Viewing Multiple Videos Simultaneously

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davidsurv

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I have the need to view up to 4 videos simultaneously (AVI & WMV), was wondering if their was a single stand alone software viewer that would facilitate accomplishing this task? I have searched to the best of my ability & have found little or no useful info, short of running four different players.
I have only the means of 1 PC & 1 monitor, ideally a program that would segment the screen into 4 sections would be what I'm looking for.
*Am running a 128MB graphics card, would this be sufficient to handle the load of 4 videos?
 
davidsurv said:
I have the need to view up to 4 videos simultaneously (AVI & WMV), was wondering if their was a single stand alone software viewer that would facilitate accomplishing this task? I have searched to the best of my ability & have found little or no useful info, short of running four different players.
Can't help you much with this one. I'm not a software guy, but I suggest you look for video security and monitoring software, most video editing software will also allow multiple simultaneous videos.
davidsurv said:
I have only the means of 1 PC & 1 monitor, ideally a program that would segment the screen into 4 sections would be what I'm looking for.
Hardware wise what you wanted is non-ATI, non-Intel and non-VIA hardware, they traditionally are made for single tasking and being best at single big task such as encoding one single video offline (non-realtime).

What you wanted are NUMA (simultaneous multiple data streams from multiple sources to multiple destinations) based hardware.

That means AMD + Nvidia based hardware. An old dual-channel nforce2 with 2000+ XP should be the minimum.
davidsurv said:
*Am running a 128MB graphics card, would this be sufficient to handle the load of 4 videos?
Even Nvidia built-in mobo graphic typical for nforce2 will do the job because they are made to support "simultaneous multiple data streams from multiple sources to multiple destinations".

Though since Intel is shifting their architecture toward PCI-Express, which is made for simultaneous multiple data streams in the same exact manner as AMD's HyperTransport did since 5 years ago. You might try the newer Intel hardware, unfortunately I had not seen any experts on the net with enough expertise to recognize the Intel shift in architecture, and try to test Intel processors for internal updates matching external Intel chipset shift toward NUMA.

Prior to PCI-Express Intel is based upon Symmetric Processing origin (Time-Share/Time-Division Processing) which is UMA only (one data stream at a time in sequential symmetric timeslices).

P.S. There was a bug in Intel's PCI-Express hardware imlementation causing loss in data throughput, I don't know if Intel had fixed it yet.
 
Viewing 4 Videos simultaneously

I found a player that allows 4 instances of itself to run simultaneously, little tricky in initiating a identical timeline. Player does not have the ability to sychronize a "start playing all 4 videos" at once command.
Nice thing about it is that it is free, couldn't find any obvious spy/malware.

For those of you who may want a free video viewer this could come in handy, especially when wanting to watch more than one video at once.
I did experience some lag when starting the 4th video however.

The viewer is named VLC media player, however after going to download, the viewer is also known as VideoLAN 0.8.1. The site for the actual download is
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm, & then find the VideoLan 0.8.1. link & then click on one of download links.
 
davidsurv said:
I found a player that allows 4 instances of itself to run simultaneously, little tricky in initiating a identical timeline. Player does not have the ability to sychronize a "start playing all 4 videos" at once command.
Nice thing about it is that it is free, couldn't find any obvious spy/malware.

For those of you who may want a free video viewer this could come in handy, especially when wanting to watch more than one video at once.
I did experience some lag when starting the 4th video however.

The viewer is named VLC media player, however after going to download, the viewer is also known as VideoLAN 0.8.1. The site for the actual download is
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm, & then find the VideoLan 0.8.1. link & then click on one of download links.
If you waited long enough, there will be many more apps which will support multiple simultaneous videos. For years and years and years.... Intel's and compatible hardware were not made for and incapable of doing so, hence there are only very few customized apps which will barely able to do it.

No one can actually write software for hardware which were not really capable of the job, they can hack it to almost good enough using the best non-capable hardware available. It is difficult forcing hardware with only one data stream at a time to act as if it did 4 simultaneous data streams, 8 simultaneous data streams are just not possible... PERIOD.

The MACs are well suited for video editing, MACs can do "simultaneous multiple data streams from multiple sources to multiple destinations" because MACs also had built-in hardware support for AMD's HyperTransport for somewhile now.

Though if you didn't need apps with built-in MDI supports and just multiple instances of themselves, window built-in media player will already do that for you, or others such as WinAmp 3 or WinAmp 5.
 
...

Nein.. Are you saying that it is impossible to play several videos simultaneously on a PC?

Let me try..

OMG I have a NUMA supercomputer here! It can display three DVD quality videos in parallel!
 
Nodsu said:
...

Nein.. Are you saying that it is impossible to play several videos simultaneously on a PC?

Let me try..
It was absolutely impossible for Dual-Xeon to view more than 5 videos simultaneously, that was the maximum limit for Dual-Xeon, example below...

indexstreamingwide11172003.jpg


Nodsu said:
OMG I have a NUMA supercomputer here! It can display three DVD quality videos in parallel!
The MAC's PR benchmark above never brought up the fact that just single AMD 2000+XP + Nvidia nforce mobos were the unknown and undisputed champions of such benchmarks at that time. Most self-styled graphic experts were too ignorant and too stupid to know that fact.
 
Nein,
Whereas you stated in your post that it is possible for Windows Media Player to Run Mulitiple Instances of itself. I was wondering if you could provide guidance on how to accomplish this, as I have never been able to get WMP to open up in more than one instance. If it involves modding the WMP itselt I would not prefer that route, also with WMP I foresee problems with screen size/quartering.
 
davidsurv said:
Nein,
Whereas you stated in your post that it is possible for Windows Media Player to Run Mulitiple Instances of itself. I was wondering if you could provide guidance on how to accomplish this, as I have never been able to get WMP to open up in more than one instance. If it involves modding the WMP itselt I would not prefer that route, also with WMP I foresee problems with screen size/quartering.
"window built-in media player" isn't WMP7/8/9/10. MS keep screwing with it over the years, sometimes its named mplayer.exe, other times its named mplayer32.exe, etc... But its always in the system or system32 directory.

Besides the various names, MS also had altered its basic functions and features, they don't always follow the same conventional menus or conventional feature usages. Therefore you have to learn to use each individual different ones particular to the ones you have in your own window versions, your particular service pack installed, etc...

Kinda like the same way MS keep screwing with wireless networking, what works now just stops working after an "update". It didn't actually stop, the basic functions had been modified and no longer followed the previous established conventions in names or features.

If you actually wanted to use it, then I suggest you try "Media Player Classic" instead. It is a stable, free, downloadable player which is far superior and far more consistent than window built-in media player itself. "Media Player Classic" option settings will give you a choice of "multiple instances" of itself just as the original built-in Window Media Player option did.
 
Thanks for the info, I sincerely appreciate it, over the years one has a tendency to forget how to think "outside" the box. I have become so accustomed to updating players/viewers/software that I have forgotten to go back in time when things were a little simpler. One of the things that perturbs me the most is the fact that once you revert to using an older software then, the newer versions become a bear to manage & in some instances will not work whatsoever.
 
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