Hardware setup for Dual Projector with live camcorder feed

[uduogah]

Originally Posted by osborn4

You'll need to find out what expansion capabilities your PC has. You are specifically looking for a PCI Express slot or an AGP slot (if it's an older machine).

I've had lower end Dell desktops that didn't have either.

We did run for a while with a second graphics card in just a PCI slot, running the monitor off of the built in graphics and the projector off of the PCI card (Note: PCI is different than PCI Express, PCIe or PCIe16). But we had reliability issues.

Hi I'm using PM Pro and would really like to know what's optimal in running a dual projector scenario with live camera/camcorder feed. what do you guys think? I'd appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Udu

[waynehoskins]

Welcome!

By "dual projector", do you mean two projectors with different images on them, or two projectors fed the same?

How are you planning to get your IMAG feed through? If it's through the computer, you should know that you should expect at best 1/10 second, and realistically 1/4 second, frame delay which will be very distracting, and will be immediately betrayed by fast motion.

Optimum hardware setup for me involves using an analog hardware video production switcher. But that's just me (I am, after all, the Crazy Analog Guy).

[kbob]

Well, the most practical way to do is to either have dual switchers if you need any of the content to be on the second screen...for instance, if you want side by side screens up front.

on the other hand, if you want to have the second projector as a confidence monitor, or something that only projects what you want directly from the pc, then your second projector can go direct from a second video card to the projector using a vga feed.

A lot will depend on what you're trying to accomplish, and what you currently have and do.

[uduogah]

Hi Guys(and gals maybe ), Thanks for the response. The second projector is for an annex that will want to see what's happing in the main hall via the camcorder feed pointed at the preacher. I'll be overlaying text on the live camera feed only on the projector for the annex. the projector for the main hall will have no live camera feed. I can't afford any switcher now and just want to use the "dual independent projector" feature of PM Pro.

Overflowing with gratitude. I wonder what i'vebeen doing all these years without this forum!!

[uduogah]

update,

for testing i've just setup an AMD Athlon XP 1500+ , 1GB RAM system as follows:

Operator monitor on a PCI S3 Virge graphics card
Projector 1 and projector 2 on an AGP dual-headed ATI Radeon 9250

Since my camera order hadn't arrived i configured the live button to use a Pinnacle DVB-T 300i PCI TV tuner set on the freeview channel.

I ran Presentation Manager Pro in Dual Projector Mode and set live feed as background for screen2/projector 2. everyting runs ok but the processor utilization is 100 percent so it pretty much is sweating it out even though no frames are dropped. I'm gonna try and put this on a different beefier system and see how smooth it runs.

God bless y'all.

PS: juggling two screens is a bit of a puzzle though i have to practise practise before the big day