GPU Movie Player to 2 stages

matttennie

Hi Izzillionaires,

I'm still trying to get my head around how to use gpu-based codecs efficiently in Isadora 2.0\.

I have a wide irregularly shaped projection surface with two projectors splitting a single image, and mapped with the awesome new projection mapping features (BIG THANKS FOR THAT!!). Since the Movie Player has the stage option on it now, do I have to use one movie player per stage? It seems inefficient since they're reading the same file and the two outputs are coming out of the same graphics card.

Thanks!

Cheers,

Mattt

DusX

Currently this is the case, but options for this are being worked on.

When this is necessary (and depending on your hardware, and files sizes) you might gain in performance by having duplicate version of the file on your system, and located on separate physical drives. I recently helped a user trying to stream the same file multiple times (once for each stage), due to each player loading the full video, the system required more data transfer than the drive could provide.

By copying a file to another drive and splitting the data transfer between drives, (each player loading a separate copy of the file from different physical drives) these limitations were bypassed, and everything was able to play smoothly.

Michel

@matttennie

Or you play the movie with one player, use the "syphon stage out" actor and place as many "syphon to texture/image or video" actor as you need.

Best
Michel

DusX

Absolutely... this totally slipped my mind..
Can do the same with Spout on PC.

primaldivine

Nice use of Syphon. I hadn' t thought of that either.

jhoepffner

Hello,

I tried the syphon solution and is not so good in term of resolution and efficiency.

The problem is : the definition of syphon output is the definition of the real stage output.

To split the syphon input you have to output the double and find a place on your screen to display it.

So if you need 2 1920x1080 stage, you need 1 3840x1080 output… Where you put it on your screen?

Some software (like Max/Msp) can output a virtual syphon flow, in Isadora you need to have a physical output.

Perhaps you have tested a better solution?

DusX

@jhoepffner

I see what you mean.. it would be nice to have a syphon actor that can take any texture input (like Spout) and serve it for recapture. Perhaps this should be added as a Feature request.

mark

@matttennie, @jhoepffner

In the new build, which are are very much hoping to have out at the end of April, we will provide an option to solve this problem.

In the meantime, let me just say that you can make a gigantic preview stage -- whatever resolution you like -- and just move it to the bottom of the screen or somewhere out of the way. Even though you can't see the entire stage, it will still work to send the information to Syphon, etc.

Best Wishes,

Mark

crystalhorizon

great news!

jhoepffner

Mark, Fine to hear it!

Stephane_Morisse

Mark (and others...) I've had a problem yesterday trying to use a dualhead analog matrox and I feel this is linked to this thread : I had connected it to two beamers and setup the preferences in OSX and in Isadora as suggested in the manual. When I am in the finder, I can take a window and take it to the second display to show it on one or the other of the beamers, depending on the 'left half' / 'right half' setting. But when I output the corresponding stage, there's no way to use the two beamers, I can only output on one, the second one stays stuck on a generic finder picture. That looks like a bad fullscreen management. Where am I wrong ?
My setup mbp i7 2.3 ghz 16 Go OSX 10.8.5 on SSD

mark

@Stephane_Morisse,

I don't believe this is related to the above thread.

If you are using a Dual Head 2 Go, and assuming the Dual Head 2 Go appears on display 2, the Preferences should be set like this

Stage 1: Place On = Display 2 - Left Half

Stage 2: Place On = Display 2 - Right Half

Is this how you have the Preferences set?

Best Wishes,

Mark

Skulpture

@Stephane_Morisse

The matrox basically upscales the video and makes the video *think* its going to one output. What it really does is give you a huge 2560x1024 resolution. **Not** two 1920*1024 screens. So you have to use the settings as Mark said above as the computer will only see the Matrox as one big screen. In Isadora you have to basically chop the video in Half which Mark has cleverly coded to do.

Stephane_Morisse

@Mark : don't have the matrox for a few days but I think that's the way you describe the settings in the manual and so I think I tried this. Going to check this as soon as possible.
@Skulpture : I had a look in the manual of course and set up Izzy like this, using left half and right half...

mark

Dear All,

For anyone reviewing this thread, the next release of Isadora will allow texture based video (vid-gpu) to be sent to any stage. This should alleviate some of the issues with getting video where you want it. We're testing this release now and trying to get it out as soon as we can.

Best Wishes,

Mark

crystalhorizon

Sounds great!

Skulpture

This will be an awesome feature for sure!