10240 x 768 Res Video (10 x 1 video wall)

[Andy9001]

I have a 10 x 1 video wall configured as a 10240 x 768 single screen. The creative guys are having some problems selecting which codec to use for encoding the video to play at this resolution. They like typical MAC people are stuck in "MAC vs PC" land instead of "how do we make this work?" My question is, has anyone done this before and can anyone recommend an approporiate codec to support this resolution?

[jagabo]

So you need a single 10240x768 video file? What kind of sources will you be putting together? What kind of player will you be using?

[Andy9001]

Yes, the video files will be short single 10240x768 clips. Content is being created in adobe after effects, not too sure what hte creative guys use for the source.

the player is a Dual Core E8500 CPU with 4GB RAM. Video cards are:

2 x Matrox M9140 and 1 x M9120 each set at 1024 x 768. Our application displays the video full screen across the 10 displays. This is working, the only issue is codecs.... I think.

[Soopafresh]

Might be easier on PC using Ultramon so you can more easily configure and organize 10 displays on your machine.

http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/overview/

Codec? Good question. 10240x768, huh.... Try h264 in an MP4 container, high bit rate, like 18000kbs or higher.


See h264 specs for maximum bitrates supported by the codec. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264


What's the playback software?

Again, this is all theoretical, but it should work.

[jagabo]

A C2D probably won't be able to decode a 10240x768 h.264 video fast enough for smooth playback. I was able to create a file of that frame size with VirtualDub and X264VFW. My C2Q (Q6600) was topped out playing it back. Xvid and Divx seem to have problems at that frame size. HuffYUV and Lagarith work but don't give much compression. I suspect PicVideo MJPEG will work but I don't have it installed right now. Ffdshow's MJPEG encoder/decoder worked. Ffdshow's MPEG2 encoder/decoder worked.

[Andy9001]

A C2D probably won't be able to decode a 10240x768 h.264 video fast enough for smooth playback. I was able to create a file of that frame size with VirtualDub and X264VFW. My C2Q (Q6600) was topped out playing it back. Xvid and Divx seem to have problems at that frame size. HuffYUV and Lagarith work but don't give much compression. I suspect PicVideo MJPEG will work but I don't have it installed right now.

The test clips in .mov work fine, and it only uses one core, so a quad core won't make any difference which is why we went for more Hz than cores. Only thing is we don't want to use QuickTime because of API issues. We need it to play in WMP which is what has brought up the codec question.

I should also add that we would like to protect the CPU load by using a low load/CPU intensive codec and also slow down frame rates etc. There are a lot of variables in this which is what prompts my question of "What is the recommended codec for this size res" once we have the codec spec'd correctly we can go back and reconfigure hardware to suit.

[jagabo]

I also tested ffdshow's WMV9 in AVI and it worked. The C2D should be enough to handle MPEG2, MJPEG and WMV9 (WMV3 fourcc). I was seeing around 25 percent CPU usage on my Q6600. I couldn't get HuffYUV and Lagarith to play smoothly. And, as mentioned earlier, h.264 topped out my cpu. Although, if you plan to use low frame rates it might be ok.

[jagabo]

we don't want to use QuickTime because of API issues

MP4 and Haali ok?

[lordsmurf]

10240 sounds like a typo -- too many 0's in there.
Did you mean 1024x768 ?

[jagabo]

No, he has 10 1024x768 monitors side-by-side and wants one video to span them.

[lordsmurf]

Concurrent played separate files (timer the start from a sync'd clock) may work best here.

[jagabo]

Here's a short 10240x768 29.97 fps x264 encoded mp4 sample:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VK6T12LG
There's no way this will play back smoothly on a Core 2 Duo.

[MysticE]

Here's a short 10240x768 29.97 fps x264 encoded mp4 sample:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VK6T12LG
There's no way this will play back smoothly on a Core 2 Duo.

What the hell you watching?