Setup question

hi,

i got a question regarding hardware requirements. We’re doing a project at university where the setup will consist of 3 cameras capturing something which will then be input to some kind of distortion/effects/maybe some cv and generate 3 seperate video outputs . There will also be 3 audio ins/outs/processing and some serial communication with Arduinos.

I thought about a pc with Intel i7, 2,8 Ghz; min 4 GB RAM; NVIDIA GeForce GTX480 (a higher end gaming setup actually).

Will this suffice?

Thanks a lot
Nadja

the machine setup looks very powerful but nobody can tell if it will manage the task to your satisfaction

questions you have to ask yourself:

  1. what resoltution is the source video and what framerate
  2. what is your target resolution und framerate

performance depends not just on the pc hardware but camera drivers too.

and saying it will do some distortion, effects is very vague. just one effetc can cause severe framerate drop.

my advice, try to make tests before buying. it might be a better idea to get 3 lower spec pc’s for each camera/output and sync them via network.

Agree with wirmachenbunt just add :

Purpose of 3 video cam ?

  • Data ( tracking, detection …)
    or
  • Motion

Which kind of camera ? Firewire, or connected to a capture card ?

Then also take in count the whished resolution.
( for ex 3 x full HD as the same time is quite a dream).

For my esperience i can say that 2 Cams Firewire on the same PC @ 640x480 + a multitouch patch ( contour, shader process content …)
is working fine on :

Core 2 Quad 2.6
4 Gb RAM
2 x 8800 GTS 512 Mo

thanks for the advice.
i was vague about the effects because we kinda make them up as we go :) Initially we thought of opencv tracking but it’s most likely gonna be pixel values and maybe some motion (framediff) which will be translated into some kind of “fancy” digital look.

About using 3 computers, I thought about that too. However camera 1 input will not necessarily end up on pc 1 output. Basically any input can be connected to any output. I couldn’t find a way to move the audio and video data between different computers. I tried streaming but i couldn’t get it to work. And as far as boygrouping is concerned I understand it only transmits commands but no actual data, right?

Thanks a lot
Nadja