n_angel

I've been on Max for about a month now and have had success with a few experiments. I now want to create my first artwork, which is comprised of 70 video clips that are about 7 seconds in length each (680MB total). The end product will randomize the playback across three projection screens over which subtitles (also written and randomized in jitter) will play. This project is meant for a non-music related video installation to be run off a single computer connected to three projectors in a gallery setting.

I first tried creating the patcher using jit.playlist but had trouble loading all the files at once whenever reopening the patcher. I now want to try using jit.movie @output_texture to be more efficient and to experiment with lists to call up the clips by name. My question is, however, given the size of the project will jitter be able to handle all that I'm throwing at it?

I read that jitter will slow down while playing multiple clips simultaneously. Timing is critical because I need for the lengths of each video channel's timeline to vary and for all three timelines to end at exactly the same time.

I'm currently using a MacBook Air M1, but I wonder if I should invest in something more powerful. If so, what sort of specs for hardware should I consider? I'm not above building my own PC if necessary.

I first tried creating the patcher using jit.playlist but had trouble loading all the files at once whenever reopening the patcher. I now want to try using jit.movie @output_texture to be more efficient and to experiment with lists to call up the clips by name. My question is, however, given the size of the project will jitter be able to handle all that I'm throwing at it? 

Hello all,
I've been on Max for about a month now and have had success with a few experiments. 

jitter-playback-limitations

I think it should have no trouble. I'm on an M1 MacBook Pro. Here's six HD 30fps movies playing and being layered (adding and multiplying the images alternately in the jit.gen) - it turns the fan on for sure, but it maintains 30fps - and with @output_texture it should be much more efficient than this.

Screenshot of Max (3-3-23, 8-23-44 PM).png

I tried it on the GPU - runs at 65-70 fps.

Thanks for the reply! I'll look into your idea of switching between GPU and CPU more. I remember years ago (15) in art school my film professor shooting down my idea of overlaying text through a chroma-keyed background onto my video. I was scared the text done in jitter might be too intensive on top of everything else, but I'll run my own tests.

Jitter can easyly handle that. The files will not be "loaded" they will be played on the fly from your ssd, no matter how much files you've "loaded" (actually linked) in your patch. 

The most important is the files itself. Don't use h264 or any other hi compressed video files. Use mjpeg as codec. High compressed codecs as h264 will drag your CPU. The more compressd your file is, the more CPU is needet to encode (re-decode) the video file. IMHO Mjpeg is the best for fast and non CPU draging video playback.

And yes, [ @output_texture 1 ] is your friend

Jitter can easyly handle that. The files will not be "loaded" they will be played on the fly from your ssd, no matter how much files you've "loaded" (actually linked) in your patch. 
The most important is the files itself.  Don't use h264 or any other hi compressed video files. Use mjpeg as codec. High compressed codecs as h264 will drag your CPU. The more compressd your file is, the more CPU is needet to encode (re-decode) the video file. IMHO Mjpeg is the best for fast and non CPU draging video playback. 

Thanks, Herr. I exported everything to h264 so I'll take you up on the advice.

I could not drag and drop all 70 of the clips at a time onto the patcher. I instead dropped ten clips at a time onto the playlist. Whenever I quit and reopened the patcher I got the pinwheel and had to force quit—unless I moved all the clips into a different folder, reopened the patcher and then moved the clips back into the original folder.

Jitter Playback Limitations