Erik Rönnqvist

I just tested with a 14000x2000 Hap movie, and that works just fine, but 12000x12000 does not work. My best guess is still that you hit some kind of limit in the GPU. /Erik

It is possible to play Hap files in very high resolutions in Watchout. I just encoded an 10000x10000 Hap (30 fps) and it plays ok. 12000x12000 will not work on the computer I am using, so my best guess is that I reached the capabilities of the graphics board. While there is no hard limit in Watchout for Hap resolutions, you will sooner or later hit the wall of what the GPU is able to handle. /Erik

As few chunks as possible while still getting smooth playback is the general rule. There is never any point in using more chunks than there are cores in the CPU. Chunking adds a slight overhead in the form of less compression, but the difference is very small. If a movie needs 4 chunks for smooth playback, and you decide to pre split it into 4 presplit movies, I would try with no chunking (=1 chunk) for the individual presplits. /Erik

From the info above it looks like it's avc high profile without chroma subsampling (4:4:4), which is not supported by watchout. You have to stick to 4:2:0 chroma subsampling. Another important aspect when encoding h264 is to NOT use B-frames. B-frames are great when you are trying to get maximum compression, but they have a very negative impact on playback performance. If you are worried about the quality when not using B-frames, just bump up the bitrate by 10%. This will have much less impact on performance than sticking to the lower bitrate and using B-frames. For encoding with constant bitrate I would use: ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec h264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -bf 0 -g 30 -b:v 10000k -minrate 10000k -maxrate 10000k output.mp4 You'll have to change the bitrate to your preferences of course. Another option would be to encode with constant quality: ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec h264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -g 30 -bf 0 -crf 18 output.mov -crf 18 means visually lossless. By increasing that number by 6, the file size (and of course bitrate) will be about half, and the quality will decrease. You will have to experiment yourself to strike a good balance between quality, file size and playback performance. Valid range for the crf parameter is 0 to 51 /Erik

Hello! I am curious about your statement above that there is a limit of two streams for receiving NDI into Watchout, where does it come from? There is no limitation of the number of streams in Watchout, but of course, sooner or later you will hit the wall either due to network bandwidth issues or an overloaded CPU on the display computer. During testing we have successfully run 64 unique 1920x1080 streams in 30 fps on a 10 gigabit network. This test setup was running for days without any issues. We do not currently support NDI output from Watchout. /Erik

Hello! The Hap decoder is natively built in into Watchout (both display and production software), so there is no need to install any hap codec. In fact, installing additional codecs will in many cases just make things work worse, which is what is happening here. To fix the problems you are seeing, uninstall any codecs you have installed on both display and production computer. You might also need to empty the cache folders. Then it should work properly. I would also advice against installing quicktime on the display computers. It is not needed there. Quicktime is only needed if you use the Export function in the production software. Another issue with installing external Hap decoders is that the decoding will take place on the CPU, but when using Watchout's internal Hap codec, most of the decoding will take place on the GPU, thus giving much better performance. /Erik

A lot (if not all) AMD drivers from 2018 have had performance issues of various sorts. I would advice you to test with the drivers from 2017 q4.1 and see if that makes a difference. /Erik

Proxy is lowest quality, really intended for preview purposes only. LT is better, Standard even better, and HD best quality (of the 4:2:2 formats, that is). For editing, you should really use the highest quality, but for playback purposes Standard should be good enough in almost all cases. I doubt there are many people that would be able to spot a difference between Standard and HD in a playback blind test, given that the videos are encoded using the same encoder, and that the screens are identical. /Erik

Hello! Unfortunately there is currently no way of seeing this from the production software. You will get a warning in the message window when the disk is full on a display computer, and I can agree that a warning before the disk is actually full would be more useful. /Erik

Using the low-latency mode increases the risk of stuttering. By using this mode, Watchout will always display the latest frame received from the NDI source. By selecting balanced or smooth, Watchout will keep an internal queue of a few frames, which decreases the risk of stuttering, but also increases the latency somewhat. So if low latency is important in this case, balanced or smooth may not be the best options. Streaming video over Wifi in public places is problematic, since there are so many things that can disturb the stream. /Erik

