3-way vertical split screen project

[Thomas Leong]

Hello Tim,

I don’t envy you with a naive client who thinks vlc can play a fullscreen video without borders over 3 display panels. I’ve tried, but vlc defaults to one display. It can be stretched over 3, but vlc borders remain very visible. And this is using a desktop with a reasonably older highend AMD HD6970 graphics card capable of 4 simul outputs.

The Samsungs you mention have a built-in media player, but I’m not sure if it is capable of spreading one big file over multiple monitors. There seems to be a “Network Box” that can be fitted at the rear and perhaps it is this that will link over multiple monitors (info is in the download manual…have not read it thoroughly…just a glance so far).

With licenced media players such as Dataton Watchout, AvStumpfl Wings, Renewedvision Pro Presenter or ProVideo Player, etc., playback over multiple monitors is what they are designed for, and present little problems except for the $$$$ amount required. Rental would be cheaper.

Your best bet at this juncture is to work closely with the people supplying the Samsung monitors and playback player to the client. Find out their exact needs (file type, codec, 1 large file or split into 3?). After Effects can split the composition into 3 files in its output module, but playback will require sync, which the paidware are capable of. Else look at multiscreener from zachpoff.com and/or syncmaker pro.

good luck!

[Tim Mccain]

Hello Thomas,

thank you for the reply and info! I thought this would be a tough one xp… The Samsung screens can be connected to each other and by using Samsungs MDC software. You can set them up as you want.. But you’re right about the playback part. I’ve already created a testfile (30sec = 2GB .MOV Motion JPEG A codec) and send this to the client. This was the best codec to maintain quality and have an acceptable size.. It’s stil huge though!

I’ve also asked for their supplier. I’ll see if they’ll want to give that info to me. They did ask me to deliver for VLC. So I suppose that’s what I’ll do if they don’t give me anything..

Do you have any advice for me on the content creation part? Export codecs, etc.. to limit file size?

I’ll keep you informed.

Tim.

[Thomas Leong]

Hello Tim,

The main problem with content creation is that the playback is in vertical format. This gives rise to PAR (pixel aspect ratio) problems, as well as the fact that most, if not all codecs don’t deal well with 1920H x 1080W. They are designed for 1920W x 1080H.

Dataton Watchout has an easy way to deal with this. With AvStumpfl Wings, it takes a bit of rationalising and configuration to get around the problem.

I hope your test sample output works well at 1920H x 3240W.

Thomas

[Tim Mccain]

Hi Thomas, ok but my question is how to ‘professionals’ create content for a multiscreen project? Is it not done with after effects? Or are there other software that are made for that?

[Thomas Leong]

Yes, After Effects would be, by far, the primary production tool for multi-display creation work for professionals. I presume you use it too?

Thomas

[Tim Mccain]

Yes if course! 🙂 But how do they render a usable project without split screen? Or is it normal that these kind of projects are several tens of GB big?

[Thomas Leong]

Multi-display work is not for web playback. So usually, I dare say, file size is not important owing to the price and capacity of external hard disks available. What is important is the ease/smoothness of playback without hiccups, and the quality on screen.

Ease/smoothness of video playback is largely dependent on the codec used and the cpu muscle, since de-coding the video is largely the job of the cpu. From what I know, h264 is a cpu-intensive codec for playback, wmv and mpeg-2 less so. Needless to say, lossless codecs such as uncompressed, Quicktime’s animation, etc are almost impossible for hd resolutions (I’ve not tried Photo JPEG).

Some playback systems, in particular Dataton Watchout, scales very well, so much so that some people have produced at almost half the required resolution (eg. half of 1920×1080), and used Watchout to scale it up to fill the 1920×1080 fullscreen, or multiples thereof, and reported little loss of visual quality. So check with the playback equipment supplier if this can be so for your project.

Thomas

[Tim Mccain]

Hi Thomas,

owkay! So if I understand it good it’s possible (if the suppliers equipment supports it if course) that I could make this comp at 960×1620 and use the multiscreen hardware to scale it up and fill the screen (1920×3240)?

Thanks again for the helpfull info! 🙂

[Mark Suszko]

Would this be a case where it would be easier to format one large video in AE and use the triple-head-to-go card on a PC for the play-out?

[Walter Soyka]

[Tim McCain] “owkay! So if I understand it good it’s possible (if the suppliers equipment supports it if course) that I could make this comp at 960×1620 and use the multiscreen hardware to scale it up and fill the screen (1920×3240)?”

I would not recommend that you work at half-res. Even if you ultimately display at half-res, I think you’d be better off producing the content at full resolution and scaling it in post if need be.

At a trade show, people get close to the monitors. Personally, I would not recommend displaying at half-resolution to your client, either.

It’s my recommendation that you should not let the client dictate the playback solution, because it’s not their job to know what they need. We should be providing them with production advice, not the other way around.

If the client wants synced video across three monitors, then he will need at a minimum a TripleHead2Go as Mark has suggested. Other solutions include networked digital signage units like BrightSigns, or Dataton WATCHOUT as Thomas has suggested. I am a long-time WATCHOUT fan and now that WATCHOUT supports driving multiple displays from a single computer, a WATCHOUT rental may be an economically competitive choice for your show.

Signage systems and WATCHOUT will prefer pre-split video — that is, one 1920×1080 video per output.

If you are working with a TripleHead2Go, then you’ll want to rearrange your finished work from 1×3 HD (1920×3240) to 3×1 HD (5760×1080) for output. If you do consider scaling, you might consider stepping down no further than 720p — in other words, work at 1920×3240 (one wide by three high), and output to 3840×720 (three wide by one high).

If you’re looking at a single source like the TripleHead2Go, PhotoJPEG can be a good choice, and you can realize significant file size reduction by adjusting the quality slider. You can probably drop it into the 80s or maybe even a bit lower, depending on content, before noticing unacceptable artifacts.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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