Daniel, Thanks for your response. We have an 80GB hard drive in the computer. Many of the video clips are 5-10 minutes long, except one that is 32 minutes. We are planning more long documentary type films, so we need to be ready for the larger files.
We currently own a few of the Firefly digital video players for standard-definition video, but their HD players are out of our budget at this time, as are the Adtec devices. Also, we already have the computers installed, so we were going to try to use those if we can. As far as Blu-ray, we are concerned about wear and tear on it if the film is repeating continuously for nine hours per day. A hard drive is much cheaper to replace when it wears out. We are still learning about various HD formats and playback options. We were using H.264 originally because we have a Flash program that plays the files using QuickTime. We need a playback format and application that goes straight to full screen as soon as the computer boots up. Do you know of any good reference material that explains some of the formats more in depth? Thank you. I really appreciate your time and assistance! Jason _______________________________________________________ Jason Bondy Exhibit AV/IT Systems Oklahoma History Center 2401 N. Laird Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73105 405-522-0783 - Office 405-522-5402 - Fax www.okhistory.org -----Original Message----- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Daniel M. Bartolini Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 4:02 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] HD video in the galleries? Hi Jason- How much hard drive space do you have available on these machines and how long are your videos? I ask because HD playback on computers is significantly improved when you use codecs that create discrete frames versus heavily compressed MPEG formats like H.264. For example running your video out to something like DVCPro HD or the Animation preset creates all independent frames of the movie. Your hard drive overhead is enormous (possibly 2 Gb for every 3 minutes, depending on bit rate) but the computer has to think far less about the process as there are no i-frames going on. Alternatively, if you need really small file sizes, mess with the H.264 bit rate. Start high at 1500kb/s and move down to around 900 or less until you find something that allows you to maintain your full frame rate. The lower you go of course the more you will see those motion artifacts, but perhaps not jumpiness. The dirty sort-of-secret of that format is it's really processor intensive and upgrading video cards won't matter a lot unless you specifically buy something like the latest NVidia cards that have built in hardware rendering support of H.264 and other MPEG codecs, or if you're willing to use a program like Max/Jitter (or comparable VJ system), or environment like openFrameworks to display your video in OpenGL so all work is done on the video card. Finally, have you considered standalone HD players, like those from Adtec, or going to Blu-Ray (I know, more money, may not work)? Oi. That was long. Sorry. Hope that helps. Have a good weekend. Daniel Jason Bondy wrote: > Hello all, > > > > We have recently begun moving toward High-Definition video for all of our > interviews, documentaries and other footage to be used in exhibits. We are > using internally produced video as well as video shot by outside producers. > However, we are running into some obstacles determining the best solution > for playback in the galleries. We will be playing the HD video files from > Windows-based computers connected to plasma monitors. Currently we are > trying it with H.264 encoded QuickTime files, but they are very "jumpy" on > video clips with a lot of motion. We have upgraded the RAM and video cards > in the computers, but with very little improvement. Also, we using Cat5 > DVI/HDMI extenders as there is quite a bit of distance from the computer to > the monitor. > > > > Who else out there is using HD video in your exhibits? How are you doing > it? We would welcome any suggestions or input you may have. > > > > Thank you so much, > > > > Jason > > > > > > _______________________________________________________ > > Jason Bondy > > Exhibit AV/IT Systems > > Oklahoma History Center > > 2401 N. Laird Ave. > > Oklahoma City, OK 73105 > > 405-522-0783 - Office > > 405-522-5402 - Fax > > www.okhistory.org > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) > > To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu > > To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: > http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l >