Most likely, you will have to install the NDI | HX driver, which is available for download on NewTek's web. The reason you are seeing the stream on the production computer is that the Watchout production software use a separate low-bandwidth stream for the preview, to preserve network bandwidth. The preview stream is usually not sent using the NDI | HX protocol. /Erik

Currently there is no way of doing this in Watchout. But it is an interesting idea. It is possible though to specify an alternate source in the NDI media's settings. If the primary source goes down, Watchout will automatically switch to the alternate source. As soon as the primary source is back online, Watchout will switch back to the primary source. I don't know if this would help you in any way, but I figured I would just mention it in case you find it useful. /Erik

The hap codec is built into Watchout, so there is no need to install it. In fact, installing codecs on a computer running Watchout is generally not recommended. You don't mention which Watchout release you are running, but if it is 6.2.1, there is a bug that in many cases makes hap files with embedded audio show up as audio only. The workaround is to extract the audio from the video file, and run audio and video as separate files/cues. However, the bug is fixed, and will be included in an upcoming bug fix release of Watchout. /Erik

As Rainer mentioned, stay away from WMV. A general recommendation is to avoid having video and audio in the same file. Whenever possible, use separate audio and video files for best results. It is hard to give a general recommendation for video formats, but generally the Hap family (Hap, HapQ or HapAlpha) work very well, although the files become quite large. Quality wise, Hap has somewhat limited color resolution but HapQ is good enough in most cases. If you can live with the large files, I would definitely recommend trying the Hap family. Please note that HapQ+Alpha is not yet supported in Watchout. If you want to run Hap and need alpha, you will have to stick to HapAlpha, which has the same image quality as Hap. H264 and MPEG-2 also work well, but need some care when encoding. If possible, don't use B-frames. B-frames are great when trying to maximise compression, but does increase the decoding complexity considerably, which can become an issue when trying to play many movies at the same time. If you are worried about the quality when encoding without B-frames, just bump up the bit rate by 10%. This will give you the same or slightly better quality, and the bitrate increase has very little impact on performance, compared to enabling B-frames. If you need to jump in timelines containing h264 or MPEG-2, it is also a good idea to keep the GOP size quite low. An I-frame distance of about 0.5-1 second is a good starting point, which translates into a GOP size of 15-30 for 30 fps video, and 30-60 for 60 fps video. If you need alpha, HapAlpha is likely the best choice, but you can also try Quicktime Animation, which has support for alpha. Support for Hap and Quicktime Animation is built into Watchout, so there is no need to install any Hap codecs or Quicktime for this to work. /Erik

This is not a deliberate change. It is a recently discovered bug that was introduced in 6.2 when we added the possibility to presplit still images. My guess is that an older show imported into 6.2 should work, but I have not tested it. The bug is fixed and will be included in an upcoming bug fix release of Watchout. /Erik

Hello! Yes, there is an issue with looping video files with embedded audio in Watchout 6.2.1. We are looking into a solution for this. The problem is that audio (AAC for example) is compressed in chunks of a few milliseconds each, which in almost all cases makes the audio track slightly longer than the video track. The audio chunks are fixed in size, and you cannot have half a chunk or something like that. Usually the last part of the last audio chunk in the file is silent, just to fill up the last chunk so you get all of the audio encoded, rather than making the audio track slightly shorter, thus truncating the audio track. This makes the timing incorrect when looping. I assume you are running compressed audio. If possible, try to use uncompressed audio (PCM) instead. This will make the file larger, but since there is no compression in chunks involved, the audio track should be exactly as long (or very very very close) as the video track, which should make the problem disappear. As always, keeping the audio in a separate file usually works best, which could also serve as a workaround (or a permanent solution). /Erik

There are some issues with Hap files with embedded audio in 6.2.1, but as long as there is no audio in the files, you should be fine. The issues have been resolved, and will be included in an upcoming service release of Watchout. That said, the general recommendations still stand: Use separate audio and video files whenever possible, and do not install any codec pack, encoding software etc on machines running Watchout. /Erik

