Just some notes to add to David's suggestions, I've done pretty extensive research into this area and have found two great solutions. One is very cheap, the other, expensive.
As David mentioned, the first is to stream the file off of a thumb drive through a Blu-ray player. This method's ceiling is blu-ray quality (1920 x 1080 ≈ 30 mbps) I've found that an H.264 codec with a (.mp4) container is the most universally recognizable and reliable file type (as it is one of the two compression methods blu-ray discs can use). You can use the free program, *MPEG Streamclip <http://www.squared5.com/>* to transcode the file into a H.264 (.mp4) The key with this method is to limit the bit rate to 30 mbps, which is about the average bitrate for blu-rays. If the bitrate goes too high, it will glitch unpredictably during playback. I used this method to playback Phil Solomon's video, *Rehearsals for Retirement* on an HD projector at an event last year and he said he had never seen it look so good. For sequential clip playback with this method, I've found that a regular PS3 works best. Just simply number the files 001,002, etc. and it will play them in succession. (* unfortunately, there is a little "play" icon in the bottom left of the frame when new clips begin for about 1 second. There is no way to get rid of it that I've come across, as it turns out it is the least intrusive of any other blu-ray player with sequential playback capabilities that I've tested. Still, I can see a lot of circumstances when it would be unacceptable) To lessen its interruption, just add about 2 seconds of black slug to the beginning of each clip, so that when the white "play" button appears, it happens over black, not the clip itself. Most players, including the PS3, can only read Fat-32 formatted external drives/ thumb drives. What this means is that there is a 4 gig file size limitation. To give you an idea, a 15 minute video @ full HD 1920x1080 h.264 (.mp4) with a bitrate of 30 mbps is about 3.2 gig. This method is great for shorts To play something longer, like a feature, you can still use this option, but you are limited only to blu-ray players that have the capability to stream files from Windows NTFS formatted drives, which there are few. LG makes some, for example, the *LG BD390 or LG BD590 are capable. With this method, you can theoretically play a file as big as the thumb drive can fit (still limited by the 30 mbps bitrate though. NTFS is a windows only file system, so MACs without special 3rd party software can read these files from drives formatted this way, but not write to them. If you have a Mac and you need to be able to write to an NTFS drive, you can use a program like, **NTFS for MAC OS X <http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac>. * Another method that I recommend, but costs significantly more is to use an AJA Ki Pro, or Ki Pro mini. This is a device designed for professional editors, or broadcast people to record analog or digital video signals straight to ProRes files to a hard drive or compact flash card. A lesser known fact though, is that is also able to playback the high quality ProRes files (through SDI, or HDMI) into anything that can input those signals. What this means is that you can just load your ProRes file onto the Ki Pro's hard drive, or the Ki Pro mini's compact flash card and playback the prores files at extremely high bitrates (at least in comparison to a highly compressed blu-ray, or h.264 .(mp4) or anything off of a computer. This is a broadcast quality signal, with professional audio outputs that looks amazing in comparison to the alternatives. It does clip based sequential playback without any lag between clips and can also loop single clips, or entire playlists. The difference in bit rates for these two methods is 184 Mbps for the Ki Pro at ProRes 422 (HQ) and ≈ 30 for blu-rays or h.264 (.mp4) Regardless, both methods look great. - Jon Perez On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 7:28 PM, David Tetzlaff <[email protected]> wrote: > We've discussed here before the problems faced by festivals and other > exnhibitors one one hand and makers on the other, inherent in the > proliferation of different digital file formats. The problems of 'how do we > put it all together to play it?' and 'what kind of file should i send > them?' While, in the past, I had advocated trying to establish some kind of > low-cost standardization, where exhibitors would have to agree to 'get on > the same page,' there seems to be little interest in that. > > As such, I've since concluded that the best practice would be for > exhibitors and makers to invest in 'multi-media players.' These are > devices, generally about the size of a hardcover book, are designed to > create video signals from data files on a USB hard drive, and pass them on > to a video display via an HDMI cable. (They often also have internet > connections to display streaming video from Netflix etc. though that's not > really germane to this particular discussion.) > > -- > > I'm writing this post because I just noticed a sale on one of the most > popular models of such a device: the Western Digital TV Live Plus HD Media > Player is at Meritline.Com 'Daily Deals' for $62. > http://tinyurl.com/855pu9g > I have no personal experience with this particular model, nor have I > compared the Meritline price to other vendors. It seems like a decent deal, > and I've generally had good experiences with Meritline. (A lot of their > stuff ships from Asia and takes a long time to get to you, but they note > that on the item page. This ships from the U.S.). But I don't think this is > a 'get it now cause it will never be this cheap again' thing. Just worth > noting FWIW. > > -- > > Briefly, let me note how playback via such a device differs from playback > via a computer: > > There are two ways to get video output to a video projector from a > computer. > > An 'HTPC' (Home Theater PC) will be equipped with a separate output > (generally HDMI) designed to feed true _digital video_ format signals to an > HDTV display, in addition to the output for the main computer monitor. > > In contrast, on a 'regular' computer (e.g. a laptop) you may have an > additional _computer_ monitor jack (usually DVI or VGA). Most flat panel TV > type displays cannot be driven by these, but projectors can be, since > projectors are almost always designed to accept both computer video AND > 'true video' video. > > Video played via a conventional computer output usually looks OK, but > there's a lot going on there technically. The computer screen most likely > has a different resolution and frame rate (called 'refresh' rate in > computer-speak) than the video files being played, and the software is > EMULATING a video player: translating the video file into the format of the > computer screen. On the other hand, if you do have an HTPC with the proper > software, you're getting a 'real video' output (e.g. NTSC, PAL, 720P24, > 1080P25, whatever...) This 'real video' video is also what comes out of the > little standalone media players. > > Obviously, the 'real video' option is better, since the processing > involved in creating the emulation can only degrade the image. But leaving > that aside, and comparing the media player to an HTPC: > > * The Media Player is much smaller, simpler and it's firmware based OS is > much less likely to crash. (HTPCs are basically small desktop computers.) > > * The Media Player will most likely accept a lot more formats (MPEG2, MP4) > and containers (AVI, MOV, MKV), and be much more platform agnostic than the > PC. They don't necessarily play high-data-rate formats such as Apple > ProRes422, but you can put your work into a 'best' quality H264 that will > look as good or better than any BluRay. > > * The interface of the Media Player will be more rudimentary, and have > less flexibility in creating playlists. Thus it may be less capable of > assembling a seemless program of shorts that play directly one after > another, or doing so may require re-copying the files onto the USB drive in > a certain folder structure or renaming the files to a certain convention > (e.g. preceeding the titles with a number). > > These media players strike me as very useful to makers who travel with > their work and display it some digital form. This usually winds up being an > SD-DVD, since that's what you can rely on to work. This is a bummer, > though, if you have a version in any sort of HD. But the media player > itself is small, as is the sort of laptop external USB hard drive on which > you store the files, so it fits easily into a carry on. It has a variety of > outputs (e.g. component in addition to HDMI), so you should be able to hook > it up to any projection system that can accept any sort of external device. > You just load your files onto the hard drive, no worries about BluRay > authoring, or whether your home-burned DVD will work in the player at your > destination. And you can load the drive with different versions of your > piece (e.g. one in 720P24, one in 720P30, one in 1080I60, etc. etc.) just > in case the player only talks to the projector on some formats rather than > others. > > > _______________________________________________ > FrameWorks mailing list > [email protected] > https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks >
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