Framesync two machines

Hi
Is it possible to sync media played on two machines together? I have two servers with dual W7000 and S400 sync module, but I think that the sync module is just to sync the refresh rate of the projectors and not the media played by Ai. In other words how to frame lock media playback between two Ai servers?

Hi there.

The most common way is to use a Timecode source to trigger the media on both machines. This method is in use on many of our systems day in day out and works very nicely. Tutorial 16 on this page gives you more info on this:

http://www.avolitesmedia.com/?page_id=3172

It is also possible to share the clock of a source media player over ethernet connected into the remote systems media player too. But this method requires advanced node based programming skills. If you are confident in that area then let me know and I will try to send you an example patch. We do intend to bring that functionality into the main UI at some point, but that will probably be something for the next version.

Best regards

Thanks for reply.
What hardware devices do you recommend for framesync. Is midi better or SMPTE? Can one server be a source of midi/smpte timecode to another server (without external timecode generator)?

Frame sync is achieved via the AMD S400 Card.

Timecode triggering is achieved via LTC (SMPTE) or MTC. For MTC we use MIF 4. For LTC we use the Infinity SMPTE input on our infinity series servers, also available as an optional extra on the S series systems. LTC is not supported on any other hardware.

Thanks for reply.
Triggering of the media is done by ArtNet, and I don't need to have timecode triggering. The main thing I want to sort out is framesyncing two clips after they have been triggered.
Could you tell me how to use the S400 for framesync? I've nly found some settings in Catalyst Control Center, and I don't know where to find it in Ai.

Frame sync of your video outputs is achieved using the synchronisation settings in the catalyst control centre that you have probably already found. This takes care of ensuring your connected outputs refresh in sync.

Then you can trigger the videos using a timecode source to keep them in sync across the two machines. The timecode offset and timecode triggered playmode can be all triggered by Artnet.

fiodor wrote:Hi
Is it possible to sync media played on two machines together? I have two servers with dual W7000 and S400 sync module, but I think that the sync module is just to sync the refresh rate of the projectors and not the media played by Ai. In other words how to frame lock media playback between two Ai servers?

You could try using a laptop with QLab to generate from it the time code and sync both servers.

How is the overall performance with those W7000? I've got 2 V7900, no s400 sync card, and I'm pretty disappointed  with its performance when plugging 4+ outputs.

Could you share the specs of your servers?

without the s400 card the performance across dual cards will be poor. Because the system has to wait for a vertical blank on the video output from both GPU's, which essentially halves the frame rate. With the s400 card and the appropriate sync settings in the driver the vertical blank on the output happens simultaneously on both cards.