We closed this forum 18 June 2010. It has served us well since 2005 as the ALPHA forum did before it from 2002 to 2005. New discussions are ongoing at the new URL http://forum.processing.org. You'll need to sign up and get a new user account. We're sorry about that inconvenience, but we think it's better in the long run. The content on this forum will remain online.
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
multiscreen video playback (Read 2767 times)
multiscreen video playback
May 30th, 2008, 1:27pm
 
we are doing some multi screen video playback now but its seems there is a serious lack of simple cost effective ways to control video playback across multiple machines to multiple screens.

we have one machine per screen and generally 3 screens or more needs lots of control. our guys currently use modul8 on the mac which is fine in terms so performance one off events as the licenses are paid for already . but if we want to leave an installation going then having to buy something like modeul8 or arkaos and control them via midi to synchronise playback (if we are splitting one big movie across mutliple screens as in this case) it gets very expensive.

i recall in the the a recent processing workshop that we used open music something or rather to communicated between machines over the local net.
it occurred to me it should simple to set up a client and master processing code to synchronize a playlist of clips across multiple machines.. do you think this would be easy to do and set up? ie select a master app have a little inferface to list the name of the clips for each screen in order across all found clients.. and then control the order. setup stills to play during holds etc..


the idea would be to make an open source app so other vj's and video installation artists can use it and avoid having to use buy expensive vj apps just for simple playback control///

what do you guys think. my processing is not up to it im afraid, just wondering if anyone is up for making such an applet? or it exists already just needs to be loved by more people?
Re: multiscreen video playback
Reply #1 - May 30th, 2008, 2:07pm
 
Hi drxian, I've got a similar project coming up (6 projectors) and the solution i went for is using just one computer with NVidia GF8800 and 2x Matrox TripleHead2Go's (one on each output splitting into 3).

What you are talking about for communication over the net is OSC (OpenSoundControl). This is very easy to do with Processing using www.sojamo.de/libraries/oscP5 and works a treat over wifi.

In addition though, for what you want to do Most Pixels Ever (www.mostpixelsever.com) seems like the perfect library. It's a client/server Java framework for running and syncronising the same processing app on different computers.

So in short:
If you want to run different apps on different computers but have them communicate with each other then OSC is the answer. But if you intend to run the same app on different computers but just split the output then definitely go with MPE (though I would recommend you also think about the TripleHead2Go on one computer option too)...

good luck!
Re: multiscreen video playback
Reply #2 - Oct 13th, 2009, 10:34am
 
Hello.

Were you able with those specs to get 1024x768 for each of the six projectors?

Thank you so much.
Re: multiscreen video playback
Reply #3 - Feb 24th, 2010, 10:33pm
 
hi folks,
I'm trying to do something similar. I'm working on a video installation that involves 3 HD projectors.

The work begins with a single channel work from one projector, then switches over to a 2 channel work through the other two projectors, and then back again, etc.

Ive got a Matrox Duelhead2 Go for the 2 channel work, and I have two mac minis with enough guts to be able to play them at 1920 x 1080 resolution (or thereabouts).

I thought maybe I could write/find/adapt some Processing code that would synchronise the two macs so that when one work finishes on one mac, the other one starts up on the other one.

Has anyone solved this before or do you have any suggestions where i could go with it?

Re: multiscreen video playback
Reply #4 - Mar 2nd, 2010, 9:30am
 
rubix wrote on Feb 24th, 2010, 10:33pm:
hi folks,
I'm trying to do something similar. I'm working on a video installation that involves 3 HD projectors.

The work begins with a single channel work from one projector, then switches over to a 2 channel work through the other two projectors, and then back again, etc.


Give a look to QTvision (sixsides.it)
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1