What if you could record, broadcast, subtitle and convert your conference, vlog, or almost real life without crew, expensive equipment nor common sense? I was said a few years ago that it was not possible. That’s why I wanted to give it a go with the help of Arm SBCs and cheap hardware.

Arm your arm with Arm

You’ve seen them everywhere. You’re maybe one of them. You know, people with a selfie arm or stick recording videos of themselves… on an Arm powered device most of the time. What if we replaced and enhanced this system with the help of cheap Arm devices?

I’ve been recording and broadcasting events since 2018 on a ~~shoestring~~ budget. Not such a big deal after all: film the speaker, record the voice while grabbing the screen too. I have bought lots of lame hardware and got mitigated results, partially because of the crappy hardware, but also of my yet to become flawless skills. I then got a nice budget, and some off-the-shelf consumer-grade hardware. Videos suddenly became much better looking, but where was the challenge then? As I am fond of Arm SBCs and love giving myself stupid challenges, I decided I would rewind and try to replicate the working prototype with cheap Arm SBCs and half-baked hardware. You already know that Arm SoCs are very capable of playing 4k videos; you may own an Android TV box or an Android smartphone that does that everyday without dripping sweat. But do you know that some of them also sport a hardware video encoder, capable of h264 1080p 60 fps encoding? There are also cheaper Arm boards that can do h264 720p for less than $15… and even Android TV Boxes for the same price tag, but you get a remote control and a HDMI cable to boot. From the luxury version, such as an IRL backpack, to the cheapo version built for less than $50, via the semi-industrial version integrated in a flight case, MerryKombo is the answer to a question that no one asked. We are now a few folks trying to design this open source hardware and software solution to manage the recording, conversion, and automatic subtitling of videos based on Arm SBCs. It is not finished nor stabilized by any means, but we’re progressing while having tons of fun. So come and join me to know more about what MerryKombo can do, will do and could do.

This project is based on an idea I got a few years ago. I made multiple POCs, asked for help just about everywhere, and finally made my own track with an adaptation of the initial concept. I have nothing to sell. Even if, to this day, this project is only used in the company I work for, it is open source so it could be used anywhere, when the documentation will be finished. This is not a turnkey project, but an ongoing effort. At the end of the talk, attendees won’t be able to replicate without hassle, but will know more on recording, broadcasting and subtitling with Arm SBCs.