Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

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zevtiefenbach
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Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by zevtiefenbach » January 24th, 2014, 12:34 pm

I'm trying to playback two videos on two separate monitors on a mac mini in Mavericks.

On the ArraySync window I can see two displays (Display 0 and Display 1). I track the videos into each display. However, when I click "Start Server" I only get the video playback on one screen.

Is there a way to playback the two videos on two separate screens?


thanks.
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Turboladdade
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by Turboladdade » January 24th, 2014, 12:37 pm

Go to System Preferences -> Mission Control and uncheck "Displays have separate spaces" and log out and log back in again.
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zevtiefenbach
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by zevtiefenbach » January 24th, 2014, 1:27 pm

thanks for your very quick and effective response. it's so appreciated and worked like a charm.

i have another playback question:

does arraysync support 4 channel audio playback?

i have 4 audio channels that need to playback simultaneously. I have placed them onto the 2 separate video channels (2 audio channels per video) however, because the sync was a fraction of a second off, it created an echo where the audio channels were supposed to overlap. ideally i could have all 4 audio channels playing back on one video channel and have the second video channel silent. is this possible? naturally, i will be using a break-out box and amp to facilitate this but i wanted to clarify if ArraySync would be able to output the 4 audio channels.

thanks again in advance.
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Turboladdade
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by Turboladdade » January 24th, 2014, 3:22 pm

Well, you can turn the audio on and off for each video independently by right clicking on it. As four whether or not it supports four channels, I'm not sure how to answer that. ArraySync uses QuickTime for playback so, hopefully that can lead you to a useful answer. Why not just try it and see what happens?
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zevtiefenbach
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by zevtiefenbach » January 25th, 2014, 11:40 pm

No problem with 4 channel audio playback . . .
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Turboladdade
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by Turboladdade » January 27th, 2014, 1:58 pm

Awesome... would you mind sharing your final setup with the rest of the ArraySync community?
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zevtiefenbach
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by zevtiefenbach » March 27th, 2014, 9:25 pm

Hoping for a little bit more support. . .

I'm trying to run 2 videos files (identical but different subtitles). The playback is extremely choppy and not synchronized.

My playback machine is a MacMini i5 2.5 ghz (4 gig RAM). The playback files are Pro Res 4.2.2 (HQ) files exported from FCPX.

Could it be that my computer can't handle the output? Previously, I had used 1 video file on both screens and it worked perfectly. . .

I'm anxious about getting it all to work. Once I've got it up and running, I'll post full specs.
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Turboladdade
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by Turboladdade » April 1st, 2014, 9:58 am

Please use Apple Intermediate Codec instead of ProRes, and see if that works.
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zevtiefenbach
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by zevtiefenbach » May 30th, 2014, 12:29 am

AIC worked much better... But... There is a short segment ( 10 seconds of a 16 minute video) that seems to always stutters and freezes up.

Wondering what that could be. Processor lag? I've coded and re-coded the video numerous times and it's always the same segment that stutters. Should I try a different codec? Add more ram? A Mac mini with more or processing power? I tried running the same setup on a 12 core Mac Pro and it ran smoothly. But, for this application I need the form factor if the mini...

Any suggestions?
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Turboladdade
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Re: Multi-Monitor Playback on 1 MacMini in Mavericks

Post by Turboladdade » June 1st, 2014, 7:49 am

That's pretty unusual, none of those reasons would explain why only a specific segment of your video would play poorly but not the rest. What program are you using to encode your video? Is there any chance you can upload it somewhere like Dropbox or something so I can have a look?
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