HAP Codec?

[ruppert]

…in VJ world this little, rather promising, open source codec is making the rounds. Would there be any real benefits in implementing it in Watchout, and does anyone have any experience with it yet?

The codec's supposed ability to use large resolutions and high frame rates in addition to offering support for alpha channels seems at least on paper indeed very tempting.

[Walter Soyka]

I've used a different GPU-texture-on-disk playback system (technically similar to HAP) elsewhere with outstanding results. You need fast storage, but relieving the CPU of the burden of decoding video really helps push performance and layering, especially at high resolution. I think this would be a very promising area for Dataton to invest some effort.

 

w.

[jfk]

…in VJ world this little, rather promising, open source codec is making the rounds. Would there be any real benefits in implementing it in Watchout,

 

For all practical purposes WATCHOUT is ready to handle any user installed DirectShow codec.

Third parties seem to offer HAP DirectShow codecs.

If this is true, then installing them on your production and display PC

would provide HAP support in WATCHOUT.

 

Of course, you are then at the mercy of the third party supplier for support with that codec.

'

For example, seems a group called RenderHeads Limited offers what they describe as 

FAST GPU FRIENDLY VIDEO CODEC FOR WINDOWS

HAP FOR DIRECTSHOW

 

and does anyone have any experience with it yet?

 

Not that I know of - you can be the first 

[ruppert]

Thanks for the info, I will give this a try and report back.

 

best

ruppert

[Jonas Dannert]

"However, the type of image compression used by Hap is based on OpenGL technologies"

 

http://vdmx.vidvox.net/blog/hap

 

As WATCHOUT is DirectX/Direct3D-based, this would be an issue, right?

 

/jonas

[Mike Fahl]

Walter, what particular codec have you used related to the HAP codec? There are a couple of "DXV style" codecs out there, based on D3D texture compression. While workable, I believe most of them have poor dynamic range, resulting in severe banding in some cases. As far as I can tell, the base HAP codec falls in this category as well, while the HAP Q codec seems to fare better (at the cost of significantly higher data rate).

 

Please share your experience here, as we've very eager to provide useful codecs in this area for inclusion in upcoming WATCHOUT versions.

 

Mike