Suggestions for an HD CG unit on a budget?

[Chuck Pullen]

Hey Chad, thanks for doing the homework on this and reporting back. Just curious if you could elaborate on the status of their new build that would support NTSC and 30 frame Hd? Did you chat with them directly on this and reiterate that there is a huge demand for their product on this side of the pond as well? Are they currently working on the new build, or is this a planned project for them?

I have read on their message boards that someone with some basic coding knowledge can manipulate the program to deal with the frame/field dominance issues? Do you feel that that is something that is easy enough that we here on the board can work through it and share the results?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks,

Chuck

[Chad Brewer]

Hey Chuck, sorry for the delayed response to your inquiry.

I have been talking with the developers and they are very gracious, yet very PAL oriented. Some of them work for Swedish broadcast and understandably they aren’t “that” concerned with our legacy NTSC issues. The new build is not a future project, but one they are working on now and I did express to them that there is a demand for their product on the West coast of the Atlantic.

As far as working through the code, their stance is that if the new build is buggy, we can help fix the open source through testing, because they don’t really have NTSC plant-based equipment to test it like we do. By the way, I hate code and want nothing to do with it – I have my hands full with video engineering.

I’d suggest downloading their free client to see if the interface and capabilities are what you’d look for in a CG. Even if it soon supports NTSC, it is basic. It supports playlist serving of pre-made video/graphics, but honestly our old Abekus A72 has more capabilities than this software. At this point, outside of running pre-made playlists, if we have a dedicated SDI signal off a PC like a Blackmagic card, we can just use an NLE like FCP or Premiere to serve things out in the same manner and have more control, just not completely live, and no I haven’t tested its live switching ability with playlists.

But I take my hat off to them for making something free and open-source and striving to make it better.

Chad Brewer
Senior Broadcast Videotape Operator
TeleVersions, LLC

[Jonas Hummelstrand]

While the current version (1.8) of CasparCG Server doesn’t support NTSC, the upcoming CasparCG Server 2.0 will support NTSC and include many more features. I encourage anyone interested in playing out real-time graphics and videos to check out the features ( https://www.casparcg.com/features/ ) case studies ( https://www.casparcg.com/case ) and tutorials ( https://www.casparcg.com/tutorials ) and then to ask questions in our forum.

Here are some of the features in the current version that might interest you (and that you will find it hard to do with an Abekus or an NLE:)
* Playing real-time graphics being fed from data (such as XML.)
* Transition between multiple video files (with fill+key+audio) played from disk in real-time without caching.
* Add graphics (with alpha) on top of incoming video without the need of a DSK (DeckLink cards only.)
* Open protocol that allows you to control the play-out from your own controller.

Jonas Hummelstrand
https://twitter.com/CasparCG
https://facebook.com/CasparCG
https://about.me/hummelstrand

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[Chuck Pullen]

Thanks for the update Jonas! Can’t wait for version 2.0 to come out!

Chuck Pullen

[Robert Nagy]

CasparCG 2.0 Alpha has been released.

Feel free to try it out.

We appreciate any feedback.

https://www.casparcg.com

[Jonas Hummelstrand]

Version 2.0a has a bunch of new capabilities that might interest you:

• Play NTSC, PAL and HD output with progressive, and upper-field and lower-field interlacing to screen or DeckLink or Bluefish video cards.
• Use multiple video cards and cards with several outputs, supporting both Bluefish and DeckLink cards.
• Now works on Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.
• Better performance by taking advantage of all your processors (fully multi-threaded,) and moving many operations to the graphics card.
• Stack multiple videos, Flash graphics and images in any order and output (both fill and key) to one or several video cards and screens. You can even swap the stacking-order in real-time!
• Generate key (alpha) from separate files (video, Flash and images) with support for non-alpha-capable codecs, such as H.264. You can even generate key (alpha) from different media types, for example using a Flash template to cut out a part of a video file.
• Play many types of bitmap images with the new Image Producer which replaces the TGA Producer.
• The new “Screen Producer” replaces the Fullscreen Producer and the GDI Producer and supports both fullscreen and windowed output at different resolutions.
• Scale, move, mask and change the opacity and video gain of one or several clips with the new real-time Mixer. Use a number of animation types for professional results.
• Display all available channels (with content such as videos, images, Flash templates and colors) in a grid.
• Use input video+audio fed into DeckLink video cards just like any other media type.
• Select a custom loop in-point for video files.
• Pause both videos and Flash graphics.
• All video transitions can now be animated with a number of animation types.
• Fully interlaced video transitions (previously they were only progressive, even when running in interlaced mode.)
• Audio is now mixed during video transitions.
• Audio levels can be changed in real-time using gain.
• Embedded SDI audio support with both Bluefish and DeckLink video cards.
• Monitor the performance with graphs in the new Diagnostics window.
• Video, audio and image files can now be placed in subfolders, just like Flash files.
• Smoother animations and better interlacing in the Flash Producer.
• Blend modes between layers (coming in later release.)
• No installer required, all configuration is now done in an XML text file instead of in the Windows Registry.
• Consumers can now be added and removed at run-time, without having to restart the Server.
• Swap producers between layers and channels during run-time.
• Asynchronous file I/O with improved buffering.
• Parallel decoding of audio and video.
• Real-time commands viewable in the new Console window.
• Improved logging with full exception details, and a new log file for every server start.
• Backwards-compatible AMCP protocol supporting all new Server features.
• Find out the running version of the CasparCG Server and the TemplateHost via a network query.
• DeckLink output is now using the card’s hardware clock.
• BlueFish drivers are now loaded on-demand, making it possible to have a single Server application.
• Per-sample mixing between source and destination clips during video transitions.
• The Flash Producer now uses DirectDraw access, resulting in improved performance.
• All new GPU-accelerated internal pipeline with the following functions all being done on the GPU: Compositing, Colorspace transforms (rgba, bgra, argb, yuv, yuva, yuv-hd, yuva-hd), Interlacing, Per-layer image-transforms: opacity, gain, scaling, clipping, transform, The Color Producer
• Major code refactoring for improved readability and maintainability. 66% of legacy code removed.
• Rewritten to take advantage of common standardized libraries instead of custom solutions.
• Work done to facilitate cross-platform porting (the greatest challenge for full platform-independence being the Flash Producer.)

Still free and open-source:
https://www.casparcg.com/casparcg-server2alpha

Jonas Hummelstrand
https://twitter.com/CasparCG
https://facebook.com/CasparCG
https://about.me/hummelstrand

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