4 Monitor Art setup

[Walke2jd]

Im trying to figure out how to setup an art exhibit and would love some suggestions to help make things go a little smoother. Ive got 4 19" monitors mounted to an exhibit, with a USB2 webcam. I want the screens to show a live feed from the webcam, but each screen needs to have a different video effect. I was thinking one screen could be fish-eye, another with some sort of color mutation, ect. How should I go about doing this? Would it be easier to pipe one feed to all 4 monitors and distort them en route (is that possible) or will I need to connect the 4 individually to the computer?

Im kinda clueless as to this stuff. Thanks for your help in advanced guys.

[oracle128]

You'll need to apply effects beforehand. The simplest way to do it would be with four/five separate computers. They wouldn't need to be super powerful, but fairly decent in order to handle streaming video and apply real-time effects. This would be via a streaming webcam setup, with the PCs networked; 4 computers, one for each monitor, plus the possibility of a fifth one as a dedicated streaming server. You could also have 2 PCs, each with 2 monitors, running 2 streams/effects. Or it could also be done all on the same computer - it would need to be more powerful, and have 2 video cards (each with 2 outputs, for total 4 monitors hooked up). Either way, setup is going to be similar, and just as tricky, so I'll try to explain it best I can. It's not going to be an easy task.

First, you need a PC with a working webcam (ie. make sure all the drivers are installed, and the packaged webcam software gets video from it). This will be the streaming server. The software I'll be using for the tute is VLC, free download from here (http://www.videolan.org/). I'll discuss the possibility of alternatives later on. Download and install VLC, then open it. Go to Settings->Preferences. In the bottom right corner, tick Advanced options. Go to the Advanced section. Ensure that "Allow only one running instance" is unchecked, then Save.

First step is to ensure VLC will interface with your webcam. Go to File->Open Capture Device. Under Video device name, select the USB cam. Unless you have other cams installed, it'll be the only option besides Default and None. If it's not on the list, click Refresh list. You may have to do this every time you start VLC. Once selected, click OK. Hopefully VLC should start playing video from your webcam after a couple seconds. If not...we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Next, we need to start up a network stream. Stop the feed, and go to Open Capture Device again, select the cam again. Before hitting OK, tick Stream/Save, then hit Settings. Tick HTTP, leaving the address blank. Set the port to 8080 - there are plenty of other choices, but HTTP is familiar and should give the least problems. Set the Encapsulation method to ASF, this is basically the format of the video stream - you don't need to know much more than that right now, but do take note that this is not the same thing as the video encoding format. OK, OK.

Nothing much will happen, but you should notice the timer (bottom left corner of VLC) ticking. We need a media player to capture the stream. Open another instance of VLC. File->Open Network Stream. Select the HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/MMS option, and in the URL type:
http://localhost:8080
If you're feeling voyeuristic, you can tick Stream/Save and have it record to a file on hard drive (beware of how large the file might get!). Either way, hit OK. The webcam should now start playing on the most recent instance of VLC. Feel free to follow the same steps 3 more times, positioning the VLC windows on each monitor. Or, repeat the last part on the other PCs on the network, remembering to use the server PC's network IP address (eg. "192.168.1.2") instead of "localhost".

Now for the effects: VLC is capable of several effects. On the instance you want to effect, go to Settings->Preferences->Video->Filters. Select the filter(s) you want to use, then expand the Filters menu item to adjust the settings of each filter you're using. When done, Save, then stop and restart the stream capture (not the server).

If VLC doesn't have the effect you need, you'll need to use another media player, which brings me to the possibility of alternative apps. Any media player capable of playing streams should be ok, but note that I couldn't get it to work with Windows Media Player 11, it gave a vague "couldn't open file" error for some reason, you may have better luck. You may have other choices regarding the streaming server software too. I deliberately detailed the setup in VLC, as you should be able to apply the same setup concepts to any other webcam/media software of choice. Also, VLC also isn't the most stable media player around, which may be a good reason to find something else. But hopefully, VLC should be stable enough if you don't try running any other apps, and especially if you avoid running all 4 clients and the server on the same PC.

Don't forget that VLC can use plugins, you may be able to find a plugin for the specific effect you want. Also you should check out this interesting site: http://freeframe.sourceforge.net/
It doesn't appear to integrate in any way with VLC, but maybe you can find a free app that can use these effects on your live cam feed.

One other note: if you're having trouble displaying video on multiple monitors, you need to disable hardware rendering (aka video overlay). In VLC, you can do this via Settings->Preferences->Video->untick "Overlay video output"->OK.

[Walke2jd]

Oracle,
Thank you so much for your help. The setup you described will work perfectly. I found a great program called WebcamMax that will put the effects onto the video and act as the webcam itself in VLC. Its working great and turning out better than I thought it would. Thanks again,
Jason