Hi Jason...
We have some wide screens running the 720p "high definition" Hubble View
Space" service content here at the planetarium. I'll describe what we
did and hopefully it may be of some interest.
I looked at various ways to deliver content and read some MCN list
traffic on the subject at the time (18 months ago?).
DVD players.
DVD players were ruled out as the professional grade units are not cheap
(e.g. Panasonic DVD V8000 at US$900+, and NOT BluRay), and mileage for
consumer DVD players in an exhibit seems to be 18 months or less before
failure. There are also inflexible and can't be easily centrally
administered.
PC-based players
This seemed more attractive. Reasonably inexpensive with say white box
or Dell compact desktop PCs, with the advantage that they can be
networked and centrally administered.
We got a tour of a system at another local venue that used racks of such
low end PCs. System control was via commercial Omnivex software, which
enabled centralized scheduling and control of content across all the
screens in the building. Very flexible, useable and powerful ...but
expensive.
Like yourself, PCs were rack-mounted well away from the screens with
Extron cat5 extender boxes. I reckoned cost-per-screen (excluding
display device) came out something like
1) Omnivex license: $1,300 per feed
2) PC $600 (guessing here)
3) Long distance Extron vga-over-cat5 extender box pairs (transmitter
and receiver) $1,000 per feed (you'll probably need the long range
versions!)
3) cat5 cable run $300 per feed (seems to be the going rate here)
TOTAL $3,200 per feed.
We didn't have that kind of money and were looking for a small solution
to drive half a dozen screens. I felt there should be an easier way.
What we went for was:
Display devices:
MAC mini (Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz) as the display devices. These were
retailing at about $650 and VERY good bang for the buck as a digital
Swiss Army Knife. I'd heard discussion on this list of using them as
inexpensive hard disk playback units as an alternative to flaky DVD
players, but with much better flexibility and durability. They are also
very small ...small enough to be bolted to a bracket on the back of the
screen mounting itself.
We considered trying to run windows (bootcamp?) but figured the extra
cost of the windows license was not particularly necessary. One "gotcha"
...the MAC version of Windows Media Player is useless. Performance was
terrible ...quite unusable and grossly inferior to the windows version.
Conclusion: Windows Media Services is NOT cross-platform, at least if
you stick to Microsoft offerings. The solution (thank God) was the free
VLC media player, available for Mac, Win PC and Linux. Performance is
excellent and stability rock solid. MACs run VLC and pick up a Windows
Media Services stream from our main newtwork server. Another neat
trick... we install a free MAC version of the popular VNC remote control
application for hands free remote admin. Another "gotcha": automating
the MACs via Applescript to open VLC and connect to the desired feed
turned out to be a niggly job, but it worked eventually and is stable.
Distribution:
The Windows Media Services stream is delivered over our existing LAN.
We were concerned that it might consume bandwidth, with impact on other
network usage and display quality. I'd read of HD (1080p) feeds
consuming around 35 Mbits/s. Our LAN was 100 Mbits/s at that time, so
bought new switches ($1,500?) to bump the core up to 1000 Mbits/s.
Haven't even installed them yet. It turns out our 720p feed typically
runs at 1.5 Mbits/s! It must be pointed out that content is relatively
static, an animated Power Point style feed. In any case network
bandwidth was no issue.
At most, we needed to add extra, relatively short cable drops to the
nearest network hub.
Content Management:
We simply used the Windows Media Services components included by
Microsoft in Win2K3 Server. We are only running two feeds, and the
server side playlist management facilities are quite adequate to set
this up without the lavish Omnivex interface. Effectively free, and it
could do a lot more than we are currently asking it too.
Cost:
1) Mac Mini $650 (guessing here)
3) cat5 cable drop $300 per feed (seems to be the going rate here)
TOTAL $950 per feed.
We found that a persuasive number! ...at least for our needs.
Other thoughts:
You could load windows on the MACs and integrate them better into your
network infrastructure, using a common Anti-Virus system, backup utility
etc. And of course avoiding the need for any MAC expertise. If you get
charity-priced volume licensing for your windows that maybe the way to
go.
mini-ITX PCs and MAC Minis:
You could use mini-ITX based Win PCs to do the playback. This is getting
interesting. I reckon you could build a dual-core Atom-based mini PC
that could do HD playback for about CAN$350. An E-series Pentium based
system for about CAN$450. Both these figures exclude windows licensing.
You could try Linux with the free VLC player to minimize cost. Price is
substantially lower than the MAC Mini, but for overall value there are
still hard to beat. Wireless networking in particularly may be handy for
hard to reach or mobile locations. Blu Tooth could be useful to.
Administer them with a wireless Blu Tooth keyboard and mouse without
climbing on a step ladder...
Network:
If we get into streaming full HD (1080p) more, I will install those
GBits/s LAN switches and look at splitting the network into subnets and
VLANs to get some control over bandwidth allocation and make sure the
streams get the headspace they need without crippling our other LAN
usage.
Hope that's useful to someone else working on an HD project with a tight
budget I'd be happy to share info/tricks with anyone else trying
something similar.
Regards,
David Marsh
===========================================
David Marsh
Chief Technician & System Administrator
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver, BC V6J 3J9
E sysadmin at hrmacmillanspacecentre.com
T (604) 738 7827 ext. 229
C (604) 813 9667
F (604) 736 5665
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