[Frameworks] Digital Playback for Festivals, Etc.

[Carl Lee]

I would add that another very cool thing about the WD TV Live media 
players in particular is that some folks in the Netherlands have written 
open source software called HDSync that allows you to network multiple 
players for synchronized playback.  It takes a little tweaking (it's 
open source and you have to update the firmware on the players) and it 
helps to know some unix (I didn't, but got help and learned a tiny bit) 
but it's a great, CHEAP solution for synched, multi-channel 
installation-type situations.

This is their website if anyone is interested:
http://syncstarter.org/hdsync/

I used it for a 3-channel HD video (h.264 wrapped in quicktime) and it 
worked great.

Carl



On 2/25/2012 3:10 PM, David Tetzlaff wrote:
> Two quick comments on Jon's reply:
>
> 1. One of the advantages of the standalone media players such as the WD or the Seagate FreeAgent Theater is that they will read hard drives in all the major formats: NTFS (current PC), FAT (old PC), or HFS+ (Mac). Thus there need be no issues with the FAT 4GB file limit.
>
> 2. Jon is indeed correct that the highest possible quality would come from a computer (which could be a laptop) equipped with additional hardware that can allow it to generate 'real video' HDMI/DVI or component out from less-compressed formats such as AppleProRes422. The major players in this sort of video hardware are AJA, Blackmagic Designs, and Matrox. The Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle and the Matrox MX02 Mini are small, easily transportable and relatively inexpensive ($200 - $500) interfaces that can work with laptops, and would be worth considering for makers who travel with their, would be bringing their laptops anyway, and can manage the modest extra expense.
>
> For a stationary installation, (e.g. exhibitors) a Mac Pro or a Quad Core Windows machine equipped with a standard PCIe Blackmagic Intensity card ($200) would yield HD-video out about 'as good as it gets'. However, with any computer, you get into limits dictated by the OS and the software: PCs won't read Mac drives; Macs won't write to NTFS; Mac software tends not to like .MKV containers, etc. Which means potentially more work on an exhibitor's end converting submitted files into something that works well with the system. But there's no perfect solution, and this would certainly be far superior to trying to juggle a series of tape and disc physical formats, all requiring different sorts of players.
>
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