Does anyone know when or if VideoLan will be able to play HD-DVDs and if the blend mode will work with them?

I've considered going the VideoLan blending route for DVDs. I really don't to complicate things that much, but I'm wanting to move upto maybe 12-13' wide in the near future.

That's a good question. I would think it wouldn't be too much longer unless somebody doesn't like the authors.

Mmmmmm.... Yummy......

Dual Format HTPC. Now that would be DA BOMB. Throw a nice DX10 Graphics card in there with 2Gb ram, DC Proc, and your stylin'.

The Cliffster

A new blending system? you have my attention.

it might never happen due to the AACS protection on BD and HD DVD.

You may be able to do it via component into a blackmagic HD capture card or similar.

Oh look here, thats the system I have built but not got running yet.....................

My system....

HD SDI modified HD DVD XA1 player.

Black Magic HD SDI capture card

VLC blended software


I will say this, I actually think I will have a working VLS system with an INTERNAL HD DVD player prior to the above system working, ALSO I feel an internal HD DVD player will be much better, stable and less complicated.


the VLC blending has been around for some time, and has been tested and working by several members, I have not had the time to get this system running, it is here and the PC is built.........

Im trying to spend as much time as I can from now till end of Jan on Blending projects - I have 3 options and am trying them all.............VLC is one of them.............

Will a single PC running vlan have enough horsepower to decode a 1080p AVC stream, split the output in half, and apply a luma ramp to both outputs? I realize some of it happens on the video card, but still...

SC

it might never happen due to the AACS protection on BD and HD DVD.

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/hd-dvds-aacs-protection-cracked-224751.php

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home...cked-224751.php

Hmm...

That guy seem to have written a wrapper in Java to implement AACS, which is already a published standard (and already done by others in C/C++).

Will a single PC running vlan have enough horsepower to decode a 1080p AVC stream, split the output in half, and apply a luma ramp to both outputs? I realize some of it happens on the video card, but still...

SC

Yep.

And there are people with working systems..............

Not me YET, but thats just finding the time.......

MTyson, this is cool. I just tried playing a 1920x1080 recorded by my mythtv using vlc(client for linux) and it splitted the video into 2 fine. Playback is normal too. :)

So rather than forcing a pj at 2.35:1 ratio, we can do it via this software. All I have to do is experiment on xinerama. What I'll have to find out is how to remove the 1 pixel vertical line, or maybe that's the border.

Thanks for bringing this kind of idea! :D

MTyson, this is cool. I just tried playing a 1920x1080 recorded by my mythtv using vlc(client for linux) and it splitted the video into 2 fine. Playback is normal too. :)

So rather than forcing a pj at 2.35:1 ratio, we can do it via this software. All I have to do is experiment on xinerama. What I'll have to find out is how to remove the 1 pixel vertical line, or maybe that's the border.

Thanks for bringing this kind of idea! :D


No problem. Glad I could help. :) That sounds very cool. I would have to upgrade my PC to play 1080p, but it'd be worth it. I personally would be very happy even blending two ECPs. I just need a detail/sharpness increase with HD material. DVDs with FFDShow look perfect. Heck, ECPs are so cheap I would probably even consider a stacked blend. :D

No problem. Glad I could help. :) That sounds very cool. I would have to upgrade my PC to play 1080p, but it'd be worth it. I personally would be very happy even blending two ECPs. I just need a detail/sharpness increase with HD material. DVDs with FFDShow look perfect. Heck, ECPs are so cheap I would probably even consider a stacked blend. :D

I noticed though while playing a recorded hd program, only 50%(left part of the recording) is assigned to the screen, then the other 50%(right part of the recording). Does blendzilla hardware do it this way?

subscribing to thread...

I was analyzing the result of a video splitted into 2 physical monitors, it really doesn't make the video wide. It's still the same. After configuring Xorg, my resolution became 3840x1080. How does blendzilla work? Is it only used so that movies are brighter on bigger screen and rather than displaying on only 1 pj?

Im not aware of anybody successfully blending using VLC under linux yet. I tried it myself, but using the ATI video drivers 'Big Desktop' mode rather than xinerama. It didn't work properly, however I understand that the xinerama method is in fact the correct way to do it. (But I didn't know that then)

The author of the panoramix plugin advised me there are some bugs which affect the linux version - I don't yet know whether they have since been resolved. If you get it going correctly let me know!

Ben

Im not aware of anybody successfully blending using VLC under linux yet. I tried it myself, but using the ATI video drivers 'Big Desktop' mode rather than xinerama. It didn't work properly, however I understand that the xinerama method is in fact the correct way to do it. (But I didn't know that then)

The author of the panoramix plugin advised me there are some bugs which affect the linux version - I don't yet know whether they have since been resolved. If you get it going correctly let me know!

Ben

What is panoramix plugin? Is this for VLC?

Anyways, I did some screenshots today however, the video capture was horrible since my digital camera only supports 320x240 and 160x120 resolutions. The still shot is clear though. I'm using mplayer to play the movie. I had some issues with VLC and VLC advocates were wondering why my second wall's(screen) performance is affected. If each wall is played one at a time, performance isn't affected. Once this gets resolved, VLC + xinerama makes a powerful combination.

So for the meantime, I used mplayer. I spoke to the developers today and found out that 2 months ago, they tried the wall concept but they were not sure why they didn't continue. Anyways, .....

