Making full use of the computer's power

Woland

1 x Live Camera Input with a resolution of 3000x1080 pixels
2 x Movie Player playing movies with a resolution of 3000 x 1080 pixels
1 x Movie Player playing movies with a resolution of 5000 x 1080 pixels

Remember, that during the transition from one scene to the next, the bandwidth requirements double: you'll have 2 x Live Camera @ 3000x1080, 4 x Movie Player @ 3000x1080, 2 x Movie Player @ 5000x1080. My initial impression is that's going to be pretty extreme.

This is a lot to ask of a laptop. If you want power, I'd actually advise working on a Windows desktop computer with a single, powerful graphics card.

karlakr8

thanks for the replies

@mark
at the moment of writing i was using h264 codec, now I changed it to ApplePorRes422
Some of the videos are HAP A

The system setup is as follows: I connect via NDI to another computer that does the mapping to the projectors. The playback of videos get stuck on my computer.

I lowered also the playback as follows

1 x Live Camera Input with a resolution of 3000x1080 pixels
1 x Movie Player playing movies with a resolution of 3000 x 1080 pixels
1 x Movie Player playing movies with a resolution of 5000 x 1080 pixels

It’s not only in the transitions, it really happens all of the time.

For live input I use blackmagic mini.
@Woland I don’t have the chance to set everything onto a PC, there is no time nor means to do that. Any other recommendations? I surely could lower the resolution…

Woland

@karlakr8 said:

I surely could lower the resolution

That would be my recommendation then. My inclination is to say that those resolutions may be a bit too much for a laptop to handle.
@mc_monte What do you think?

karlakr8

Ok, thanks a lot.

So, would you go directly half size or do you think it's worth a try (i'm running on a very tight schedule) to play inbetween, like 2/3?

Anyway, why does ISadora not make use of the full computer power? It's really the video getting stuck but the programme doesn't use the full CPU...

Woland

@karlakr8 said:

So, would you go directly half size or do you think it's worth a try (i'm running on a very tight schedule) to play inbetween, like 2/3?

If you have time, try both, but I'd start with half size and see how that performs first.

the programme doesn't use the full CPU

Correct. Much of what Isadora does with video is GPU-based

Additionally, since you're using NDI already (I assume on a wired connection with an gigabit ethernet switch), do you have the possibility of switching some of the content to run on the second computer (or even a third computer) to balance the load better between the computers?

Also I'm curious, what does the LOAD meter at the bottom right of the Isadora application window say when you're 1) In one of your Scenes, 2) Transitioning between Scenes

karlakr8

@woland said:

@karlakr8 said:
So, would you go directly half size or do you think it's worth a try (i'm running on a very tight schedule) to play inbetween, like 2/3?
If you have time, try both, but I'd start with half size and see how that performs first.
the programme doesn't use the full CPU
Correct. Much of what Isadora does with video is GPU-based

Ok, that was my main question. So for optimizing would the way to go is lowering resolution...
Additionally, since you're using NDI already (I assume on a wired connection with an gigabit ethernet switch), do you have the possibility of switching some of the content to run on the second computer (or even a third computer) to balance the load better between the computers? It will be too complicated for now, the other computer is running mad mapper, no Isadora at all and I have a lot of scene changes. I guess there is no time for now, performance is tomorrow night...

Also I'm curious, what does the LOAD meter at the bottom right of the Isadora application window say when you're 1) In one of your Scenes, 2) Transitioning between Scenes

inside a scene
it starts around 30 % and goes up quickly to 53 staying inbetween 48 and 54

transitioning
goes to up to 70% sometimes over 100%

I do have some effects which i just removed load goes down significantly around 48-50 during transitions up to 78.

I'll try the lower res now

Woland

@karlakr8

If you send your Patch in a support ticket (link in my signature) we can take a look at it and see if there's any way to optimize it further.

Woland

@karlakr8 said:

inside a sceneit starts around 30 % and goes up quickly to 53 staying inbetween 48 and 54 transitioninggoes to up to 70% sometimes over 100%I do have some effects which i just removed load goes down significantly around 48-50 during transitions up to 78.

Could you do a quick test doing the same thing but without sending NDI out?

Michel

@karlakr8

How many screens/projectors are connected and how? (HDMI?)
What are the resolutions of the screens/projectors?

Best Michel

karlakr8

@woland

The tests I sent were without NPI out

With NPI out load came to over 200%

karlakr8

@michel There are 10 projectors.

I must admit I don't know the exact details of the system as I am in residency in a space with 360º video and technicians take care of a huge part of this.

My computer is connected via Ethernet to a computer that runs Mad Mapper. This computer distributes my images over the projectors.

The projectors are Full HD

The resolutions I use are the ones of the external system.

mark

@karlakr8 said:

The tests I sent were without NPI out

Really, the next step to take (if you haven't already) is to open a ticket and let one of my team work with you. To figure out what's going on we really need precise details and this thread is getting a bit confusing with various user suggestions based on incomplete information from you. Please open a ticket today so we can help you more effectively.

That said, in your comment above I assume you mean NDI not NPI. Your initial post is a little unclear about NDI, because you mention it but we do not understand where NDI is being used. If you had the NDI output feature turned off, then please leave it off. But why were you talking about NDI in the first place? Furthermore, if you're not using NDI, how are you getting the image from Isadora to Mad Mapper?

Also a bit confusing in your original post: you say you have "1 live camera on 3000x1080" but 3000 x 1080 is not a valid resolution for the Blackmagic device as far as I know. How are you getting a 3000 x 1080 pixel image from Blackmagic?

Have you modified the Stage Setup to a resolution other than 1920 x 1080?

I have tried to duplicate your setup here on my 2016 Mac Book Pro which is slightly less powerful than the laptop you mention. I created three Apple Pro Res 422 test movies: 2 x 3000 x 1080 pixels, and 1 x 5000 x 1080 pixels. I do not have a Blackmagic device with me, so I cannot test that part of the setup. But I did enable the built-in web cam of my laptop at its native resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. I am outputting to a separate 1920 x 1080 display.

I can see in Apple's Activity Monitor app that the VTDecoderXPCService (Apple's service for decoding frames) is using around 400% CPU, which is to be expected given the resolution of these movies. So while my fans are definitely on (indicating a high amount of CPU usage), I see no particular problems with playback in Isadora 3.0.6. I am also able to transition to a matching scene, which is playing all three movies and accepting live video with the LOAD indicator at about 20% and the frame rate is just slightly less than 30fps.

That's the most I can do to replicate your setup at the moment. As I said, if you want to solve this problem in the most efficient manner, please open a ticket and consult with our tech support team.

Best Wishes,
Mark

Michel

@karlakr8

You are sending all Video from Isadora to MadMapper via NDI through an ethernet connection?

karlakr8

@michel Yes I do. As Mark mentioned I will create a ticket with all the details, I guess it's the best bet to gather all the information.

@mark I do use native resolution of my video input full HD and I do stretch here the stage output to 3000x1080.

fps 25 in all videos

all the other images are 3000x1080 or 5000x1080 resolution set to a stage output of the respective resolution

bonemap

@karlakr8 said:

Any clues how to optimise Isadora 3 on a Mac?

Hi,

This might be supper obvious, but I have had issues running Isadora with other apps open on the same machine - namely Microsoft Office programs and there is the old chestnut of the Adobe Creative Cloud conflict that may be an issue for High Sierra.