Video Bridge and Shockwave 3D on Windows

I discovered that some of the video and Shockwave 3D visibility problems I'd experienced on both the Mac and PC were due to timeline errors in Director on my part. I also discovered that lit or unlit, objects will appear dark in DART unless a light is specified specifically in DART's "3D World" actor. I also discovered that the PC doesn't like playing DART .dir files correctly since the imported Shockwave 3D objects apparently don't load properly into the cast. They have to be reimported on the PC side for them to work. The Mac had no problem running PC DART .dir files with only changes made to driver file paths.

Determined to give the video bridge one more shot on the PC before deciding wholly against using it as our project's other computer, I went into the Lingo script that opened video connections for DART. DART was successfully able to communicate with the camera but decided to try 1440x1080 (a 2x mode) instead of the requested 720x480. Obviously, it was originally looking for 720x540 (1x)--a 4:3 aspect ratio. Since the DART Xtra only receives the width in the cameraInitString, the question is where is the video aspect ratio set at 4:3 (640x480 or in this case 720x540) without options for the DV aspect ration of 3:2 (720x480)? In the Windows drivers? I changed the Lingo script that constructs the string so that this was the string that was passed:

vc: 0 720 29 dvsd dvsd 1

I also originally tried "rgb" type camera parameters but saw in the Message window the camera was offering "dvsd" modes ("digital video streaming device"?). However, no combination seemed to work. DART simply reports "Couldn't find desired mode" then looks for a 2x mode, doesn't find that, and OpenVideo fails. This whole process worked great on the Mac in DART--without having to change the Lingo at all. DART reported a whole different set of camera modes coming from the same DVCam when it was connected, including a 640x480 30fps rgb mode which worked perfectly with the script as written. It was a beautiful de-interlaced image and highly stable from an AR tracking perspective. As I think about this now, this seems to indicate a difference in the way Mac and PC drivers report the camera's available modes.

We wrote to the DART peeps for some answers to our questions. We are definitely leaning more toward using another Mac now. Gavin said that a 2GHz iMac is available. We'll have to see whether this will work for us.

Also, our LCD TV screen arrived today. We checked it out and it looks brilliant and works great. I think it is perfect for what we will be doing with it.

In addition, my LED order for the internal illumination of our cube phicons was cancelled because they couldn't justify restocking their supply with the number I was ordering. They emailed back and said I'd need to order 20 or more before restocking.