Miro

Hi, you could use USB capture too. I'm not sure if there is a good way to convert syphon to RTP/RTSP with decent latency. This is not pretty but what you can do is the following by using NDI: Syphon2NDI -> Spout2NDI -> Spout/SpoutCam -> WATCHOUT Or you can use: TCPSyphon -> TCPSpout -> Spout/SpoutCam -> WATCHOUT We will add better support for network video in 6.2 but at the moment its a bit tricky to do stuff like this. Best Regards, Miro

Hi, there is a big difference between containers and codecs. We support the mxf container but WATCHOUT might not recognize the content of the container. Depending on the content of the container different codecs might be used. We only supply a few codecs for video and the rest is up the the users to install (DirectShow filters). So what are you trying to play?

Hi, there are issues with the Nvidia drivers in windows 10. When using multiple displays you might get noise in the image. Stick with windows 7. Depending on how much GPU power you need you could use AMD W600/Matrox C680 (same GPU) for six outputs which will suit most needs. Note that gaming hardware like the geforce card isn't designed for 24/7 usage, and you will not have any EDID management and frame sync. Also I would RAID-0 two 256 GB SSDs instead of a single 512 GB giving you more disk bandwidth if you want to play image sequences or HAPs in high resolutions.

If it's on the disk and the disk isn't broken than it should be possible. I will send you a private message with instructions.

Hi, we are looking into that if the math behind the calibration process allows it. Misterk, you should have a beta of WATCHOUT 6.1.4 now supporting your lens. Test it, and if it works well we will add it to the next release.

Do you still have problems with the latest wibu firmware? To update the firmware you can use the attached simplified guide. Edit: The guide is a bit outdated so the latest firmware has a version number higher than 3.01 Update_Wibu_firmware.pdf

Hi, Most video tools including Adobe Media Encoder are using codec settings for mainstream usage, which nowadays are optimized to deliver minimal size with best possible quality. This is great when streaming stuff over the internet but makes often the decoding process more hardware intensive. In WATCHOUT, best decoding performance is more important than smallest file size for a certain quality. To really optimize your videos you will need to use more hardcore tools like FFmpeg, which is the most flexible, fastest and free video tool available. It can convert to any format WATCHOUT uses like HAP, H264, MPEG-2, ProRes, still image sequences etc.. As jfk mentioned, getting rid of b-frames is one good step on the way. B-frames are great for reducing size but they require more processing since each b-frame need bi-directional references to the closest intra frames (i-frames). Also make the GOP (group-of-pictures), the distance between i-frames smaller may also help to improve performance. Also it will make seeking faster. It's common for some codecs to use GOP sizes around 300 frames but in WATCHOUT I would recommend a size around around 30 or even smaller if you need to do a lot of seeking/jumping. For more complex codecs like H264, its also possible to disable all post processing and loop-back filtering to gain some performance. You can download a FFmpeg build for windows here. Easiest is to use a static build because then you only need the "ffmpeg.exe" file. FFmpeg is a command line tool which means that either have to use the terminal/cmd or write a bat-file. A bat file is basically a text file with a ".bat" extension which will be executed when double-clicked. I created this one for an other customer for conversion to h264: https://www.dropbox.com/s/phkf16ialcm4ynn/convert.zip?dl=0 You can use the same, but modify the bat file in a text editor so it suits your needs to something like this: set bitrate=20M ffmpeg.exe -i "input.any" -c:a copy -c:v mpeg2video -g 30 -bf 0 -b:v %bitrate% -minrate %bitrate% -maxrate %bitrate% -bufsize %bitrate% -y "output.mpg" pause Change the input to the path and name of your input file. Easiest is to place the input file in the same directory. Also set the output name to something useful. You will need to modify the bit-rate of 20 Mbit/sec to something that matches your resolution. The -bf flag is set to zero which means zero b-frames. The -g flag is the GOP size. Since MPEG-2 is a very simple codec it hasn't that many options. You can also set the pixelformat if needed. Default is 4:2:0 but WATCHOUT but in some cases 4:2:2 i needed. This is done my inserting "-pix_fmt yuv422p" before the "-b:v" flag. Or if you prefer HAP_Q the process i very simple too. ffmpeg.exe -i "input.any" -an -c:v hap -format hap_q -chunks 8 -y "output.mov" pause Where chunks is the number of threads that will be used in decoding.. -an is to disable audio. Regarding Windows tweeking, make sure you use "High performance" power plan and if you are using intel RAID then install the latest Intel Rapid Storage drivers. Best Regards, Miro