The combined resolution of my HDTV(left) and 19" monitor(right) is 3360x1080 using Xinerama.

HDTV: 1920x1080
VGA Monitor: 1440x1080

It should be the same implementation, I guess, with a CRT projector where
CRT1 resolution : 1440x1080
CRT2 resolution : 1440x1080

Giving us total 2880x1080

For the testing, here is what I used to play a 1920x784 resolution h264 apple trailer file which is Cars.

command:
/usr/local/bin/mplayer -fs -vo xv -monitoraspect 3360/1080 -autosync 60 -mc 0.0001 -vf crop=1920:784:0:6 -nodouble -framedrop Cars_HD_Tr3_1080.mov

Screenshot when I paused it.
http://www.4290greenfieldlanehome.com/cars_on_xinerama.jpg

and for the Xinerama in action, please click here (http://www.4290greenfieldlanehome.com/cars_on_xinerama.mpg) to download the mpeg I created.

EDIT:
Here is a cleaner/clearer one, The Last Stand (http://www.4290greenfieldlanehome.com/thelaststand_on_xinerama.mpg) with a video encoded resolution @ 1920x816.

What is panoramix plugin? Is this for VLC?

Anyways, I did some screenshots today however, the video capture was horrible since my digital camera only supports 320x240 and 160x120 resolutions. The still shot is clear though. I'm using mplayer to play the movie. I had some issues with VLC and VLC advocates were wondering why my second wall's(screen) performance is affected. If each wall is played one at a time, performance isn't affected. Once this gets resolved, VLC + xinerama makes a powerful combination.


Ah, I see you are just using xinerama to create a large desktop and playing the video spanned across the two screens - this is not blending.
To blend with VLC you need to use a special version of VLC which incorporates the panoramix plugin. This plugin takes care of the need to split the image into two halves with an overlap, and to fade out the images on the left and right.
You need to read this thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=692824 for more detail. Cedric Coquebert is the author of the panoramix plugin, and might be able to send you a link to the latest version.

Thanks,
Ben.

Ah, I see you are just using xinerama to create a large desktop and playing the video spanned across the two screens - this is not blending.
To blend with VLC you need to use a special version of VLC which incorporates the panoramix plugin. This plugin takes care of the need to split the image into two halves with an overlap, and to fade out the images on the left and right.
You need to read this thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=692824 for more detail. Cedric Coquebert is the author of the panoramix plugin, and might be able to send you a link to the latest version.

Thanks,
Ben.

Ahhh. So, if I did this on 2 real projectors, how would they look like assuming we have positioned the 2 projectors so that both screens butt each other?

I'm going to try the panoramix plugin you mentioned. Hopefully, the plugin can be used in Linux.

Thanks!

Ahhh. So, if I did this on 2 real projectors, how would they look like assuming we have positioned the 2 projectors so that both screens butt each other?



There are screenshots in the thread I linked to, they should explain how everything is done.

Going back to the original question in the thread, I have used VLC to blend 720p WMVHD files (The T2 trailer) on a Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz CPU with about 25% CPU usage. Not sure how that relates to load decoding HDDVD but may give a rough idea.

My current machine unfortunately is a 2.4GHz P4, and although it can playback the same 720p file in single screen mode, when blending it just doesn't have the power - although I understand the bandwidth of the AGP bus is also a limiting factor in this. (The Core 2 Duo machine I tested has a Pci Express graphics card)

Cheers,
Ben

GOOD NEWS for linux users! :D hehehe

The panoramix plug-in for linux will be included on 0.9.0 version of VLC. I don't know when it will be released though. However, I have downloaded their latest snapshot and I do see the panoramix.c file in vlc-0.9.0-svn/modules/video-filter directory.

and here is an excerpt from the c file
/************************************************************ *****************
* panoramix.c : Wall panoramic video with edge blending plugin for vlc
************************************************************ *****************
* Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 VideoLAN
* $Id: panoramix.c 2006-08-29 16:20:15Z ced $
*
* Authors: Cedric Cocquebert <cedric.cocquebert@supelec.fr>
* based on Samuel Hocevar <sam@zoy.org>
*
* This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
* Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
************************************************************ *****************/

I read the code and it comes with overlap, edge-blending, RGB gamma correction too. Could be parameters or sliders if using GUI! :D

Woohoo!

Update folks, I have tried the bleeding edge version last night and it was failing. Please see https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/979

Fortunately this morning, I got a response from Cedric Cocquebert(panomarix edge blending plugin coder) and he sent me a patch. He will send the patch to the SVN VLC team on Monday. I will try the patch tonight. I'll keep you posted.

Morning folks. After applying the patch that Cedric sent to me, I was able to get VLC with edge blending to work in svn-trunk version of VLC.

I'm going to ask if it's possible to send left video to vga port 1 and right video to vga port 2. This way, we don't have to drag window. I think, it's more easier in Windows.

I think, xinerama is OK but if we want to assign which vga port the video goes, dual head might be the ideal choice as they're totally separate rather than dragging windows back and forth with xinerama.

Check out my capture (http://www.4290greenfieldlanehome.com/vlc_panoramix_on_linux.mpg)

However, with wall and edge blending playback in vlc for linux, xvideo/opengl or xorg needs to be looked upon. I noticed that it is skipping frames when playing a 1920x1080 mpg. This is what Cedric told me too. Playback though without using wall is fine. But playback on a 1280x720 using wall & edge blending is fine too like the mpg file I captured.