Epiphan Video Pearl-2 Rackmount | All in one video encoder and video production system - Rackmount

Epiphan Pearl-2™ is the easiest way to do *4K live streaming, switching, and recording

Manage your streaming, recording, and live switching in one place with this all-in-one video encoder and video production system.

*Requires the 4K feature add-on

Stream to viewers everywhere

Simultaneously live stream to YouTube, Facebook or other content delivery networks and content management systems using SRT, HLS, MPEG-DASH, custom RTMP/RTMPS, and RTSP. At the same time, use the built-in streaming server to stream locally to web browsers, smart TVs, and set-top boxes. Integration with Kaltura and Panopto CMSs means no complicated stream URLs to set up. Just schedule your webcast event and start streaming.

Share your webcast

Locally share unicast or multicast streams to up to 50 viewers with popular streaming protocols such as HTTP, HLS, FLV, ASF, UPnP, and SAP.

Secure streaming

Stream content securely with Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) end-to-end 256 bit AES encryption, HLS and MPEG-DASH over HTTPS, as well as Real Time Messaging Protocol Secure (RTMPS).

Leverage SRT for high-quality, low-latency video streaming

The Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol uses the latest in live streaming technology to keep your live video productions looking great. Add a remote guest or contributor over SRT to bring professional-quality sources into your Pearl-powered productions.

4K* Recording

Harness the power of Pearl-2’s 6th generation Intel i7 processor to capture stunning 4K* video at 30 fps. Pearl-2’s hardware-accelerated encoder provides flawless H.264 encoding for maximum compatibility and performance with any video portal or player.

*Requires the 4K feature add-on

Internal 500 GB SSD drive

Save recordings directly to the internal 500 GB solid state drive. Easily download recordings and manage files using the Admin panel or Epiphan Live.

Automatic or manual file uploads

Fail-proof recording to the local SSD hard drive while automatically transferring recorded files to a USB drive, local server or network storage (FTP or SFTP).

Switch video sources live

Incredibly easy to use, Pearl 2’s intuitive touch screen makes switching between your video sources and layouts a breeze. Or use the browser-based Epiphan Live and switch from almost anywhere using a tablet, PC, or mobile phone.

Custom layout designer

Design custom layouts like PiP with the easy drag-and-drop custom layout editor. Combine, crop, and scale video sources to make dynamic layouts. Add transparent png images, custom backgrounds, text overlays, timestamps, and more.

Easy PiP layouts

Make PiP, side-by-side, three-quarter layouts and more for dynamic-looking visual presentations. The possibilities are endless.

Chroma key for green screens and graphics

Pearl-2’s chroma key support allows for easy green screen setups and third party titling software to include rich animations and lower thirds.

Images and dynamic text

Customize the look of your event with transparent PNG images and custom backgrounds. Easily add timestamps and other dynamic text content to layouts. Create custom system variables for even more flexibility, like adding the current GPS location.

Video inputs

Connect cameras, computers, imaging equipment, or just about anything to Pearl-2. Standard and custom resolutions up to 4096×2160 from SDI, HDMI, and USB sources are accepted, as well as network-based H.264 RTSP, NDI®, NDI|HX, and SRT sources.

• 2× 12G SDI
• 2× HDMI 1.4a
• 2× 4K HDMI
• 2× USB 3.0 (UVC/UAC)
• NDI / NDI|HX
• SRT
• RTSP (H.264)

Video output

Send an HDMI feed of your switched program to projectors for front-of-house presentations, display walls, or monitors for confidence monitoring. Share the program output or any individual input source.

• 2× HDMI
• NDI, RTSP, SRT

Network

Connect to the network over Ethernet.

• 1× 10/100/1000 Ethernet port (RJ45)

Audio inputs

Mix embedded audio from you video sources with audio from professional mixers or other audio devices with individual input gain controls. Confidently monitor audio levels with on-screen VU meters and headphones.

