Magic 1.65 hangs @ project open if webstream not available

[SoundRehabAustria]

Hi!

I just encountered 2 issues while testing IP cams:

(1) Magic 1.65 hangs at project opening when project uses webstreams which are currently not available (e.g. IP cams or router turned off) ... it gets stuck, cancel doesn't work, I have to kill it in the task manaer ...

(2) if webstreams are available it takes considerably more time (~5 seconds, maybe more) to load the project (which is too long for synced startup with music) ...

Are there any settings which would defer initialization of the webstream? The project should open as quick as always, webstreams only queried for afterwards, and if not present, they should silently be ignored (like the VideoFile module does).

Help is much appreciated.

[Magic]

(1) Magic 1.65 hangs at project opening when project uses webstreams which are currently not available (e.g. IP cams or router turned off) ... it gets stuck, cancel doesn't work, I have to kill it in the task manaer ...

Hmm, we tested quite extensively, but I will have another look...

(2) if webstreams are available it takes considerably more time (~5 seconds, maybe more) to load the project (which is too long for synced startup with music) ...

Are there any settings which would defer initialization of the webstream? The project should open as quick as always, webstreams only queried for afterwards, and if not present, they should silently be ignored (like the VideoFile module does).

There isn't currently a way to defer initialization... remind me, why do you want to load/close multiple projects rather than just have one larger one?

[SoundRehabAustria]

(1) Magic 1.65 hangs at project opening when project uses webstreams which are currently not available (e.g. IP cams or router turned off) ... it gets stuck, cancel doesn't work, I have to kill it in the task manaer ...

Hmm, we tested quite extensively, but I will have another look...

(2) if webstreams are available it takes considerably more time (~5 seconds, maybe more) to load the project (which is too long for synced startup with music) ...

I tried with both of my PCs, same performance ...

Are there any settings which would defer initialization of the webstream? The project should open as quick as always, webstreams only queried for afterwards, and if not present, they should silently be ignored (like the VideoFile module does).

There isn't currently a way to defer initialization... remind me, why do you want to load/close multiple projects rather than just have one larger one?

because we had to set up one project per song due to ...
- several larger HD video files to be streamed in sync with music per song and
- different web cams used per song (2 out of 8 attached to PC) which I can only change by loading a new project (activation of different cam in Magic not possible)

[Magic]

- several larger HD video files to be streamed in sync with music per song

This should work regardless of the project size though...?

- different web cams used per song (2 out of 8 attached to PC) which I can only change by loading a new project (activation of different cam in Magic not possible)

Right, I was going to consider allowing the Start/Stop params in the VideoCapture module to be linked. Maybe I'll just go ahead and do this for the next version, and see what happens .

The number of cameras is generally a hardware limitation, depending on the motherboard/etc. Most computers can't use more than 2 at the same time due to the video bandwidth, unless separate USB controllers are used (which would only be possible on a desktop, not a laptop).

But you could probably get around both issues with the VideoStream module (if you had enough cameras), yes?

[SoundRehabAustria]

- several larger HD video files to be streamed in sync with music per song

This should work regardless of the project size though...?

with the new memory management options for scene loading it probably should ... but they were not available when we did most of the effort of setting up the synced video show at the start of the year ... will test this by merging some of the project files ....

- different web cams used per song (2 out of 8 attached to PC) which I can only change by loading a new project (activation of different cam in Magic not possible)

Right, I was going to consider allowing the Start/Stop params in the VideoCapture module to be linked. Maybe I'll just go ahead and do this for the next version, and see what happens .

not sure if you should really do this. i did a lot of testing and could not always get webcams to initiate properly when manually clicking the start/stop button. only the workaround via loading different projects did always work OK.

The number of cameras is generally a hardware limitation, depending on the motherboard/etc. Most computers can't use more than 2 at the same time due to the video bandwidth, unless separate USB controllers are used (which would only be possible on a desktop, not a laptop).

But you could probably get around both issues with the VideoStream module (if you had enough cameras), yes?

Well, this is what I'm trying to figure out at the moment. I've currently got 2 WiFi cams, which I use to test what happens in the worst cases (lost connection, switching to backup hardware, rebooting some components, etc.). If it works safely enough, I will invest more into WiFi Cams due to less cabling effort, but since I got the webcams tested and integrated I would want to keep using at least some of them (probably not all 8, more like 2 or 3).

Thanks for your support and your quick feedback

[SoundRehabAustria]

Some more observations from my test environment:

If one video stream gets disconnected, it keeps the last picture (which I like a lot). However, I can only refresh manually (i.e. I cannot e.g. attach a MIDI signal to refresh the stream in case it gets lost). So this feature would be nice ... or even better something like an auto-poll in the background (e.g. if there is no videofeed via the stream after X potentially user definable seconds, it should try to refresh and re-establish the feed).

Refreshing the stream takes about 5 seconds here (probably hardware dependent) but during this interval Magic is blocked i.e. not responding to user-interaction (and being impatient / clicking can crash it); not sure what happens to MIDI message received while stream refresh... Any chance the feed refresh could be done in way that it does not impact Magic's performance?

[Magic]

Hmm, well doing things in the background usually makes them a lot more tricky, but I will see what I can do .

In general, streaming video is notoriously difficult to deal with, which is why everyone has so many buffering problems all the time. It's even harder for live cameras, because you can't pre-load the stream, since it doesn't exist yet .

[SoundRehabAustria]

Thanks, Eric, for your feedback.

It's good to have challenges. Keeps life interesting