4k projection

FotoMagico
1

I have a 4.5 minute show screening at a 1500 seat theater with a 4k projector. I want the best quality. The Settings are at Stage Size of 3840x2160, which is “4k”

  1. If I play direct from MacPro SSD to projector is this Stage Size needed or do I just edit in my screen resolution, and the program re-sizes when connected to the projector?
  2. My version of FM is 3.7.5. The timeline frequently warns me that my files are too big, and I have re-sized many (I use 12MP SLR cameras and up) Will a show play “better” using the 4.2 version? I am running OS 10.7.5
    Thanks
2

Hi,

We have not yet had the opportunity to do a 4k project, but here is how it should work:

In order to drive 4k you will need a graphics card that has 4k output along with appropriate drivers. (Like the NVIDIA Quadro K5000: http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro-k5000.htm or the upcoming MacPro)

Please note that you can not use a 4K video editing card such as the Blackmagic Decklink to play a FotoMagico slideshow as those cards only play 4k video files and are not able to render graphics commands. You could, however, render a 4k movie with FotoMagico and play that as an alternative.

  1. FotoMagico always uses the resolution that your graphics card displays (or what you specified in the export settings) regardless of what you have set as the Stage Size. However, I recommend to set the stage size to the size that you plan to display, so it will correctly calculate if your image files are big enough to get max quality on playback. Apart from that it is only important to set the correct aspect ratio so that images get not clipped.

  2. The warnings are not related to how well a slideshow plays. FotoMagico generally assumes it is a good idea to scale the images to just the size needed to avoid unnecessary scaling operations. If your drive, computer and graphics card are fast enough and your slideshow does not use complicated timing or transitions, you can also use 30 Megapixel files.

Feel free to download the latest FotoMagico and test whether it plays better using the trial period. Please use a copy of your slideshow if you want to be able to go back to FM 3.

Let me know how we can be of further assistance. We would be very interested in hearing how it went.

Best,

Oliver.

3

  1. Okay, I upgraded to FM 4.2 which is clearly better than 3.75 for this project. I no longer have Warning displays, and I re-sized the slides that needed to be smaller. My Settings are 3840x2160. My card is an AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024MB. When I mirror on the MacBookPro (SSD) to play a slide show, the highest option is the display size, 1440x900. So, would it be better to make a 3840x2160 ProRes video of this? (BTW, FM 3.75 would NOT render a proper 4k video, it stuck the show into one corner of a green screen). We have yet to be able to test the projector.

  2. My biggest problem is audio, I don’t think it has anything to do with the size of the images. This is a music intro show for guest speakers, it gets played once, and has no narration. It is just less than 5 minutes and has no chapters. Playing back on the Fullscreen option, sometimes the timing is perfect, other times it’s off by a fraction of a second, ruining the coordination of the whole show. This even happens with a rendered Stand Alone Player, and whether it’s an MP3 or Aiff. I’ve tried linking and locking, but regardless, sometimes it’s just “off.” I can’t restart the whole thing on performance night! How do I trust the audio??