From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: September 7, 2009 9:58:24 AM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: Multiple display support

Hi Guys;

On 7-Sep-09, at 8:01 AM, stuppt wrote:

Let me see if I can help you.  Live view is not a problem.  There is a  

preview function that allows you to see a live view of what the camera  

sees.  However, it's purpose is to let you see what the camera is  

seeing, while you control the program.  I don't believe it can be  

shown at full screen.

I would not mind a window's border.

However, you may be able to use Astro IIDC to control the camera and  

have the live view in another program, say iMovie active as a full  

screen display.  That would be ideally suited to live presentations.   

I will try that tonight.

Just a correction on this. Astro IIDC does have "Fit To Screen" which scales the video display so that it fills the Monitor (whichever monitor has the biggest part of the window) as fully as possible while maintaining the cameras axis ratios. If the screen and cameras video format have the same aspect ratio then it fills the screen, if not, it's as close as possible.

This sounds very interesting to me! 

The question is: Is it really possible to use the same video stream with two different programs simultaneously? If so, I could also use Quicktime or BTV for live view as well.

No it it isn't possible. One Application controls one Device.

Firewire does have the ability to allow additional (all on the same FireWire bus of course) devices access an isochronous video stream to display it. So in theory you could have up to 62 Macs and a camera daisy chained together and alll would be able to see the same stream (I played with this when I worked for a Camera manufacturer in early 2000). However the "Master / Controlling" application has to tell all the "Slave /  Listening" applications what the stream consists of (what channel is being broadcast on, packet size, packet format, video width etc.). The synchronization of the communication is not simple to do and I never do it in Astro IIDC - likely I'd build some a separate app specifically for this sort of thing, and charge a lot for it.

HTH..

Milton Aupperle