Which version of WATCHOUT are you using? What's the resolution and framerate of the videos? Which GPU are you using? A god tip is to kill explorer on the display servers since explorer has a lot of child processes that can interfere with WATCHOUT. As JFK mentioned, disable any power saving plans and use the "High performance" one. If you are using a Nvidia GPU then set the following 3D settings in the Nvidia control panel: Power Management Mode: Prefer maximum performance Threaded Optimization: Off If this doesn't help and if you are using an intel raid configuration then I would recommend you to install the latest Intel Rapid Storage driver/software.

jithulead, The official support for windows 10 will most likely be in version 6.2 so we will provide an updated tweaking list then. For the production software the only windows 10 specific tweak I'm aware of is to set the "Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them" to "Off" in the mouse settings. Otherwise it might be problematic when vertically scrolling the layers in the timeline window. Thomas, I can send you some instructions on how to upload a show that causes these problems so we can analyse and fix it. The next bugfix update of WATCHOUT is scheduled to mid October. Although we are focusing on reliability and rigorous testing before a release there are endless combinations and we can't simply test every possible scenario. This is why your feedback is so important.

WATCHOUT 6.1.3 has been released and you can download it here: http://www.dataton.com/downloads/watchout Release notes: Dataton WATCHOUT® version 6.1.3 Resolved issues Improved support for multiple displays in the display software on Windows 10.Requires Windows 10 Anniversary Update. For full functionality, Windows 7 is still recommended for both production and display computers. Error in WAV file playback that caused a clicking sound has been resolved. Some TGA files did not work in image sequences. Tearing problems in hardware-accelerated video have been resolved. 3D objects are now visible even at close range to the display/projector. Known problems in Windows 10 Changing resolution of a display inside WATCHOUT may not be handled correctly by some display drivers. NVIDIA GPUs produce visual artifacts in a multi display mode.

Thomas, WATCHOUT doesn't work across multiple GPUs and some laptops use the Intel GPU for the internal display as soon as you extend it. It should be possible to set the preferred GPU in the Nvidia settings for some laptops. Also hybrid SLI could also work if it's available.

We have tested multiple outputs with success using a preview of the anniversary update which should be released the 2nd of August. Although this is great news we still need to conduct thorough tests before we can recommend users to upgrade to Windows 10.

If you see banding in the gradient then the problem is usually that the color wheel in the projector is out of sync. This applies only to single chip projectors and can be corrected in the service menu in the projectors. When setting up a multi-projector solution all projectors should be calibrated in the following order: 1, Color wheel calibration/synchronization 2, Color/gamut calibration 3, Intensity/Brightness calibration

Some external sound cards like: http://www.esi-audio.com/products/gigaporthd+/works without installing drivers on a WATCHPAX. We will also add drivers for other USB cards and USB capture devices in the next image for WATCHPAX.

Hi, we have also spotted this and are investigating why it happens. It might be a bug in DataPath's DirectShow filters since the same problem occurs in other applications too. Vision View is not using DirectShow and communicates directly with the hardware. Best Regards, Miro

Which version of WATCHOUT are you running? Any difference between HAP and HAP_Q? Does it make any difference to disable threaded optimization in Nvidia's control panel? Make sure you close the control panel before testing since it polls the GPU which can results in additional stuttering. //Miro

Hi, New versions of WATCHOUT 6.1.2 and WATCHNET 1.3 are released. The documentation for WATCHOUT will be updated after the summer while the documentation for WATCHNET will be updated during the summer. We are also planning to produce a new series of video tutorials demonstrating some of the new features in the fall. Release notes for WATCHOUT 6.1.2 This version contains a number of bug fixes, most importantly in the multi channel audio department. Channel assignment of multi channel audio now works properly. Corrupt frames in HAP video files no longer causes the software to crash. Specifying an absolute path to an autostart script file, starting with a drive letter, as a parameter to the display software now works properly. Using a control cue to jump-and-pause to time 0 of an inactive auxilliary timeline no works properly. Release notes for WATCHNET 1.3 This version contains new features, as well as enhancements to existing functionality and bug fixes. New Features It is now possible to configure external devices communicating via TCP and UDP. A script action has been added which sends commands to individual external devices or whole groups of devices. WATCHNET Scripts can now call other Scripts. Navigation between Panels, Sections, and Pages, in existing panels is now possible through Script Actions. Enhancements WATCHNET can now automatically connect to a configured WATCHOUT cluster on start up. The option is located in the cluster properties window of the subsystem section. The WATCHNET main menu now contains a shortcut to the start page. Script parameters now apply per-action instead of per-script. The properties windows for creation of new Panels, Sections, Pages, Script Groups, and Scripts, now give a name suggestion. Script actions, and entire Scripts, may now be duplicated along with their parameters with the click of a button. License handling for WATCHNET has been enhanced, the server no longer shuts down after a period of time but rather stops accepting incoming communication until a license is inserted. It is now possible to hide the video-controls for video objects in a WATCHNET panel. This implies that the video auto-plays. Bug fixes Interaction with panels items stopped working on non-touch devices if the mouse was moved slightly outside of panel item borders. This has now been fixed. Version timestamps of presentations saved on the WATCHNET server now correctly displays version time. Manully taking a cluster offline through the cluster properties page now disconnects from the entire cluster. Let us know if you have any questions and please share any feedback. Best Regards, Miro

