Pro Level video viewers needed.

[CosmicBear]

how many different video-seqments do you have? does it has to be absolutely insync? you probably will always have to deal with loading-times when using director or flash. i find that flash here is slower than director when it comes to stream video, especially when the clips are on your harddisk. so i would give director a try. you can assign keyboard-shortcuts for the different seqments, so you can jump to them without having to deal with a menu, etc. if you have a powerful computer, you can keep the video in the RAM in director, so loading times will be much shorter...

another idea. do you have the opportunity to create a dvd with the different videos? this way you'll get a good quality and can jump from one seqment to another with the remote of the player or use the pc as well. but again, you'll always have a short interruption when jumping from scene to scene.

hope it helps!

[fxgogo]

Yeah I thought of DVD aswell, and frankly it appeals to me more, since it is so much more error free than a pc. It has only been the Amiga that I have used confidently in shows that I have done. I don't know how many segments I have as I don't have the script yet, but it will be for a main character, so I guess it will be a lot. The only thing I worry about with DVD, is as you said, the slight pause you get when jumping tracks. But I guess the actors can get used to that. Thanks for your input.

[AdamT]

Have you thought about Powerpoint?

[CosmicBear]

powerpoint has the same 'problem' as director and flash. you will always have a slight break before the new seqment starts to play.

the only other solution i can thing of is a video-server. i did an interactive billboard with four screens and a videoserver. in the playlist you can set up the order in which the different video-files should play and even when jumping from different scenes on all four screens at the same time, they were always in sync and started alot faster than from dvd. the only problem is, that these things are really expensive

[NWoolridge]

Originally posted by fxgogo
I need to project video via my PC onto a screen for a play. I need to use a pro-level utility that will let me jump between and play video segments quickly and easily. It needs to betotally reliable. I have thought of using Flash or Director, but do you guys know of any other program that will do this. Obviously the cheaper the better.

There's a quite amazing app called Isadora that was designed for live use in dance and theatre. It allows for very cool realtime video manipulation (of live or recorded video streams) or playback. A very stable free beta for Mac OS X is available at:

http://www.troikatronix.com/

They say a Windows version is in alpha, you could email them about it...

Some other apps (seems most are for Mac OS X, sorry), that are real-time video manipulation tools (oriented towards live performance, DJs, performance artists etc.):

http://www.onadime.com/

http://www.uisoftware.com/videodelic/index.html

Nick

[fxgogo]

That looks like a possibility NWoolridge. And Powerpoint aswell, athough I have not really considered it a pro-tool (in error on my part, basically due to my seeing too many amateur uses of it, rather than the tools itself). I used to use a Accom Disk Recorder way back when 30sec of uncompressed disk space was massive, and that was a dream, and thats what i like about the dvd option. It is a device made for a specific use, as opposed to a pc, so its functionality and lack of bugs (simple and streamlined with an os made specifically for what it was designed for), makes it ideal for live use. The caveat is the price, but not with dvd.

[NWoolridge]

I would never trust a mission critical presentation to Powerpoint if it involved video, but my experience is primarily with the Mac version...

If the necessity is for instantaneous triggered playback, another option is interactive quicktime. This is one quicktime movie file, with event triggers built in. So hitting play (spacebar) would advance to the next trigger point, then pause. Hitting play again would then advance to the next pause point. Since its all one video file, there is no load delay. Livestage Pro can create these files (mac or PC), as can Apple's Keynote application.

HTH,

Nick

[Per-Anders]

or even flash, the trouble is it sounds like you want something streaming pretty fast and not a lot can do that, it's either be very careful about what codek you use (for instance to stream out dv1 from a mac without dropping any frames through the firewire it really does have to be compressed with teh dv1 codek even if that codek produces larger files than others and doesn't playback realtime through the computer monitor :/

failing that you could go for the dedicated hard drive system like a DoReMi http://www.doremilabs.com/ , but that will cost you an arm and a leg, though you may be able to find a place that will hire for a good price.

[joost]

Maybe is Premiere an option?

::

Joost

[JIII]

using a video editing program for a presentation is a real clunky solution if you ask me. its possible but just uggh

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