• 4 × XLR pro line level (+4.0 dBu) up to 12.3 VRMS, +24 dBu (balanced/unbalanced, mono or two L/R stereo pairs)
• 1 × RCA consumer line level -10 dBV (L/R stereo pair)

Audio output

Connect headphones to the front-mounted 3.5 mm audio jack and monitor audio levels with on-screen VU meters.

• 1 × 3.5 mm audio jack

Plug and play, or tweak to perfection

Pearl-2 is ready to use out of the box. Connect video sources directly to the HDMI inputs and start recording those right away using the intuitive touch screen. Or dig into the control interface and create a truly custom video presentation experience for your viewers.

Epiphan Live™

Switch your live program and instantly see the results using Epiphan Live.

API and RS-232

Comprehensive HTTP/HTTPS and RS-232 APIs for third party integrations.

Remote login

Login to your Pearl-2 securely from anywhere over an Internet connection. Quickly take control of Pearl-2 for remote rescue troubleshooting; support technicians in the field; and control recording, switching, and more.

Web-based UI for advanced control

From the web-based Admin panel, set up your channels and recorders, select custom resolutions and streaming options, configure security features like 802.1x, monitor system health, and more.

Local Admin panel

No need to bring along a laptop to configure Pearl-2. Connect a USB mouse, keyboard, and HDMI monitor for easy Admin panel access anywhere, anytime. You can even use a touch screen monitor.

Integrate with your Crestron System

Integrate Pearl-2 encoders more easily into Crestron AV systems using the Crestron-developed Control Module for Pearl. The bulk of the coding is already done. Build upon the Crestron driver’s existing code base for secure, API control over HTTP or HTTPS.

Comprehensive CMS support including Kaltura and Panopto

Full API integrations provide an effortless lecture capture and enterprise communication setup experience. Simply register Pearl-2 with your CMS to start using the encoder for scheduled, multi-camera VOD events, ad hoc events, and webcasting without complicated programming.

NDI® and NDI|HX for network video production

Pearl-2 supports NDI and alpha channels for broadcast quality video with low latency over Gigabit Ethernet networks. No extra HDMI or SDI cables required. Pearl-2 accepts video and audio from a wide variety of NDI enabled devices and cameras on the network. Plus it’s just as easy to share the output from Pearl-2 with other NDI devices on the network.

Secure live streaming and control

Stream securely using the latest protocols. Pearl encoders support Secure Reliable transport (SRT) with end-to-end 256 bit AES encryptions, HLS and MPEG-DASH over HTTPS, as well as Real Time Messaging Protocol Secure (RTMPS). And enjoy worry-free deployment in your enterprise network with support for 802.1x certificate authentication and HTTPS for encrypted admin access.

Digital certificate management

Pearl-2 supports PEAP, EAP-TLS, and EAP-TTLS authentication access control methods on 802.1x networks using passwords, usernames, and digital certificates. Easily upload and manage digital certificates on Pearl-2 using the Admin panel.

Role-based access control and LDAP support

Login to Pearl-2 with administrator, operator, or viewer privileges. LDAP authentication support on Pearl-2 lets you define domain name (DN) groups to assign user roles in bulk so users can login with their LDAP credentials.

Secure streaming

Get end-to-end secure streaming with up to 256 bit AES encryption using SRT or encrypt content over TLS/SSL connections using RTMPS. Use HLS and MPEG-DASH to secure live streaming over HTTPS.

HTTPS and SFTP secure data transport

Securely access the Admin panel and configure Pearl-2 over an HTTPS connection. Encrypt and send sensitive recordings from Pearl-2 to offsite SFTP servers using the Automatic File Transfer.

Advanced networking

Pearl-2 is flexible and easy to connect to the network with auto discovery. View and reconfigure the IP address directly on Pearl-2 using the touch screen. Configure DHCP and perform network diagnostic troubleshooting from the Admin panel.