Hi again, I use open hardware monitor since it can provide info about CPU and GPU load and can be monitored remotely in a web browser. It can also log to csv files. It doesn't require installation and can run from a USB stick. For more detailed GPU monitoring I use GPU-z which can log with 0.1 second precision to a log file which then can be parsed in for example excel. You will get a time stamp so data can be merged from both softwares in a single scatter plot. Best Regards, Miro

Hi, Tools like fraps will give you the FPS count for the whole WATCHOUT application but that is not always that helpful. A video file frame can be dropped without affecting WATCHOUT's rendering frequency which makes this really hard to debug. Also gaming video cards are not as good as professional ones to synchronize against v-sync, which may result in tiny glitches looking like frame drops. We are looking into how to add better logging and statistics in future versions of WATCHOUT but in the meanwhile there are no good ways of doing this. You could monitor CPU/GPU usage to give you some hints to see if you hit the ceiling but it will not detect specific dropped frames. I often add a frame number overlay in my test videos and than use a hi-speed camera (like an iPhone or GoPro capturing at 240Hz) to record a screen/projection. Then I can analyse the captured video to detect frame drops but this is really time consuming. //Miro

Which capture card is causing the problem? Don't you get any signal? Any specific resolution? Need all the data we can get to recreate the issue.

Regarding the display software, Microsoft is working on solving the multi display bug and will hopefully include the fix into the Windows 10 anniversary update.

ChrisBingWO, is it windows that doesn't let you install or what error do you get? Running windows 10 native on a system is very different from running it virualized. I'm using W10 for production all the time on all of my computers and I don't have this problem. If it's a certificate issue (windows sercurity) than you should have the option to install it anyway. If you for any reason don't have this option you can always bypass the windows security by opening the terminal as admin and run the installer from the terminal.

WATCHOUT 6.1.1 is released and available for download. This version contains a number of improvements and bug fixes. Enhancements Greatly improved video playback and overall performance of the display software. Calibration tab is disabled when not online and in live update. A message is shown stating that live update is required for calibration. It is now possible to attach a preview movie to any video proxy. Added ability to nudge display masks and their points using arrow keys. It is now possible to enable/disable multiple display masks all at once. Added option to preview Virtual Display media in high quality. Bug fixes Pre-split video proxies now work with live update. A number of crash or hang bugs in the production software have been fixed.It would crash sometimes when adding a geometry point to a display. Occasionally it would crash when opening a show that had many geometry points added. Sometimes it would crash when adding a display mask point. It would hang if you switched to a composition window while that same composition was playing on the main timeline. Midi inputs now consistently route to the correct input variable. Possible to select Video In or Audio Out device in the display software menu, regardless of computer. Fixed editing of values in the text fields in the Geometry Tab of the Display Dialog. Occasional remote software upgrade errors fixed. Low audio volume in the production software corrected. Transparency of Dynamic Image media with http content now works properly. Auto Save no longer activates after you manually save the show, unless you make a change to the show. Let me know if you have any questions. Best Regards, Miro

You can enable anti-aliasing in your graphics card settings. Choose to override the application's settings and select multi-sampled anti-aliasing (MSAA). I did some quick tests. This is without AA (click to enlarge): This is with MSAA x8:

Do you have the same problem if you play the audio file in an external application like windows media player and simultaneously play a HD 1920x1080 h264 video in a different application like VLC, GraphStudioNext, Windows media player or Media Player classic?