[PD] Many clips in Gem, best way to deal?

mick grierson michael.grierson at cwc.ac.uk
Sun Mar 17 03:56:56 CET 2002


Hi Ben

I have just done a live performance using similar ideas. i tested the patch
solid for a couple of days, and the video didn't take up much ram at all,
pix movie seems to play video back from disk (thats why other pix objects
dont work with pix_movie data ...i think...;)

I reckon it may be the compressor that your using...try a software MJPEG
compressor (worked for me).

Also, you could try opening up one huge movie with all your clips in it
(like a wavetable) and then having messages for each section (start frame
end frame etc). This way, you wont ever need to change the clip.

hope this is usefull

Goold luck

Mick G
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Bogart - FMPM/F1999" <bbogart at acs.ryerson.ca>
To: "pd mailinglist" <pd-list at iem.kug.ac.at>
Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2002 12:17 AM
Subject: [PD] Many clips in Gem, best way to deal?


> Hello all,
>
> we're having a performance (opening) in 10 days and have run into a
> little problem.
>
> We are using gem to call up and play a base of movie clips (about 150
> each at 512x256 cinepak) I did a test with 15 movie clips and came to an
> awful realization (under windows 2k):
>
> after 4 hours of running everything looked find in the window, video
> still playing fast and nice. Then I looked at the system resources. PD
> was using 500MB RAM and 1.5GB Virtual Memory. After 5 hours PD
> died(quit).
>
> So this thing is supposed to run for at least 5 hours, at best 3 days
> straight.
>
> The way the patch works is that it sending a "open" message to a single
> pix_movie at a metro's whim. There are 15 such "open" messages called
> randomly. Is PD using so much memory because it keeps each clip in memory
> after the pix_movie has opened another one? Even when it loads the same
> clip twice it seems to be keeping multiple coppies in memory?
>
> So the question is, what do I do about it? Whats the most efficient way
> to run many video clips on one primitive object (rectangle) Is there a
> way of loading all the clips into memory first and then calling each one
> out of memory when needed? Or is there a way of clearing the buffer
> everytime a new clip is loaded?
>
> I'm trying now to get gem .87 test2 to work on linux, just to keep the
> thing from crashing... (I have 640MB RAM and 500MB swap space for linux)
>
> any pointers would be appriciated... I'm now in the hunt for lmpeg3 can't
> find it with apt, any quick suggestions?
>
> Thanks!
> Ben+ekran
>
>
>
>
>
> B. Bogart
> ---------
>
>




More information about the Pd-list mailing list