Review: AJA HELO Streaming & Recording Device
The AJA HELO H.264 Encoder is an excellent entry into the existing AJA line of products. Don't let the small form factor fool you--this device packs advanced compression control, streaming, recording, and scheduling features for a reasonable price.
Within a Streaming Profile, you can set the live streaming destination parameters, including stream type (RTMP, RTSP, RTP / UDP-TS), and destination URL, and publisher credentials if applicable.
Recording Features
The HELO can simultaneously record to a local or network storage, and live stream to a remote server. The front panel of the HELO has both USB 2.0 and SD card slots. You can record to two storage areas simultaneously from the HELO.
On the Recording Profiles page, you can set a primary recording destination, as well as a secondary destination, as shown in Figure 7 (below). The primary recording is set in the Recording Media Type option, allowing the recording to be written to a USB-attached storage device, SD card, a CIFS network share, or a NFS network share. The Secondary Recording Media Type option allows you to specify the USB or SD slot. You can use exFAT or FAT32 formatted SD, SDHC, or SDXC cards with the HELO.
Figure 7. Recording Media Type options
You can also control file options for the recording, including filename prefix, starting segment number, and segment duration (Figure 8, below). For live recordings, it’s a good idea to use shorter segments in the event of any potential media corruption on the storage device. You can specify the wrapper (or muxer) type for the recorded segments, including MOV, MP4, and TS. You can record up to 360 minutes per segment. If you have multiple segments during recording, you can concatenate the segments in a video editor or with video utilities such as FFmpeg.
Figure 8. File options in a recording profile
New in firmware v2.0, you can download recordings directly from the HELO admin interface by clicking the Primary or Secondary storage links under the Recordings area of the left-hand navigation pane. As shown in Figure 9 (below), the recorded segments are listed as a directory. To download one or more files, enable the checkbox to the left of each recorded file. Then, click the data transfer icon (two parallel arrows pointing opposite directions) to reveal the Download button. When you click the Download button, the files will download over the network to your local computer.
Figure 9. Recordings listing
Note: The data transfer button is available in two locations: the top right main control bar, and the file directory listing control bar.
Scheduler
Last but not least, the HELO offers a built-in scheduler to automate the starting and stopping of recordings and live streaming. To access the schedule, click the Scheduler link in the left-hand navigation pane. The Scheduler Control page (Figure 10, below) enables you to manage a local calendar on the HELO, or load a schedule from a remote source such as a Google calendar. You can also import and export ICS files from this page.
Figure 10. Scheduler Control
Summary
The AJA HELO H.264 Encoder is an excellent entry into the existing AJA line of products. Don’t let the small form factor fool you--this device packs advanced compression control, streaming, recording, and scheduling features for a reasonable price. AJA continues to add new features and bug fixes with firmware releases. Be sure to check the HELO support page [https://www.aja.com/products/helo#support] for future updates to the product.
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