User guide

Viz Engine Administrator’s Guide

11.2 Working with Synchronous Output

With a dual channel setup it is easy to create two fill/key pairs for the left and right eye/

camera during a stereo production. A special version of the Viz Video Wall distributor

synchronously distributes one command to the two instances of the Viz Engine. For Viz

Engine version 3.3 and later, it includes a built-in locking mechanism that makes sure

both Viz Engines stay in sync, even if one of them drops a frame. This feature can be

switched on or off by a simple command sent through the distributor.

This section contains information on the following topics:

• Hardware requirements

• Software requirements

• Synchronous output configuration

• Viz Video Wall distributor

• To configure a machine with two graphics cards

Hardware requirements

• HP Z800 machine or better

• 2 x NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 or 2x NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 (GPUs must be identical)

• Matrox X.mio2 video in- and output card

Software requirements

• Viz Artist / Viz Engine version 3.3 or later

Synchronous output configuration

The Viz Engine installer, version 3.3 and later, includes an option for dual channel

support. Choosing this option generates desktop icons to start the configuration and

the Viz Engine for channel 1 as well as for channel 2. Note that Viz Artist will only be

available for channel 1 as it will always run on the first GPU.

The configurations use one video input per channel and embedded audio on the

channel. The table below shows the main differences in the configurations.

Synchronous output

Viz Engine 1 Viz Engine 2

Stereo Mode LEFT_EYE RIGHT_EYE

Video In A Video1 Unused

Video In B Unused Video 1

Video In C+D Unused Unused

Clip A Clip 1 Clip 1

Clip B Clip 2 Clip 2

Video Out A Fill Unused