Movie Player

fredd3's picture

Hello,

I have being playing around with this problem and still have not managed to put up a solution. I have to play a quicktime film, rendered in HD 1080i while an orchestra plays. In the film there are n frames to wich i can cut to according to a musical measure: the orchestra does not play with a click nor with a clear bpm or time signature, but the film is cut to the score, so I can press a button and go to a frame to re-synch my film.

I am using the v002 movie player object to do so, because allows me to set the clip to a frame.

Yet I have a moment of black, just perceivable, lika a drop frame before the clip restarts at the new playhead. It becomes unacceptable when is beamed big, as we want to do.

Now I wonder if there is a way to avoid this click.

I know in advance the frame numbers, maybe i could have some buffer system?

Thanks to who can give me an idea...

dust's picture
Re: Movie Player

some one can correct me if im wrong and this may be hard to do in HD but if you want to buff your clips i think you can connect them to a multi-plexor and qc will load all the clips to mem ? maybe not ... maybe i shouldn't answer questions that i really don't know the answer to. lol

DanieleCiabba's picture
Re: Movie Player

perchè non usi il movie loader?

fredd3's picture
Re: Movie Player

I explain better: I have only one clip. I want that gets frame accurate sincronised to an orchestra playing classical music. This means that the tempo is given by the director and the music is written on the score. The film editor have edited some events as hard cuts into the film. The orchestra director might take a fast tempo or a slow tempo... etcetera. During the performance i planned to use two tactics to keep our film in sinc with the orchestra: speed change and jump to cut

I have used the vade 002 plugin to have a jump to cut.

The problem is that there is a small delay during the cut, and that this delay is black, and is visible.

I will try to push my machine up, and get very performative clean computer to do so, but i have the doubt that I ma doing something wrong...

other small things I need the program to do are in place, like a bpm counter, a list of jump points, a re-initalise, a step back, a fade out... etcetera

I might want to add later a feature to cross fade instead of hard cutting when jumping to a point in the clip and maybe all the cut list as an external file...

the interface is for the moment on a ipad connected via wifi, and is made with touchosc

well I hope I have been more clear...

PreviewAttachmentSize
Test.qtz181.6 KB

dust's picture
Re: Movie Player

here is a tap control plug-in that might be useful if you want to tap in a bpm. i know with apples movie player as v002 doesn't show up on my system anymore so i'm speaking with the apple plugin its possible to set the movie to an external time base that you can then feed in a interpolator or something and mess with interpolation duration to set to a particular speed or tempo that matches the score. or like you said cut up the movie file and jump cut to clips on a multiplexor or fade them.

PreviewAttachmentSize
TapControl.plugin.zip6.07 KB

jmlnorris's picture
Re: Movie Player

What codec are you using to compress the 1080i file with before you try to play it back in QC? I'm guessing you are probably using some sort of H.264 variant. If that is the case, then might I recommend that you double check the keyframe settings in the video file. I've found that having a keyframe every frame helps out when trying to time warp the clip in real time.

Also, is there a reason that you are using 1080i instead of something less taxing on the machine? Maybe dropping the file down to 720p might help with the dropped frames you mentioned. This chart might be helpful in finding a file format that is less demanding on the computer and still give you the visual quality you're looking for from the audience's perspective. http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html

How exactly are you triggering the "jumps" in QC? Are you using a multiplexer to send the values into the movie player? If so, would adding a smooth on the incoming value be of any help?

One last thought. I've been making/playing back visuals similar to what you have described for about three years now. After hours of scratching my head about how to best keep the visuals in sync, if the performers can't or won't follow a "click track" or clock of some sort, I have found that taking the video and cutting into multiple pieces has worked best for me. It takes some extra time in the editing process, but has worked well for me. If you cut the original video into small clips that over lap by a few seconds then you should have enough wiggle room to cover any precise trigger points in the song. You mentioned that you have some very specific cues in the song, I'd say make a new file from that point forward from the original video. Then have the editor extend the previous section of the video by a few moments to cover any time discrepancies that might come up during the actual performance. I know this solution doesn't exactly give you much advice on how to accomplish this in QC, but maybe it will get your ideas flowing.

Then again maybe you could have multiple instances of the your video file in the qtz comp set to start at different trigger points and you could trigger a start + cross fade of the billboard/ sprite that the video players are attached to when the visuals get out of sync with performers. Kind of like what I mentioned before, but without the re-edit of original video file. I can't say that this method would be efficient by any means, but it might work.

I hope my ramblings are of use to you.

Best of luck,

Jason

fredd3's picture
Re: Movie Player

Thanks Jason, these ramblings coming from experience are exactly what I needed to move me forward... I am going to dig into the thing now, and will let everybody know if i find a solution...

:)

ginsu777's picture
Re: Movie Player

I guess there was no solution? ;(

vade's picture
Re: Movie Player

Make sure you are using the latest beta of the movie player, which works 64 bit:

http://v002.info/downloads/beta/

I also highly suggest something like AIC or Pro Res for HD file playback, h.264 is not ideal for realtime playback, even with keyframes set every frame.

cybero's picture
Re: Movie Player

& that directory contains the previously [to me] elusive TCP Socket plugin too :-)