What's new for Pearl in 4.18.0

New NDI|HX support for Pearl Mini

• Supports up to two NDI|HX inputs
• Queries NDI Discovery server for available NDI sources

Expanded NDI support for Pearl-2

• Upgraded to NDI 5
• Supports up to three Full Bandwidth NDI inputs
• Supports up to six NDI|HX inputs
• Allows one Full Bandwidth NDI output in 4K30 or four 1080p30 outputs
• Queries and registers with an NDI Discovery server

Epiphan Connect for Microsoft Teams direct integration

• All Pearl systems now have a direct Epiphan Connect integration when paired with Epiphan Cloud
• Allows users to bring Microsoft Teams participants and screen share into their productions in 1080p HD with isolated audio.
• Start streams via drop-down menus with automatically configured SRT settings.

Improved robustness of Panopto integration

• If Panopto is not reachable at the scheduled start time, a Pearl configured to record a webcast event will automatically begin recording to local storage.

Additional updates

• Easier SRT configuration
• Improved discovery of Epiphan Live switcher

What's new for Pearl in 4.17.3

New features and updates

• Added support for closed-loop fan speed control on the thermal load of Pearl-2. As the thermal load increases fan RPM increases, and as the thermal load decreases fan RPM decreases.
• An issue has been resolved wherein configuration presets that contained Epiphan Cloud data from one Pearl were applied to another Pearl which then caused a hard lock of that Pearl upon reboot. A better handling of this information has been implemented in this release to prevent the hard locking of these Pearls on reboot.
• An issue has been resolved wherein occasionally Epiphan Cloud team members were not able to access the Admin interface of a paired Pearl unit.
• An issue has been resolved with Pearl Mini wherein using an HDMI extender could cause the HDMI video signal to drop before it reached the Pearl Mini.

Note all Pearl-2 users

All Pearl-2 units manufactured after November 2022 will have a new LCD screen and a new fan that require firmware version 4.17.3 or higher. These Pearl-2 devices cannot be downgraded to previous versions. Similarly, old Pearl-2 units whose fans require repair will have the new model of fan installed. These Pearl-2 units also require firmware release 4.17.3 and cannot be downgraded to older firmware versions.

What's new for Pearl in 4.17

We're pleased to announce the release of firmware version 4.17 for the Pearl family of professional video encoders. The new version includes numerous bug fixes and security enhancements, as well as several useful feature updates for our YuJa customers.

New YuJa features

• Support for starting and stopping scheduled YuJa events early using Pearl.
• Support for pausing and resuming YuJa events in progress using Pearl.
• Support for extending a YuJa event in progress using Pearl management interface.

Other new features and updates

• Firmware version 4.17 is the last version to support connections to UPnP-enabled devices.
• Support for Kuando BusyLight Alpha and Omega model 2.
• Addition of brute force password attack prevention. If the same IP address tries and fails to log in to Pearl 50 times in a row within 60 seconds, Pearl will block further attempts to log in from that IP address for 60 seconds.
• Security vulnerability fixes.
• Bug fixes.

Note all Pearl Nano users

• Pearl Nano devices with serial numbers that begin with "GSAB" or newer will be unable to downgrade below firmware version 4.17. An error will occur if this is attempted and the firmware upgrade will be blocked.

What's new for Pearl 4.15

We're pleased to announce release 4.15 for the Pearl family of professional video encoders. It includes great new features including YuJa integration.

Direct integration with the YuJa content management system (CMS) lets you streamline your YuJa workflows for even more efficiency. Pearl can automatically start recording or streaming based on your schedule in YuJa and push files to the right folder on the platform.

There's more in 4.15

• Kaltura updates (My Dashboard integration for actively monitoring system health; improved ad hoc events)
• MultiViewer enhancements (on-air status, audio meters, channel status, CMS event status)
• Support for Epiphan Cloud's new CMS event monitoring feature, which is now available in Epiphan Cloud
• SRT support upgraded to SRT version 1.4.3 (better stability, more accurate statistics, and other improvements)
• Support for automatic file uploading via secure SMB2 and SMB3, improving compatibility with Windows-based systems
• Preset optimizations
• Lockable front screen on Pearl Nano for CMS applications

What's new for Pearl Nano 4.14.3

Firmware upgrade 4.14.3 for Pearl Nano is releasing on September 7, 2021, and includes a great new feature and a color range improvement.

