Syncing between 2 players

[BrechtNovid]

Hi all,


I have a small project with 2 players. I have a videowall of 2 times 3 by 3 16/9 LCD seamless screens. So I makes a 32/9 screen in total. All the files are quicktime H264 1920 by 540 pixels witch is the same size as my videowall. Since the LCD can't go to (internally) a 3 by 6 videowall modus, and to maintain a HD output, I have a PB player for each half.
After struggeling a bit with the resizing of the films (since PB doesn't keep the original aspect ratio of the file when loaded... ) everything is correct, except for the exact syncing of the 2 players. When I go frame by frame, everything is correct, but when playing, there is a very small delay between the two. Best visible when the image goes up (vertically). then you see the one half (1 player) is trying to keep up with the other one. It's only a frame, but too visible for the client to be satisfied. Also when a film starts with for exemple a full white or another bright color in full screen, you can actually see that one half is there a frame before the other one.

I tried to make a video of the result, but it's not clearly enough there.

I'm pretty sure I'm not doing anything wrong, as I said, going frame by frame in the player everything is correct, it's only when playing it for real that the errors occur.
Can someone admit that this is due to the software (if it is the case)? I hope that's not it, since that whould be useless for our kind of work. Not to make enemies but doing the same thing in Watchout is flawless.



Edit: this is the video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGqTPQ4Fbg

Poor quality I know, but i was too lazy to look for a HDcam

[JustynR]

I am doing almost this exact same thing with 4 plasmas and an led wall... and they have no problem syncing...

At first, some of the machines were not the same - some had better processors/video cards.

To fix any sync issues that i have had in the past, all I've done is first and foremost, make sure that this is ELEMENTARY VIDEO! If there is an audio track - even if it's blank - it can not sync.

If that is not the issue, add more time to the pre-roll on the timeline, that is what I did to fix the problem with the different types of hardware and that fixed my problem.

This is what this system is designed to do... so it's probably not a problem with the software

[BrechtNovid]

My players are all the exact hardware configuration. All my files are video only. Preroll doesn't change a thing. I'm giving up on this.

[JustynR]

Are you using the same clip on both machines or are they playing one "split" clip - in essance the 2 clips showing different parts of the same video.

Also, have you tried encoding the clip to an mpeg 2 file? I havenever tried syncing MOV files- not sure that it matters much about that though.

[Oliver Kilian]

Hi Brecht,

can you do us a favour and give our support group a call?
+49 221 130 6540

If you send us your telephone number we could even give you a call kilian(at)coolux.de

I believe this would be the fastest way to get the situation straight!
Oliver

[BrechtNovid]

I use the full clip on both players, left side of clip in camera of player1, and right side of clip in camera of player2. I didn't encode them to mpeg, since it is said that with the most recent version of PB you can play mov, and the Manager is out on another job, so I don't have the build in encoder here. I use 3 players, once master and two clients.
I was told that the Manager is only needed when I need to use more than one timeline.

I'll give a call to the helpdesk. Thanks for the advice.

[Mike Steinbrecher]

Hello,

ok we recommend mpeg2 ! If you want to use .mov or any other file we also recommend to test it first.
Please convert the file into mpeg2 and try it again.

H264 needs a lot of power of the processor, maybe it has something to with that too.
You could please also try to switch off the preview on your Master Player.

Nice regards

Mike