Streamer

Streamer is a Windows application that streams uncompressed video data through mulicast to TileViewer, which drives a display wall, i.e., HIPerWall. It uses DirectShow technology to generate a video stream from a video file or a video capture device such as webcams or TV capture cards.

Streamer is like a opposite end of the HiperSender. HiperSender uses a compressed stream to use lower bandwidth while sacrificing a framerate and latency, Streamer consumes as much bandwidth as possible with the uncompressed data and achieve higher framerate and better latency.

The following video shows that using the Streamer, a video game (Guitar Hero) can be played on the HIPerWall. BlackMagic Intensity Pro video capture card is used to capture the video from the game system. The Guitar Hero 2 is used here because it has a video/audio delay adjust capability.

Huge bandwidth consumption

Since it sends a uncompressed stream, network bandwidth is directly porpotional to the video size and its codec. For example, 1920x1080p 24FPS 16bit stream is 1920x1080x24x16 = 795,353,400 bits/sec, which consumes most of gigabit network. To fully achieve such bandwidth, meaning there should be minimal packet loss at the end, both the sending and receiving side should have a decent CPU power to handle the stream.

Currently, our ideal streaming size is 1280x720p 24FPS 16bit. This is a good compromise between quality of the video and overall performance of the system, i.e., less packet loss and shorter delay.