Playback of visual content.. best solution?

[Thomas Leong]

I agree. For 1920x1080p, you would need a Core2Duo 2.xGHz CPU and RAID 0 as a minimum.

However, Alexx’s idea with ppro2 is worth investigating also.

For laptops with built-in two hard-disks that can be RAIDed, look at those from Toshiba.

Alternatively, use an e-SATA connection via Expresscard 34 to connect to a 2-disk External Enclosure such as –
https://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/siig-expresscard-esata-raid.htm
or
https://www.cwol.com/serial-ata/external-sata-solutions.htm
or
https://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg53_satahot-swapbackup.htm

Thomas

[Andy Stinton]

I must admit I

[Eric Steinberg]

Thanks for your 2 Canadian cents! 🙂
I have a question about your comment about HD possibly not being the best choice: I would think that if we want the quality to be as good as possible, HD would be better than SD..? I don’t undertand why HD would be a bad thing, could you please explain?

Kind regards,
Eric

[Andy Stinton]

HD is not a bad thing. You YoHD is of course vastly superior in terms of quality .

My concern is the equipment you will be using on site. HD screens by nature are bigger than SD screens and require larger projection distances. You said that

[Eric Steinberg]

Ok, I understand now. Thanks for clearing that up!
I think I have a solution: I’ll just make additional downconverted versions in SD, so that they can choose to use SD when neccesary. They will (unfortunately) probably be renting different equipment from time to time.
I have been going back and forth so many times now how to do this, and right now I’m leaning towards playing it from the timeline in Premiere Pro on a high-end laptop with a raid and a killer GFX card. I agree that Wings Platinum may be overkill for this. Besides, I really need to start creating content soon, and not just do research on delivery systems. So, my plan is: Create all versions in both 1920 x 1080 HD and 720 x 576 anamorph widescreen SD. Get a powerful laptop with 3 disks (1 for OS and 2 in a RAID for video), great GFX card and Premiere Pro installed, and just play back from either a HD or an SD timeline in Premiere. Does this seem like a good solution, or are there any pitfalls I haven’t considered?

Kind regards,
Eric

[Andy Stinton]

[Eric Steinberg] “So, my plan is: Create all versions in both 1920 x 1080 HD and 720 x 576 anamorph widescreen SD”

Okay hate to be a pain but are you relying on the projector to

[Eric Steinberg]

No, I would rely on the “unsquishing” to happen at the PC level before it reaches the projector, and still show it on a 16×9 screen. Shouldn’t that work?

Eric

[Philip Borgnes]

Hi Eric,
If 720p works for you, or 1080i, then you might consider this JVC player. https://www.pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL101546
I’ve used these in digital signage applications and found them to work well.

[Nicholas Rivero]

Check out ProVideo Player. It’s a Mac based video playback program. It sits at $1000 a master copy which runs on secondary computer displays, IE you can use a mac pro/macbook pro with a secondary output, or you can get a node license which is $500 and runs in full screen mode basically.
The cool thing is you can run a $500 node using a mac mini and remote control that node via ethernet.
We’ve been using their software for a while now.
It works great on a 2.0 Core2 Duo Mini with 1 gig/ram. If you use the HD-DVD H264 10.3 Mbps compression in Compressor it plays great and looks really good at 720 res.
We run 5 node licenses on Mac Minis and a MacBook Pro as a master controling it over cat5 or 802.11G.
Seems like it should do what you want. It also does things like tiling, speed control, color correction, shuttling of course, and it can do grid/collage mapping of content across multiple displays.
Works great, runs verrrry well.

Check it out at…
https://www.renewedvision.com/pvp.php