7 videos on one HD-Display freeze

[JohannesT]

Hello i hope anyone can help me because i cant really understand the source of my problems ,

 

Im using following Setup as Display Computer:

 

W7 64bit Service Pack1

Intel Xeon E5440 @2x 2.83GHz

16Gb ram

 

NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700

4095MB

and 512MB Video

***************************************

 

I want to play 7 DIFFERENT Videos on this Display Computer with one Full-HD projector. The reason why i have 7 videos is because i have to map them with the Corners Tween to 7 different canvases. All together they are one full-HD video but they are splitted for the mapping. They got following Formats: 232x1080, 214x1080, 196x1080, 636x1080,196x1080,  214x1080, 232x1080 all together 1920x1080. So in the Timeline i need 7 Layers for the videos. 

 

MY PROBLEM is now that some videos freeze after a few seconds or they starting late but never really together. If Im using just one video and duplicate it 7 Times theres no Problem. Also with less videos like 3 or 4 there are no lags. With more layers and more different videos the Problem getting worse.

 

I connected the network cable directly to the display computer without switch. No better result.

 

I tried some different CODECs and bitrate but the Problem is more or less but still there.

With Mpeg2 20Mbit/s it takes very long on the display computer to load the frame at curser position but then the videos playing good together. 

With Quicktime H264 and Mpeg4 its loading faster but the playback of some videos freeze after a few seconds or starting late and not together. Witch Video is freezing is quite random i cant see there a rule or something.

My best result with a minimum of lags with: Quicktime with H264 or Mpeg4 or Directly H264 with a bitrate about 10Mbit/s. With more than 7 layers its getting worse again.

 

The DURATION of of my testing Footage was 30 sec and 60 sec but theres was no difference. Low detailed footage with lot of whitespace starts and plays without lags.

I tested some different pre roll times with no better result.

For me it looks like a synchronisation Problem but at all I don't know really where the problem is. The freeze of the videos seams really random for me. Sometimes a video plays well, next time its freezed for a few seconds and than jumps and plays well again with the other videos.

 

I hope i can show you some video of the effect in the next days.

Is there anything i can do or try so i dont have to lower bitrate or use less videos? All together are "just" full HD.

 

I hope anyone can help me  

Thanks and best regards Johannes

 

 

[guypriz]

Hi johannes,

 

Did you try using these video files in a composition or tasks? It might help...

You could try make 7 different tasks and play them all together with one que command

 

Best regards,

Guy

[geogen]

Can you upload the files to some sharing service, because I just created 7 short videos with dimensions you provided, each video 30 seconds long, and ran it on my system. Everything went perfect.

 

But my system specs are:

MB: Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3
Memory: kingston hyperX blue 1600 DDR-III DIMM 16gb
CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K
Proc cooler: Corsair H100
Graphics: MSI ATI 7970, 3GB, GDDR5, 384bits LIGHTNING (2 DVI - 4 miniDP)
Case: Define R4 USB3.0 Black Pearl
PSU: SeaSonic P-860 860W Active PFC (Modular) PLATINUM
Hard drives: 2x SSD 120Gb SATA 6Gb/s OCZ Vertex 3
Capture: decklink duo + DVI extender, DATAPATH VisionRGB-X2, Avermedia analog
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

 

So my thought was maybe its because I have SSD, its best boost performance to any PC or watchout server
 

[Steve Farris]

Hi Johannes

 

It would seem that your videos should be able to play on your system.  I have had struggles playing multiple videos at once, but that is with a series of full res videos.  My solution was to use SSD drives for my Watchout show folder.

 

You have already suggested a possible work-around.  Since you can play 7 copies of the same video (which makes sense, the system is aware enough to know they only need to be decoded once), simply use 7 copies of the video and use the cropping tween tools to only show the parts you need at the appropriate location on your display.

 

Good Luck!

 

steve

[Jonas Dannert]

I think your hardware platform is running out resources.
To me, the erratic behavior points to this.
Some comments below:

/jonas

 

 

Hello i hope anyone can help me because i cant really understand the source of my problems ,

Im using following Setup as Display Computer:

W7 64bit Service Pack1
Intel Xeon E5440 @2x 2.83GHz

This is by todays standard a pretty slow processor, even if one have two of them.
Together less than a i7 2600K of today. This might be one issue, but probably not the main one.

 

 

16Gb ram

NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700
4095MB
and 512MB Video
***************************************

No mention of HDD or SSD?
If only HDD, it will not handle 7pcs of 20 MBit MPEG-2 videos...
Might be the main issue here.

 

 

 

 

I want to play 7 DIFFERENT Videos on this Display Computer with one Full-HD projector. The reason why i have 7 videos is because i have to map them with the Corners Tween to 7 different canvases. All together they are one full-HD video but they are splitted for the mapping. They got following Formats: 232x1080, 214x1080, 196x1080, 636x1080,196x1080, 214x1080, 232x1080 all together 1920x1080. So in the Timeline i need 7 Layers for the videos.