Firmware 4.14.3 update

• It’s now easier to build custom layouts. Dynamically scale input sources in the custom layout builder.
• The colour range of the HDMI and SDI video inputs now includes black (0.0.0). As such, the color black (0.0.0) in the video signal is now accurately encoded as black instead of near-black.

Pearl Family | 4.14.2

• MultiViewer to display a custom mix of channels and video sources on the HDMI output port with minimal CPU loading
• Extend Panopto and Kaltura CMS events in 5, 10, or 15 minute intervals
• Pause and resume Panopto events
• Panopto device template support for easier event setups with your Pearl remote recorder
• A new RTSP (TCP) transport protocol option that advertises only TCP for use on lossy networks
• Local console keyboard shortcuts
• NDI version 4.6.2 support (Pearl-2 only)
• Formatting an SD card using the touch screen (Pearl Mini only)

Pearl Family | v4.14.1

• Automatic recording and uploading of Panopto webcasts that replace the original webcast in Panopto
• Scheduled uploading of recorded Content Management System (CMS) events
• Creating Kaltura webcast events using stream URLs that were previously configured on the Pearl channel
• Configuring a lockable start screen to control CMS event start/stop and create (Pearl-2 and Pearl Mini only)
• Adjustable fan speed (Pearl-2 only)
• Rotating the image displayed on the touch screen 180 degrees (Pearl Mini only)
• One Touch control of streaming and recording at the same time with the press of a single button (Pearl Nano only)
• Improved reliability of Panopto events
• Increased robustness of NDI video source discovery (Pearl-2 only)

Pearl Mini / Pearl 2 v4.13

What's new in release 4.13?

We've made some awesome changes in firmware 4.13. Integration with AV Studio is replaced with Epiphan Cloud - your new destination to remotely manage and operate your Pearl Mini / Pearl 2 devices. We also made it easier for you to troubleshoot installations with more diagnostic tests and statistics. And we added support for Dynamic DNS (DDNS) and DHCP Option 81, making sure you have seamless access to Pearl Mini on the network even if a DHCP server changes Pearl Mini's IP address. Plus more enhancements are available in this latest release.

Firmware 4.13

Epiphan Cloud support Manage all your Pearl devices from Epiphan Cloud with a diagnostics dashboard for remote rescue troubleshooting, configurable email alerts, channel creation and configuration from the cloud, confidence monitoring, batch operations, remote firmware updates, and more! It's easy to get started with a free Epiphan Cloud account. For details, see: www.epiphan.com/cloud/

Diagnostic tools

Diagnostic tools are added to the touch screen and Admin panel so you can instantly check the connectivity status of Pearl Mini, get the external IP address of your Pearl Mini, and more. From one easy location, you can run network diagnostics like ping, traceroute, test the network upload/download speeds, confirm domain name resolution, and probe to see if a network port is open on the network side.

Scheduled AFU

Now you can schedule file uploads to only occur during a specific period of time every 24-hours. Recordings that end within the configured time period automatically upload right away. Recordings that end outside the upload time period are queued up and upload when the scheduled upload time period is reached.

DHCP Option 81 (FQDN) support

Ensure your Domain Name Server (DNS) always has Pearl Mini's most up-to-date IP address mapped to Pearl Mini's Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). Option 81 support means you can keep using Pearl's FQDN no matter how many times the DHCP server may change Pearl's IP address. Pearl Mini automatically asks the DHCP server to tell the Domain Name Server (DNS) to update Pearl Mini's record with any changes to Pearl Mini's IP address or FQDN.

Dynamic DNS (DDNS)

If the DHCP server doesn't support Option 81, no problem. Enabling DDNS ensures that whenever the DHCP server changes Pearl Mini's IP address, Pearl Mini informs the Dynamic Domain Name Server (DNS). Use Pearl Mini's FQDN without worry because the domain name records are always kept up-to-date. Custom, dyndns.org, and noip.com DDNS servers are supported.

