Using video w/audio

[matt_knelsen]

Hi Coolux team,

My name is Matt, I represent a company in Brazil which has four Players and one Manager as a Pandoras Box setup. We are trying to use the Manager to control a project which includes several videos with audio that are spread to the Players, but we're having no sound output from the players. Judging by some other posts in this forum, the only way to have a video with its audio playback is to split both and play them separately in two different layers. Is that the only way to have both video and sound? How about synchronization?

[harashin]

Hi Matt

What kind of video format you are using?

As my experiences, WMV with the audio won't output the sound from the server or player.

Please try mpeg2 or AVI with the audio. In this case, you do not have to split the audio and video to different layers.


Thanks

[Julia Foest]

Hi Matt,

did you try to playback the file (which format is it?) in Windows Media Player on your Player PCs? Again no sound?

Basically you do not have to split video and audio to get the sound out, playing back the file including audio on only one client is fine. In order to playback videos across multiple systems in snyc, the video files must be encoded without audio because embedded audio will disconnect the video sync and sync to the audio only. For best performance we recommend to encode MPEG2 Elementary Video Files Only.

Best regards,
Julia

[matt_knelsen]

Hey harashin and Julia, many thanks for your answers!

I was using .wmv video format really, since we were working with a customized resolution (not included in the 4:3 or 16:9 standards), and so far I haven't figured out how to render a mpeg2 video out of After Effects that does not meet 4:3 or 16:9 resolutions. I didn't know that the .wmv format would not output the sound. And we've done some tests here, and figured that the .avi format does not perform so well in terms of rendering, considering we usually work with a Manager spreading content to Players. So, if the best way is to use mpeg2 encoding, how to render a video in such format in After Effects or Premiere that does not meet 4:3 or 16:9 standard resolutions? Would you guys recommend any tool for video format conversion?

Thanks again!

[Jason Riordan]

Hi Matt,

If you are using a large pixel count (ie. larger than 1920 x 1080) then you have a couple of options.

The first option would be splitting your video files into smaller sizes that are more managable in MPEG2 format using Main Concept. I will give an example. If we had a large file, 3000 x 1050, and I was using 3 outputs, I would try and split the files into a size of 1000 x 1050 per screen. In Media Manager, you would simply line up each file on screen and pixel match it on screen so that it would be even across the screen. In Main Concept, you would need to ensure that you encode the files in High level with constant bit rates of approx. 12000 each with a size of the exact same size.

The other option would be creating an Quicktime file with the size that you need to output but also need to install Quicktime Alternative on all of your players. This option would not be my preferred choice, but its there as an option.

Your audio again would be using a layer on a player of your choice.

Any questions, all of us are here to help.

Jason.

[Julia Foest]

Hi Matt,

I guess you have a file resolution of something up to 1920x1080?
The best way in terms of quality would be to export quicktime animation and use the Mainconcept MPEG Encoder on Pandoras Box to convert to mpeg2, here every resolution up to HD is possible. The Mainconcept MPEG Encoder is shipped with the PB Media Servers, it can also be purchased from coolux.

There are some more tools available on the market, for example the lowcost TMPGEnc or the freeware SUPER. You could also give one of these tools a try..

Best regards,
Julia

[matt_knelsen]

Jason and Julia,

I'll give Mainconcept a try, and keep in mind about the mpeg2 encoding. Thanks for the help!