smalljoshua Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 Hi Guys, It's that time of year again (no, not Christmas, not on TBR anyway) and I've decided to try my hand at another PC based project. I'll give an outline to make it easier to explain. I've got a half dozen Netbooks and a Half Dozen Projectors. Each is 1024x768 resolution and of similar brightness. I'd like to arrange these into a grid of 3x2 and treat them as one large screen. My current train of thought is that I have a 7th, powerful computer, running a media server (probably screen monkey at the moment) with 1 monitor connected for control and outputting onto a "virtual" 2nd monitor. This virtual monitor would be 3072x1536. Each region of the screen would then be streamed to one of the netbooks and outputted on the correct projector. I've looked at the following to try and come up with a solution, I'm testing on Win7 Home Premium x64 at the moment as I don't have access to any XP machines here: http://synergy-foss.org/ - So far, I've not managed to make this work, the GUI isn't nice and there doesn't seem to be much information on it.http://forum.ultravnc.info/viewtopic.php?t=6408 - I looked at this topic along with a couple of others and there doesn't seem to be anything (commercial or not) that likes working with more than one virtual screen.http://www.maxivista.com/ - Is a commercial project and I'd rather keep this free where possiblehttp://www.zoneos.com/zonescreen.htm - Is quite laggy and only supports 1 virtual monitor If Zonescreen supported multiple monitors and wasn't as laggy, I'd use it in a heart beat as each screen would appear as any other in Windows and I could look after them happily. Does anyone have any experience of doing this? Any ideas? Alternatively, are there any media servers out there that would talk across a network and allow me to output a specific proportion of screen? As in: run a media server on each Netbook, each with identical content and trigger simultaneously to output only the area defined by me. Cheers for the help. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 IIRC Video Lan (VLC) will let you do a video wall and will pick off a defined part of a video streaming over a network. Worth looking into? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted December 18, 2011 Author Share Posted December 18, 2011 It is indeed, to clarify, you're saying that I'd stream video from one PC, on all the other PCs pickup a proportion of that streamed video and display that? I like that idea as it keeps all the content local. I'll give it a look. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Yes, that's my understanding of itDavid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted December 18, 2011 Author Share Posted December 18, 2011 Ok then, VLC works but only very just and it still has a few limitations. Using a 2x2 grid, when doing Video Wall from a local source, the file plays back a bit stepped and juddery. The top RH "screen" is missing and there would appear to be some known bugs surrounding it but with no projected solutions. When attempting to stream a video over the network, it works but with about 4s delay. When trying a desktop clone over the network however, it struggles immensely with 10-15s of delay and only lets me use the primary monitor for that purpose. It could be nice, but just isn't ready yet. The machines I'm using aren't what I'd call weedy so I don't think I've got any hope of running it on a Netbook! Keep the suggestions coming, I'll continue to play with VLC and see if I can get any improvement over what I've got so far. Ideally, I'd stream right out of screen monkey without having to do a full render and encode on the host machine. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dosxuk Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Why? Streaming video is always going to have latency or quality issues. The only real option is to play the media files locally, and have a robust protocol between machines to keep them synchronised - and I think the chances of finding something like this for cheap is going to be small. And that said, most netbooks are probably going to struggle with a 3072x1536 video file, even if they're only displaying a 1/6 of it, so then you would need to start thinking about how to synchronise different files... Anyway, a better, easier (and probably cheaper) option (IMO) would just be to put some extra graphics cards in a machine and run VGA to each projector. If needs be, network that machine using VLC (or other remote desktop software) to one of your netbooks in the control booth for control to keep your VGA runs down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramdram Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 SJ, ref the probs on VLC; I fear you may have to research rather more than VLC on its own to solve the juddery issues. According to the VLC blurb, just google the help forum, it could be video drivers, say, elsewhere than on the host machine. There are more than a few queries on exactly the subject. Ref your host m/c, other folk at other times in other threads recommend switching off any other progs/apps etc. [ http://www.videolan.org/doc/play-howto/en/ch03.html suggests this at the very bottom: Computer crashes / Video is corrupted Another common problem is buggy video drivers. Try upgrading them from the website of your video card's manufacturer. Also, you can try disabling Overlay (Preferences/General/Video, untick "Overlay video output")...] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timd Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 The other thing to note about VLC streaming is that a lot of it seems half finished at best. I've never tried video streaming with it, but for audio, I know that it has one preference pane for how to title the stream and a separate one for how to encode it with no linking of the two. This means that it will happily title a stream as a 128 mp3 and encode it as a 256 ogg. Not entirely helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted December 18, 2011 Author Share Posted December 18, 2011 I'm leaning towards just running a conventional media server and VNC for control. It looks as if it's going to be the easiest route. I've found the reference towards Disabling overlay, which I have done. I get smooth streaming with a video as the source for the streaming, albeit with latency. It's only when I start trying the desktop that I get poor quality. Cheers for the ideas. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Lyall Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Josh itching you might need to consider a bandwidth issue here... 3072x1536 is a fair number of pixels. Lets say Each pixel is 3 sets of 16 bits... And frame rate of 20 a second... Multiply that all together and you have quite a lot to put across an ip based system Simon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wol Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Just buy one of: http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5870-eyefinity-6-edition/pages/overview.aspx ? Thats the easiest option anyway I'd say :P And compared to the price of 6 netbooks and associated networking eqipment and cabling and faff, is possibly cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I've used a windows machine with 6 graphics outs. The big question to ask is whether you really need that definition. If you do your issue will be getting that data through the machine quickly enough. Definitely SSD territory, with plenty of RAM - I'd look at 16GB upwards. It'd be easier to half the resolution and keep the data throughput sensible. It would then be fairly trivial with the right graphics cards and something like resolume that can render across multiple screen outputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted December 18, 2011 Author Share Posted December 18, 2011 I can live with 1536x768 happily, maybe even lower. The machine spec I'm playing with at the moment is AMD x4 960, 16GB Ram and 2x of these cards. 2x 750GB HDD in RAID1 running Windows 7 Ultimate. I'll use a PCI Graphics Card for the control monitor and control it over VNC. I'll use adaptor cables for connecting the projectors (all of them are VGA) How does that sound? Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Is this a permanent installation or something you intend to tour around from place to place?David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted December 18, 2011 Author Share Posted December 18, 2011 This is something that's going to see a few weeks in Theatre, a couple of festivals and anything else I throw at it. I have no "fixed" plans but do have work for a system once it's functional. I am not after massively high end, that's not the point of the project. I'm after "value added" video here. Ex-Install projectors, generic content and just enough effort to make the client happy. At a lower price than you'd pay for a "proper" system. The PC will also Dual Boot a second copy of W7U for me to use day to day. Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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