This is great work Douglas. Mind if I fwd it to a list that would appreciate it greatly?
Julian ..on Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 05:13:06PM +1200, Douglas Bagnall wrote: > A few months ago I wrote some software to show synchronised video on > multiple screens for Leilani Kake's Ngā Hau e Whā at Fresh Gallery. > It is called Opo. > > Since then, almost every video artist I meet says that they once tried > to do synchronised video which the gallery thought they could sync by > pressing play on all the DVD players at the same time, but in every > case the video drifted apart and was ruined and embarrassing. > > Meanwhile all the gallery technicians talk about expensive solutions, > using DVD players that link up or other specialised hardware or > gazillion dollar Mac software. > > Opo is free. All you need is a computer with multiple video outputs > (like 4 or 6 or maybe even 8), or for heaps of screens, corresponding > heaps of computers with multiple video outputs. Apart from the extra > video cards, they are ordinary computers: after the show it can go in > the office for normal stuff like accounts or solitaire or whatever. > The Ngā Hau e Whā computer had 4 video outputs and cost $600. > > An advantage of this method over DVD players is that you aren't > restricted to an archaic video format designed for 1990s analogue TVs. > You can tune your video to suit the projectors (which probably means > 1024x768 non-interlaced, unless you hire the 1280x720 ADA/Physics Room > projectors). > > It can be a bit fiddly to set up though. So if you want to use Opo > and aren't too sure about compiling C or testing Gstreamer pipelines, > you might be best to get the gallery to hire me to do it. > > There are websites here http://halo.gen.nz/opo/ and here > http://repo.or.cz/w/opo.git. > > The name references the Video Whale project, which used Gstreamer to > synchronise video for a video wall in 2002. > > http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/apps/videowhale.html > > Video technology has changed quite a bit since then, not all for the > better, so Opo has to do a few things differently. > > Douglas > _______________________________________________ > Ada_list mailing list > [email protected] > http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/ -- Julian Oliver http://julianoliver.com _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