I usually download the zeranoe builds for ffmpeg, available at https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/ A simple example for encoding a HapQ movie and removing the audio from the file: ffmpeg -i InputMovie.mov -an -vcodec hap -format hap_q HapQMovie.mov -i specifies the input file, which can be just about any format -an tells ffmpeg to remove any audio tracks -vcodec (or -c:v) specifies which codec to use -format specifies which hap flavour to use (hap, hap_alpha or hap_q) The last argument is the name of the reencoded file. For very large movies (high resolution, that is) it makes sense to use the -chunks n argument to enable multithreaded decoding, where n is the number of chunks to use. It never makes sense to use more chunks than there are cores in the target (display) computer. As each additional chunks adds a (very) slight overhead in the form of decreased decoding speed and larger files, it is generally a good idea to keep the number of chunks as low as possible. For a list of codes supported by ffmpeg: ffmpeg -codecs For help about a specific codec: ffmpeg -h encoder=x, where you would replace x by the name of the codec as listed by the ffmpeg -codecs command. /Erik

If you can live with the command line interface (which I personally like better and better the more I use it), ffmpeg would be my recommendation. Since Hap files tend to be large, a fast disk is probably one of the most important aspects when encoding Hap movies. It is also quite easy to do batch encoding in ffmpeg by just using a regular .bat file (when running on windows). /Erik

Hello! The NDI HX driver should be automatically installed on the display watchpaxes when upgrading by going online in the production software. However, this assumes that the NDI HX driver checkbox in the Watchout installer was checked when installing/upgrading Watchout on the production computer. When trying to display NDI HX content (from the Spark) on the Watchpax display computer, what did you get? Just a black screen or a screen saying that you need to install the NDI HX driver with a link to NewTek? /Erik

Which Watchpax and Watchout version are you using? The NewTek spark sends NDI|HX which is quite different from the NDI streams sent from the Scan Converter (and similar tools). NDI|HX is more highly compressed, and is not all I-frames as regular NDI is. NDI|HX needs a driver to be installed on the display computer, which is done as part of the upgrade process i Watchpax. (When installing on other computers the NDI|HX driver install is optional). Watchout 6.2.1 contains an updated NDI|HX drivers, that solves some issues with the driver supplied with WO 6.2. Is the Spark configured to sent Multicast? If so, I would recommend turning Multicast off and see if that makes any difference. /Erik

Watchout only uses Quicktime when exporting a movie, so it would make little sense to install Quicktime on a display computer. If you want to use the export function in Watchout, Quicktime is required on the production computer. That said, if you want to encode to Hap using a Quicktime-enabled application, you might need to install Quicktime and the Hap codec for Quicktime. Another option would be to encode Hap files using ffmpeg, using the following command line: ffmpeg -i inputfile.mov -vcodec hap -format hap_q -chunks 4 outputfile.mov Change hap_q to hap or hap_alpha if you want standard hap or hap with alpha. The chunks argument enables multithreaded decoding, but higher numbers give slightly more overhead, both in space and decoding time, so this number should be kept as low as possible. For a 1920x1080 video, one chunk is sufficient on most hardware. Higher resolutions and/or slower hardware might require a larger number. It never makes sense to use a larger number than the number of cores in the CPU. /Erik

Are the files video only or video+audio? There is an issue with hap files containing audio in 6.2 and 6.2.1 I have received a few reports about pink color in HapQ videos in the production software, but never in the display software, but I have not been able to successfully reproduce the issue here. I don't think the files can be tagged to use a certain brand of the decoder. Uninstalling Quicktime would probably make no difference, except that Watchout would not be able to play the files at all, instead of using the wrong decoder. That said, it could at least be worth testing. /Erik

Any version is fine, and I would recommend using the latest version, since it contains the latest bug fixes and performance improvements. But you will have to stick to Hap, HapAlpha or HapQ. HapQ+alpha is not yet supported in Watchout. /Erik

There seems to be an issue with Hap files containing audio in Watchout 6.2.1, as it is many cases will get recognised as audio only. The solution in the meantime is to use separate video and audio files. Additionally, installing codec packs, or software that in their turn install codec packs, on the production computer can cause issues like this. /Erik