0

Background preload?



I have a show where I use several HD410's for video playback. I wrote my own BrightScript for it so that I can preload the video files so that playback will begin immediately when I send the play command (so the video will sync with audio and other effects). That part worked great. After preloading the synchronization is perfect. The problem is that the currently playing video pauses as soon as I start preloading the next click. In the first place I use an HD410 it didn't matter because the screen starts with just a loop of black, but in the second place I used one, it plays a loop of static and when I go to load the clip the static will freeze for a second or two. Is there any way with an HD410 to be able to preload an on-deck video while the previous video continues to play?

4 comments

  • 0
    Avatar
    RokuLyndon


    No, not with the current firmware. Preloading a video stops the current video. I don't know if the customer hardware will have this ability in the future. Most likely not.
  • 0
    Avatar
    sparkyb


    That's a shame. I'll probably have to look for a different product then, as an instant cut is fairly critical for the next show I'm doing.
  • 0
    Avatar
    tonytee


    Would the same answer apply to the more high-end players?

    I have exactly the same challenge, but we have (lots of) 210's and 1010's to play with.

    I am syncing our players by first preloading the file with   m.video.PreloadFile(m.file_name)    (the show control script)
    and after that I trigger all players at the same time with a   m.video.Play()  from UDP which works great.

    Only downside is, the video starts playing from black.

    More and more I get the question from customers who don't like black that much.

    The reason I hope you have a solution for this is because my question differs from sparkyb's question by just a little.

    Ofcourse I would like it most if I could preload and then trigger while a background VIDEO is running. In a perfect world...

    But I would also be very happy with just a still IMAGE as background.

    Do you have any way I could do just that? Display a still image, preload a video and not go to black, and then trigger that video?

    Thanks a lot,

    Tony
    Rapenburg Plaza
  • 0
    Avatar
    RokuLyndon


    If you create an imagezone that's fullscreen,  and play an image, that image will display over the video layer. So, you could display an image, then make the preload call, then send the play command, and then call the stopdisplay() command for the image player. So, the image would hide the transition. Since images can be slow to load, I would preload the image so you  just need to call display preload to show it..
Please sign in to leave a comment.