mitreklov

We are testing solutions for an up coming project that requires the replay of 30000 (Thirty thousand) pixel wide by 850 pixel high 50fps media files. Our initial approach was to use multiple WO displays, pre split the movies and let each display deal with smaller sections. However after extensive testing and despite using frame locked GPUs across all chassis we were unable to achieve 100% synchronous playback on every pass. It worked 90% of the time and less than 50% without the sync card enabled. As the final display is a continuous LED screen where the 16 HD outputs will be butt joined, the smallest timing errors become very noticeable. Plan B is to build a machine powerful enough machine to replay a single file at 30000 pixels wide, the pros and cons of that build I won't go into here but initial tests with media files of that size suggest there is an upper limit on the file width size that WO will accept. We have created files at this size using various codecs that will support that pixel count however any file wider than what looks like 16000 pixels returns a "Your hardware will not support that file size" message. So I'm trying to work out if this a WO imposed limit or the message is generated by the Windows environment or the GPU driver. We have successfully tested playback of 2 x 15000px wide movies with 100% sync success so clearly the hardware is up to pushing that number of pixels, so where is the limitation on the file size pixel width? Any guidance from those in the know would be helpful. If we get it work it will be a monster!! Thanks

Hi Fredrik, I've not tested the Bird Dog device yet but that sort of unit opens up plenty of opportunities. While the latency is quite low in NDI I'm not yet convinced it will be good enough or any faster than a traditional capture method unless of course the signal path contains frame synchronisers and such like. So may be too slow for imag live images. I hope to learn more at IBC. Tim

I did some tests with their NDI Transmit software that created a directshow presence that Watchout picked as a capture source and it worked very well. However it could only present one NDI stream at a time. You needed to set up the Transmit software to pick which network stream to decode before it was passed to the filter. It is clearly a viable way to get video into Watchout but needs some finessing.

NDI = Network Device Interface We have been testing the Newtek developed NDI system recently and found it to be very functional. In short NDI is a practical implementation of video over IP that is now open for hardware and software developers to integrate into products. The system has gained considerable ground over the past 12 months with many manufacturers adopting it. Take a look at Newtek's website to learn more but here are a few highlights: - Bi directional video and audio over standard IP network infrastructure, no special switches/routers required - SD - 4K resolution support - Supports key and Fill video and up 16 channel audio - Multiple signals over standard gigabit network links - Very low latency (sub 80ms) One of the most useful features we've seen is the free NDI Tools from Newtek one of which is called NDI Scan convert. Runs on any PC or Mac and can be set to capture the entire screen or focused window and create an NDI stream on the connected network, the process is similar to a VNC server but without the delay and at full HD-4k res and frame rate. The resulting stream can be seen on the network by any NDI compliant receiver, hardware or software. If the receive element was implemented in Watchout you could input Powerpoint, Keynote, character generators, web pages even live sources without going anywhere near a scan converter or capture card. I've seen character generator software with NDI output that supports key and fill. There are iOS NDI apps that turn an iPhone into a network camera, an app that captures an iPad browser and many other innovative uses of the NDI standard. So, how about including NDI support in Watchout both in and out. It could be a usable alternative to VNC. We have no commercial ties with Newtek but having tested and used it we just think it has a great deal of potential, its accessible, why not implement it. Anyone else think this is a good idea? http://www.newtek.com/ndi.html http://www.sienna-tv.com/ndi/

We use these cheap Chinese HDMI - SDI units with great success. They pass everything from 576i to 1080P (level A only). Power off USB. Of the 75+ that we have our rental stock I think we've only ever had one failure. Added bonus is that they strip HDCP too. http://www.gearbest.com/cables-connectors/pp_211793.html @$28 what's not to like.

Erik, Good point, I'm only going by the fact that when you quit Watchout you get all the memory back. Having said that I'm only repeating what I'm being told by the onsite engineer. We have set up a test rig with the same content here in the workshop so we can monitor what is going on in more detail, once I know more I'll report back. Thanks for the quick response by the way. Tim

Hello forum, We have a 3 month long 24hr/7day week installation running in London right now. Now that system has been running continuously for a few weeks we have been observing memory full message from Windows (8.1) which causes Watchout to stop responding. Windows claims there is insufficient memory. Of the 16Gb of system RAM installed on the display machines, Watchout appears to, over time, use increasing amounts of RAM until Windows complains it has run out. Quit Watchpoint and the RAM is freed up, relaunch Watchpoint display software and you are back running again until the next time it fills the RAM. I'm trying to establish from our engineer how long it takes for the RAM to fill up, we have 9 display machine and it looks like they will all display behaviour at some point. I suppose the leak could be caused by a Windows subsystem, driver other background process but as the RAM is cleared when Watchout is quit rather points the finger at Watchout. Some environment details: Watchout 6.0 (we have not had the opportunity to update to 6.01 yet) Windows 8.1 Apple Mac Mini display machines i7 3ghz, 16gb ram 128gb System Drive, 1tb SSD content The project is built around a 24hr looping timeline locked to time of day time code. A lot of the content is HAP Alpha encoded Has any one seen anything like before on long term installs with Watchout 6? Could this be a Watchout memory leak? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks Tim

Tobi We have had some success with Dante virtual sound card and Watchout and indeed many other media severs. We have a sister sound company Dimension Audio who are using the Dante system extensively now and we have been working with them on testing our Watchout systems with Dante. Mike is correct that if you get the network interface set up Dante and Watchout will play together well, we've seen and tested this in real world events. Jonas, the dante system is affordable, implemented by multiple manufactures, extremely versatile and reliable all of which mean it is gaining favour in the corporate audio world and beyond. It's one of those systems that once you have used it you wonder what you did without it! The major drawback with the Dante Virtual Sound Card is that at a Windows level Watchout can only access 2 of the potential 64 audio channels that Dante can offer. When installing DVSC you have the choice of installing an ASIO or WDM driver. ASIO works with pro audio suites and supports unto 128 channels with a dedicated PCI card or 64 on an onboard NIC. However the ASIO driver is no good for Watchout as Watchout likes windows controlled devices. The WDM drivers offer 8 channels that present themselves as 4 stereo pairs. Windows only allows the selection of any one pair as the default output and that would be where Watchout would route audio to. Therefore to be able to use the eight Dante WDM driven channels Watchout would need some kind of audio routing facility to be able to map file audio files to the outputs. The channel allocation could just exist in the audio file itself but for this work Watchout needs to be able to access all the audio system devices. I had a similar email conversation with Mike a couple of months ago so I'm interested to see if others may find this facility of use and it looks it might. Mike, any further thought on this? Not forgetting that if Watchout could access all WDM type system audio devices then any audio interface that is handled by Windows could work in multichannel mode (if the hardware supports multiple channels of course). Thoughts comments welcome. Tim