Screen Monkey lagging

[Magus]

Hi folks

Last Sunday I had high hopes of using Screen Monkey to present a live video feed on layer 1 while I superimposed lower thirds on layer 3. In my experimentation prior to attempting this during a live service, things seemed to behave respectably, albeit with a touch of latency on the video. I was soooooo stoked.

But last Sunday when I connected the live feed and displayed the layer via Screen Monkey, the computer literally ground to a halt. I was barely able to even coax the Windows Start menu to appear! Once I managed to turn off the video layer in Screen Monkey, the PC became just as snappy as before. Other layers in Screen Monkey were smooth as well as all other operation. Very strange.

Has anyone else seen this and can offer some suggestions of what to try?

Cheers... Rick

[petereit]

Sounds to me like the video was encoded in a very processor-intensive codec. It most likely pegged your processor just trying to decode on the fly. It could have also been a drive-speed issue. If you happened to catch Windows in the process of caching memory to disk, the read/write contention may have ground your system to a halt.

Suggestions:

1. Find the codec that is least processor-intensive and transcode your video footage to that codec
2. Store your video files on a separate drive from your Windows install (but NOT on a USB drive)
3. Make sure your PC has sufficient RAM to avoid disk-caching.
4. Boot fresh before your service and don't run any apps or background processes that aren't necessary
5. Turn off virus scanning, or at least configure your anti-virus app to ignore your media directory

[Magus]

Thanks Mark

Appreciate the info. However, this was a live feed coming from a video camera that was connected to the laptop via a USB capture device.

I also posted over on the Screen Monkey forum and the guy that offers the software replied back saying it must be a driver issue. It's really odd. Maybe that's it. But the stuff seemed to work okay the week before (albeit with a slight latence in video display)

I'm wondering. I'm using a really super inexpensive USB capture device I obtained from Amazon. Seems I paid less than $10 for it. Yeah, I know you get what you pay for.

I'd dearly love to have a dedicated PC installed with a PCI capture card. And at some point perhaps that can happen. Until that's possible, I need to wow them in order to show possibilities. Then the purse strings will likely loosen.

I did notice a similar USB capture device offered by Happauge. Do you have any experience or know of anyone with experience using that device? Wondering what is the proper forum to post that question in. The array of categories here is a bit daunting.

Thanks again... Rick

[petereit]

Unfortunately, it's not cheap to do video correctly. Incorporating live video is even MORE difficult (and consequently more expensive). You really can't take the cheap way out and expect to get results that "wow" anyone.

What is your reasoning for wanting to do live video?

What are the specs on the PC you're using? (Processor/Windows version/RAM/# of hard drives/how are the HDs connected/HD size/HD free space)

[Magus]

Hi there

Here's the thing on the video. (sorry, this is a bit long winded)

As churches go, I guess we are on the small side. Typical Sunday has two services with seating for about 400 people.

We just moved into a new building. Old building had a single ceiling mounted projector and it projected a simple PowerPoint show. New building has two ceiling mounted projectors. One on either side of the stage.

In the old building a volunteer member decided to record video with his camera. He makes DVDs of the service. At some point before I entered the picture, it was decided to connect the video so it fed the projector. I think in this mode they simply changed the projector from VGA to composite inputs using the remote, but I'm not sure. This allowed for folks in the back of the room to more easily see the minister or whomever has focus on stage. Sometimes vocalists and sometimes musicians. As you can see, this sort of set the bar a bit higher for the new building. The video bit is now expected by the congregants.

So we move to the new building and I'm asked if I'd like to volunteer to manage presenting the PowerPoint and the video. I pounced on it!

First Sunday had me attempting to manually switch two projectors from PC mode (VGA input) to video (composite input) using the remotes. It worked, sort of, but was a nightmare. Projectors are about 50-75 feet away and people often standing in the way. In the weeks since, I acquired and installed remote extenders to handle switching. Works a treat to aim a single remote at the pair of transceivers and watch the projectors do their thing.

My counterpart in the media booth brought in lots of other equipment. One was a video distribution block that amplifies and splits out the signal. One was a composite to VGA converter and an A/B switchbox. This allows connecting the video and PC to the A/B switchbox. Now switching from video to PC is as simple as flipping a switch and no more monkeying with setting the projector to receive the proper feed. The problem is that with the manual switch, the projector image "jiggles" considerably until the projector settles. You briefly see the video, then it goes black momentarily (presumably because the projector is sensing the signal) then it presents the video. Same thing occurs when switching from video back to PPT.

However, I became aware of Screen Monkey via this forum and tried it. In playing with it, I saw it offered a live video feed. I experimented. Way cool! Figured out that I can present the live feed on layer 1, then use other layers to overlay that video feed with some nice lower thirds I created. When it worked before, it certainly wowed folks. Then again, maybe they are just easily wowed. LOL

I'm not 100% sure on the exact laptop specs as I'm not in front of it at the moment. I'm at home and it's in the media booth. I do know it's a dual core Pentium processor with 3 gigs of RAM and it runs Windows 7 64 bit. Plenty of hard drive space. It was purchased exclusively for the media booth to replace an aging laptop. I think the HD is a 320 gig and likely only using bare miniumum space as it is so new and only the OS and a few apps are now on it.

So my thought was that I could just use Screen Monkey to present the live video feed on layer 1 and just let it run without interruption. I then run the PPT show independently of Screen Monkey. I use Presenter Mode so it presents on the second monitor. This way I can use the way cool playback sliders in Screen Monkey to quickly and smoothly fade the video in and overlay the PPT. When it works, it seems to work a treat.

Thanks for listening... Rick

[petereit]

I'm guessing it's the RAM that's giving you the problem, especially if you're running Vista or Windows 7. I've read several recommendations that say you need a minimum of 8GB of RAM to handle live video. Personally, I would never try pumping live video through a laptop. In fact, I wouldn't even try live video with a beefy desktop machine. I would look for a cheap Edirol switcher on eBay.

[Magus]

Thanks again

Along those lines I've got a question if you don't mind.

Sorry about all the noob questions. I'm a fairly quick learner but this video stuff seems to be a world of its own, no?

I've been looking at lots and lots of devices and last night it occurred to me that all of them have something in common. And that's when you are dealing with video mixing, they all seem to expect to only work with composite inputs that connect via either what appears to be some form of BNC connector or RCA type connections as you would see on a VCR.

I'm guessing that if you wish to also mix in something intended for a projector from a PC, you need to somehow convert that to a way to connect via these types of connections, no?

Cheers... Rick

[petereit]

Yessiree. Unless you pay big bucks for a multi format switcher, you have to feed it what it wants, how it wants it. And the best thing you can do is feed your projector a video signal in it's native size/format so your projector doesn't have to do any scaling.

[Magus]

Hello again, Mark

Well, after seeing a suggestion over on the Easy Worship site for a specific USB capture card, I found one on eBay for $15. Seems a vast improvement over the EasyCap I had before. I suppose it continues to be true. You get what you pay for.

Anyhoo, thanks for all the advice. Service today was awesome and I had exactly what I was looking for. Live video with lower thirds superimposed via Screen Monkey. And I was shocked at how little latency I observed. It was nearly non-existent.

I'm sure there are lots better ways to handle video, but for now this seems to be working just dandy for our situation.

Thanks again for all the good discussion! Rick