Panopto low storage alerts

Now you can configure Pearl Mini to not send low storage alerts to Panopto.

SHA hashing algorithm support

We added support for SHA-256 and SHA-512 hashing algorithms for HLS (push) and MPEG-DASH stream authentication.

Changes affecting remote login using AV Studio

AV Studio is going away

AV Studio is being replaced by Epiphan Cloud. You'll now see Epiphan Cloud instead of AV Studio in the Admin panel as a configuration option. When the switch over occurs, Pearl Mini devices that are currently paired with AV Studio automatically migrate to Epiphan Cloud. Previously uploaded recordings and scenes related to AV Studio's post-production tools are not accessible from Epiphan Cloud. After updating Pearl Mini to firmware 4.13, all pairing functions from the Admin panel link to Epiphan Cloud. To access your devices, simply create a free Epiphan Cloud account or use your AV Studio credentials to login to Epiphan Cloud at: https://go.epiphan.cloud

Firmware 4.12.1

• External keyboard control for the touch screen

  Connect a USB keyboard to any USB port on Pearl-2 and use that instead of the virtual keyboard when filling in fields on the touch screen.

• Status light indicator support

  Connect a USB status light to any USB port on Pearl-2 to indicate the status of recording and streaming. Pearl-2 supports select models of Kuando BusyLight and Delcom Product's USB HID status indicators.

• Email address lookup for Kaltura ad hoc events

  Users can now use their email address associated with their Kaltura user ID when creating an ad hoc event from Pearl-2's touch screen.

Firmware 4.11.0 Update

• Assign select administrator-level functions to operators, like channel setup, networking, configuration presets, and more.
• Update NDI on Pearl-2 to NDI version 4.1. (Pearl-2 only)
• Monitor AFU file uploads and manual file transfers to USB drives using the touch screen and the Admin panel; as well as cancel USB file transfers using the Admin panel.
• Support for Kaltura's lecture capture plus live event type.

Firmware 4.9.1 Update

• Kaltura users can enter more ad hoc event details like a description, categories, and tags when creating an ad hoc event.
• You can now set how often the Admin panel polls Kaltura to update the events listed on the Events page.
• Panopto users can now authenticate for ad hoc events using credentials defined on third party identity providers such as Canvas and identity providers that support SAML 2.0.
• Panopto users can select the folder location where their recordings are uploaded in Panopto for ad hoc events.
• There's a new setting to automatically log users out of their CMS session after their ad hoc event ends.
• We've added international character support in channel names, layout names, video and audio input names, text overlays, and in the name of recorded files - including the following:
• Western European/Nordic languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
• Central/Eastern European languages: Bosnian, Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, and Russian.

Firmware 4.9.0 Update

• Full Panopto integration to use Pearl as a remote recorder for multiple-source scheduled, recurring, and unscheduled ad hoc video recordings and webcasts with easy user authentication using the touch screen.
• For Kaltura, we added multiple source ad hoc VOD recording and webcast creation directly from the touch screen with user authentication, plus added support for multiple source ad hoc recordings.
• You can now toggle between temperature/CPU load on the touch screen.
• The EDID of each input is verified when Pearl is powered on.
• We improved support for the 4:2:2 color space on 12G and 6G SDI. (Pearl-2)
• USB tethering feature has been removed.
• Some minor changes to the Admin panel arrow key and AFU controls.

Download the latest Firmware and Software

• Instruction Manual
• Epiphan Video Product Catalogue
• Epiphan Pearl for Panopto
• Download HiRes Images

• Pearl-2 Rackmount
• 1 x SDI cable (3 feet / 1 meter in length)
• 1 x HDMI cable (3 feet / 1 meter in length)
• 1 x HDMI to DVI adapter
• 1 x Ethernet cable
• 1 x region-specific power supply cable (6 feet / 1.8 meters in length)