Display Setup

A display setup in WATCHOUT is a 2D display/3D mapping projector or a set of 2D displays/3D mapping projectors containing properties obtained outside WATCHOUT, for example by using a camera-based calibration system. These properties can be positioning, warping and/or blending.

WATCHOUT supports the domeprojection.com® generic format and MPCDI version 1.0 (Profiles 2D Media/3D Simulation, level 1 or 3) which can be imported by going to “Import Display Setup “in the File menu and choosing the format of your choice. This will open a dialog that is specific to the selected format.

Both formats require specification of a file or folder, a target tier, and an offset.

File/Folder. Specifies a file or folder that contains the Display Setup data.

Import to tier named. Controls where the imported display setup will be placed.

Display offset. Applies an offset to the positions of imported displays.

In addition to the three common fields of the two import dialogs, each of them has a unique setting.

As domeprojection.com® setups are often exported with normalized values, there is a “Display Scale factor” option available in the import. The normalized dimensions of the displays will be multiplied with this value before appearing in the Stage window.

The MPCDI setup import has a “Preserve previous offset” setting which lets you decide whether to keep the offset of a previously imported display setup when it is re-imported. When this is selected, whatever is entered in the Display Offset fields will be ignored in favour of the value specified during the last import of the MPCDI setup.

IMPORTANT: When importing an MPCDI file that has multiple buffers, the selected tier will not contain any imported display data. Instead, this tier is used as a basis for sequential creation of new tiers onto which the imported display data will be placed.

NOTE: Be careful when moving imported displays around as their relative positions have been calculated precisely. If you alter them by accident, the setup can easily be recovered by using Ctrl-Z or by simply re-importing the setup. Importing a setup again, using the same files, will update the existing setup so that no duplicate setups exist.

SDI Link Type

There are four different SDI link types available in WATCHOUT: Single-Link, Dual-Link, Quad-Link Interleaved and Quad-Link Quadrant.

Single, Dual and Quad refer to the number of cables used to carry the signal, and subsequently how many output channels that will be occupied by a given output resolution and link type combination.

For Quad-Link there are two sub-categories; Quadrant and Interleaved. Quadrant splits a frame into four sections and each section is then sent through a separate cable (output channel). In Interleaved mode each channel sends interleaved pairs of pixels. The link type to use is determined by your needs, resolution required and framerate.

More information on the Quad-Link subcategories can be found on the Deltacast website: https://www.deltacast.tv/technologies/4k-video.

SDI Channel Assignment

Typically an SDI board has connectors for input and output with varying bandwidth capabilities which are usually expressed as 3G or 12G. An SDI board also has a maximum bandwidth capability. A 3G connector may be used for Single-Link resolutions up to DCI 2K at 60 Hz, for Dual-Link up to DCI 4K at 30 Hz or for Quad-Link up to DCI 4k at 60 Hz.

A 12G-capable connector may be used for Single-Link resolutions up to DCI 4K at 60 Hz. Its usage will typically disable subsequent connectors.

As an example, Dataton’s WATC HPA X 60 model C media server has an SDI board with 8 connectors and a maximum bandwidth of 24G. Two of the connectors (one and five) have 12G capabilities whereas the other six are 3G only. Since the board has a maximum bandwidth of 24G it is not possible to use the 12G capabilities of connectors one and five and at the same time use any of the six 3G connectors. In fact, using 12G or 6G (Single-Link) capabilities of connector one or five will cause the subsequent three connectors to become occupied.