iMac and Matrox Tripple head

[Gwion]

I wonder if anyone can help me, again!

 

The newer iMacs have 2 x thunderbolt outs.

Does anyone know if it is possible to run 2 x Matrox tripple heads giving us 6 screens?

The upgraded iMac with " NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB of GDDR5 memory " would be pretty powerfull, with 32Gb of RAM

 

I have a project comming up soon, and allthough I'd rather a Mac Pro, it isn't out!

 

Cheers

 

Gwion

[AHYoung]

yes and no. if you get the new digital dp thtg its going to work, and theoretically will give you 6 1080p outputs. That said id be amazed if an imac can run 6 sd outs let alone hd ones smoothly. to put things in perspective to be usefull you need to have the ability to run 2 files on each output simultaneously so you can at the very least crossfade between cues, that's without doing anything particularly clever, again id be somewhat circumspect that the machines got the grunt required and im not sure at to how well the fusion drives work in this respect compared to a true ssd. that's an outrageous amount of disk action as well as 7 screens all driven by the graphics card.

 

to put things in perspective, ive got one of the last old 8 core mac pros that's got ssd and quadro 4000 card ie all the upgrades and I regularly use it on widescreen or multiscreen stuff and I wouldn't expect to runs 6 outs. it will run between 7 or 8 hd files at the same time, but that's only really enough for at best 4 outputs. If it were me id probably look at an "old" for 2010 mac pro ans this wont just be a faster machine, but you can properly upgrade the bits you need as video server performance is more to do with disk transfer speeds and gpu performance rather than anything else. Run the same thing on a decent new mac mini, and you struggle to run more than 2 hd files and I think that the imac will be somewhere between the two, but only testing will tell.

 

also the thtg is not often the friendliest of things, its designed for running three identical monitors at a limited range of resolutions, and the mac software is curiously limited compared to the windows version. If you were less ambitious, you could run probably 4 outs either be using the thtg in dual mode, or by using the slightly more expensive but altogether more adaptable datapath x4.

 

really depends on your application and it will need testing, but the first port of call would be with the playback software manufacturer as they will have a decent idea as to what performance you can expect.

 

 

 

[Gwion]

Thank you for your assistance.

What I failed to point out is that I have the iMac

So it's upgraded to

3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz

32GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 4X8GB

256GB Flash Storage

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5

 

So I'm glad that it's possible in theory!

This project won't be that intensive, and I want 4 projectors rather than the 6, but if buying, I guessed getting 2 x trippler heads would be better as

I could use on other projects.

 

I'll test.

With thanks

G

[AHYoung]

The thtg are cheap enough and id suggest buying one unit and seeing how it goes, if it works well, with 3 outs, you can add a 4th with a simple thunderbolt to vga / dvi / hdmi adaptor, if that works, and im be utterly surprised if that's not the limit, got for the second thtg for outputs 5 and 6. the ssd is the upgrade that will make the difference.

 

with regard to the new mac dustbin, id not be ordering having bought the last new mac pro on release, it arrived unable to play more than one hd file simultaneously and three years later they still haven't written working drivers for the supplied graphics card as multiple hd performance wasn't on apples list of important things.

 

 

 

[lite_lad]

The new Mac Pro's are definately not bugged with that issue, a certain hire company has invested heavily in them and testing so far has got double the number of HD layers playing back without any issues that they were able to play on the previous version. So I wouldnt be too put off by your previous experience...

[AHYoung]

The new Mac Pro's are definately not bugged with that issue, a certain hire company has invested heavily in them and testing so far has got double the number of HD layers playing back without any issues that they were able to play on the previous version. So I wouldnt be too put off by your previous experience...

 

considering that previously the number of hd layers running smoothly on a mac pro out of the box was one, doubling it isn't hard. Im sure the new things going to be powerfull, but as they aren't widely available combined with the fact that they run mavericks which doesn't work with every application means that as ever its never good to be the first in the line for the new computer. also how do you fit your sdi capture card without any pci slots ? The reason the mac pro was a decent platform for building a media server was that you could specificaly upgrade parts to suit the task in hand combined with a decent performance, the new mac pro clearly has the potential to offer the performance, but its very much a box you don't mess with so if what you need hasn't been implemented by apple, you are stuffed.

[lite_lad]

I'm talking about a fully specced catalyst machine with SSD and upgraded graphics card, not literally straight out the box...

 

and thunderbolt solves all those issues, Blackmagic make a device which will capture directly over thunderbolt or you can use one of the PCI chassis to fit your existing capture card. Its going to mean a lot more external things to get the same machine, but once youve got over that, it is a better machine.

[AHYoung]

im really not sure what you mean, as there isn't currently a production release of catalyst that supports mavericks but more importantly the whole point of the new mac pro is its integration and you cant upgrade the graphics card as it doesn't use a graphics card. I don't doubt that once theres a stable working version of catalyst released which will hopefully be soon, its probable as long as apple haven't made an absolute mess of things its going to run fast, but its all conjecture mixed with misinformation that's completely off the point anyway...

[lite_lad]

Im saying this was a comparison between an old mac pro tower that was specced to run catalyst, otherwise it wouldnt be a very good side by side test...

 

it doesnt use a graphics card?! http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif

 

and im not sure why this is conjecture? this is a solid fact of something that I have seen in front of my very own eyes with a beta build of catalyst.

[AHYoung]

you should have a look at the new mac pro, its a clever and highly integrated design and it most certainly doesn't use a "graphics card" its completely integrated and built from the ground up, you have been looking at the curious round thing that's unlike pc you have seen before ? it has integrated graphics that there are a couple of options on in the same way as there are options on processor and memory etc but you need to spec them at the point of order. You certainly don't buy the thing then hotrod it with a load of 3rd party parts in the way thats been the norm for the last 20 odd years. Its a brave move and if its been done correctly its going to result in a very fast machine, but whether it makes for the fastest media server is currently unproven, and there isn't a non beta catalyst that will run on it, so the jury is out. Id certainly not be suggesting a 6k plus investment on a catalyst server that may or may not work... {yet}

[Gwion]

Weeeelll!

 

Back to my original post, as I don't have a Mac Pro, or Catalyst!

 

We're sorted!

The iMac does the job!

Admitedly we've not run loads of HD video through QLab, but it manages to go like this.

Arkaos Grand VJ with an USB capture device for SD video, and that's seen in QLAB as a Syphon input, and finally the QLab's output goes through Mad Mapper to smooth the edges!

 

Aint technology brilliant!