or MP4-Fragmented. Easily stop and start recording using any of the following: 

Epiphan product Admin panel Device screen Epiphan Edge Epiphan Live
Pearl Mini and Pearl-2 Yes Yes (Including single touch feature) Yes Yes

If an accidental system shutdown occurs while recording is in progress, your recordings are closed off so they are still playable. Physically unplugging a video source from the input port or otherwise interrupting the signal does not stop recording. A No Signal image is inserted.

Pearl-2 also comes with APIs so you can set up third party tools to control recording. For information on the current REST API, see: Pearl System REST API Guide. For information on the Legacy APIs, see: Pearl System Legacy RS-232/HTTP API Guide.

You can set the maximum recording time or file size limit using the Admin panel. The default recording limits are set to 30 minutes or 500 MB, whichever comes first. When the time or file size limit is reached, the current recording is saved and a new recording file starts automatically without losing any content. When the local drive is full, newer recordings overwrite oldest recordings.

Important considerations

  • If recordings are selected for Automatic File Upload (AFU) while AFU is at maximum upload capacity or when AFU is unavailable, the recordings are added to an upload queue. If there is no available space left in the storage medium, new recordings fail and do not overwrite recordings in the AFU queue.
  • For information about recording to Content Management Systems (CMSs) like Kaltura and Panopto, see CMS recording and webcasting control.
  • Pearl-2 - If the channel that is recording is an auto channel, a new recording is started if the video input source automatically switches from one video source to another due to signal loss.
  • Pearl-2 - You can also set up multi-track recorders on Pearl-2, see Multitrack Recorders.
  • Pearl-2 - While actively recording a multiple-channel recorder, a new file is created if an additional video input source is added to the recorder.

Tested media players

Epiphan has tested recordings with the following players. See Troubleshooting Quick Reference for known player issues.

Tested Media Players

Operating System Tested Players
Mac OS
  • QuickTime 10.3
  • QuickTime 7.6.6+
  • VLC 2.2.4
  • Playback Pro 2.3.2
  • Final Cut Pro 10.3.2
  • Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017
Windows
  • QuickTime 7.6.6+
  • VLC 2.2.6
  • Windows Media player 12+
  • Movies & TV (Windows 10)
  • Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015
Linux
  • MPlayer
  • VLC 2.2.2
HTML 5 Browsers (Windows)
  • Google Chrome 37+ (works with MOV and MP4 files using H.264 codec)

Not all media players and editors support all recording formats, such as the more modern MP4-fragmented format. To playback MOV files created by the Pearl device, we recommend using a newer media player.