[AG-TECH] Creating an AG Room Node using a Mac Backbone?

[Christoph Willing]

On 16/02/2006, at 9:19 AM, Jason Bell wrote:

[snip]

> So things to consider that
> I hope others might be able to comment on are whether:
>
> *	the Mac has driver support for multiple capture cards;
>
> *	the Mac can support multiple screen/projector display.  (I am
> pretty sure it can, it's just I have never done it nor can I recommend
> what video cards to use)
>
> Other than the above two points, I cannot see why someone cannot  
> build a
> Room base node using Mac's.  I would be interested to hear if you are
> able to do it.


Please look at:
	http://www.vislab.uq.edu.au/research/accessgrid/apac05a.html

which shows pictures of our fully featured Mac AG node being  
demonstrated at the APAC05 conference (Sept., 2005, Gold Coast,  
Australia).  "fully featured" means 4 capture streams and 4 display  
outputs (at the conference we used 4xLCD's rather than projectors).

So, it is definitely possible. However the performance is somewhat  
sluggish compared with our all-Linux nodes and hasn't been installed  
in a "proper" room for ongoing use.


Credits: the development work was carried out with the support of an  
AUDF (Apple University Development Fund) grant. Most of the software  
level work (recognising multiple video inputs etc) was done here by  
Doug Kosovich and has been incorporated into the current AG  
development tree i.e. it will be part of AG3


chris


Christoph Willing                           +61 7 3365 8350
QPSF Access Grid Manager
University of Queensland