[done] Need Camera x "None" option

[BobCozzi]

To broadcast the desktop/screen a one-camera shoot requires VidBlaster to be configured with 2 (or more) cameras.
Camera 2 contains a screen capture, which eats a lot of CPU, but works.
If I am finished with the screen capture for the broadcast, I have no way to shut it down so that the CPU cycles are freed up.

I'd really like to see a "NONE" option on all the windows: Cameras, Players, Overlay so that we can clear what's been selected.

[Mike]

A few remarks:

1. as I already mentioned, a player does not take up any noticable resources so clearing it is only for esthetic reasons,
2. unloading (or changing) a camera is likely to cause a hickup in your video stream due to the amount of work involved.

That said, I added a Clear option in the popup menus of the Camera and Video Effect modules. The Player already had one.

[BobCozzi]

Well, when you open up a "Camera 2" (for example) and indicate Screen Capture, it certainly does cause a blip in the overall performance. And the preview window of that camera continues to update even when the "Camera 2" is not selected. Ending VidBlaster and restarting it without the Screen Capture is currently the only way I can remove it. I tried simply changing the layout from 2 cameras to 1, but that caused an error.

Thanks for making that change, I'll give it a try once the new point release is posted.

FYI, if I can ever get Mackie to ship me the Beta drivers for the Onyx 1220 under Vista, I'll be moving this whole thing to a Core 2 Quad. When I launch VidBlaster on my Core 2 Duo today, it takes close to 1 minute to launch, whereas if I launch it on the Core 2 Quad it takes about 10 seconds. (Both have identical resources, except the Duo vs Quad option.)

[BobCozzi]

I think with screen capture as its refreshing its Player window (Camera window actually) it causes the display to change and thus updates the window, causing the display to change and updates the window, creating a loop in the routine. Perhaps the Screen Capture Camera window should not update; saving that for when it is selected.

But for now, since .37 eats so much CPU compared to .34 I'm going to have to go back to Camtwist on the Mac, but I'll certainly give the new point release another try.

[Mike]

It makes no difference whether the screen changes or not. And as for your remarks about 0.37 using more CPU than 0.34, please see my question and suggestions above. I have checked and could not find any difference between the versions CPU usage, so I am very interested to hear exactly which function uses more CPU. If you can't help me with this, v0.38 will not behave any differently so there's no reason to try it :)

[Mike]

BTW: as you are streaming to ustream, I assume you have video resolution set to 320*240 and frame rate at 11 fps? For comparison, on my Core 2 Duo laptop, this uses less than 10% CPU, and 2% on my Core 2 Quad.

[BobCozzi]

Would that matter? But yes, I have it set to (I think) 10 fps.