These 7 videos togther are not "just" one full HD video, since they all are 1080 high, they will have to be encoded as 7 pcs of 1080p file anyway.
And they will load the system accordingly.

 

 

 

 

MY PROBLEM is now that some videos freeze after a few seconds or they starting late but never really together. If Im using just one video and duplicate it 7 Times theres no Problem. Also with less videos like 3 or 4 there are no lags. With more layers and more different videos the Problem getting worse.

I connected the network cable directly to the display computer without switch. No better result.

I tried some different CODECs and bitrate but the Problem is more or less but still there.
With Mpeg2 20Mbit/s it takes very long on the display computer to load the frame at curser position but then the videos playing good together.
With Quicktime H264 and Mpeg4 its loading faster but the playback of some videos freeze after a few seconds or starting late and not together. Witch Video is freezing is quite random i cant see there a rule or something.
My best result with a minimum of lags with: Quicktime with H264 or Mpeg4 or Directly H264 with a bitrate about 10Mbit/s. With more than 7 layers its getting worse again.

The DURATION of of my testing Footage was 30 sec and 60 sec but theres was no difference. Low detailed footage with lot of whitespace starts and plays without lags.
I tested some different pre roll times with no better result.
For me it looks like a synchronisation Problem but at all I don't know really where the problem is. The freeze of the videos seams really random for me. Sometimes a video plays well, next time its freezed for a few seconds and than jumps and plays well again with the other videos.

I hope i can show you some video of the effect in the next days.
Is there anything i can do or try so i dont have to lower bitrate or use less videos? All together are "just" full HD.

I hope anyone can help me
Thanks and best regards Johannes

[JohannesT]

Thank you for the tips.I will try things out . By now we have some important media deadlines too so I hope i can give feedback at the end of week.

[GIBS]

Hi, I am using watchout for past 3 years, started from version 4. now i have upgraded to 5.3.1, now i want to scrap my system and build a new system with the latest hardware so there will be no any problem. i want 3 out put system.

can someone from dataton give me the latest hardware spec of the system,

mother board, ram, processor, power supply, graphic cards etc..

my email id is sureshgibson@yahoo.com

waiting for your support as soon as possible

Regards

Suresh Gibson

[Jonas Dannert]

Hi Suresh,

 

look here: http://forum.dataton.com/topic/734-watchout-5-technical-notes/

 

Updated yesterday.

 

/jonas

[Graphicgeezer]

Hi Jonas 

I understand the resources issue here, but is there any way of calculating when you will run out?  I've looked around and I'm going to buy the firepro solution with the s400 but can I get away with buying a quad core cpu and at a lower speed as I'm only going to drive 4 outputs from the one PC.  How far can I go before I run out of resources to decode??  Or how do I work out the head room based on bitrate etcetc?

 

Oliver

[jfk]

Hi Jonas 

I understand the resources issue here, but is there any way of calculating when you will run out?  I've looked around and I'm going to buy the firepro solution with the s400 but can I get away with buying a quad core cpu and at a lower speed as I'm only going to drive 4 outputs from the one PC.  How far can I go before I run out of resources to decode??  Or how do I work out the head room based on bitrate etcetc?

 

Oliver

 

As far as multiple video decoding / playback, your GPU is not an issue and is no need of an upgrade.

 

Main memory capacity is not an issue - number of utilized memory channels and channel speeds may be.

 

Video decoding is very much about throughput, how fast you can get the data from the hard drive,

through the motherboard, through memory, into and out of the processor,

back through the motherboard and finally to the GPU for display.

All those components in unison will determine video decoding thresholds.

Point is, upgrading the CPU without complimentary motherboard and memory channel upgrades may be fruitless.

 

Certainly high speed SSD drives improve throughput significantly, but if the rest of the chain is old spec,

you will hit your thresholds there.

 

Any i-7 multi-core CPU operating with dual channel memory is more limited by the memory channels than it is by its raw speed. For decoding larger numbers of movies, we use six-core quad channel memory Extreme Edition processors. Extreme Editions cpu provide higher DMI speeds (akin to the old front side buss speeds),

which provides the highest throughput possible. There should be equivalent Xeon's should you choose to go that route,

but to achieve effective gains you will likely need a new motherboard, etc.

 

reference: 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3960X Processor Extreme Edition - Incredible memory bandwidth

[jfk]

Hi, I am using watchout for past 3 years, started from version 4. now i have upgraded to 5.3.1, now i want to scrap my system and build a new system with the latest hardware so there will be no any problem. i want 3 out put system.

can someone from dataton give me the latest hardware spec of the system,

mother board, ram, processor, power supply, graphic cards etc..

my email id is sureshgibson@yahoo.com

waiting for your support as soon as possible

Regards

Suresh Gibson

 

Latest hardware is a relative term. Get too close to the bleeding edge and you may find yourself a pioneer

tripping on unexpected bios or driver bugs, etc. i.e. mature hardware is typically better debugged.

Point is, even following the hardware guidelines and software tweaking guides is not a guarantee of stability,

you still must thoroughly test your unique blend of components, drivers, bios, etc to confirm.