garageCube

I've used Modul8 for quite some time but I've only recently started to use the Advanced Output. I've read the manual and one thing that I'm still not clear on is this: does the clip size make any difference in the final resolution of the output?

For example, I have five projectors which are each 1024x768. Do the clip sizes need to be set to that size? Will a smaller setting result in downsampling of the output?

From my experimentation, it seems as if the clip sizes are relative and not absolute dimensions, but I'd like to know for sure. Unfortunately, the manual is not very clear on this and any help would be appreciated!

the modul8 virtual stage is 640x480 bananas… It doesn't work in pixels even if the default size matches 640x480 pixels… In the end, your medias wont be upscaled if they are 1024x768 and your output too. It's a bit abstract to understand, but you seem to be a clever guy

I'll try to write it differently if I was not clear at all

yeah. it just works
no one needs to know how.

Thanks for the reply. That's what I thought (and I thought I remembered reading that somewhere) but I wanted to be sure I wasn't mashing down the quality of my output by doing something stupid...

This subject is very interesting to me because despite I use it,
I think I don't understand all with advanced output way of life.
I did understood that stage values are bananas so let's see how it seems to work :

1/ by setting the preview panel in 'Preferences' at 4/3 or 16/10 or any custom value (!), you get an advanced output stage with 640x480 bananas
2/ by setting the preview panel in 'Preferences' at 8/3, you get an advanced output stage with 1280x480 bananas
3/ by setting the preview panel in 'Preferences' at 4/1, you get an advanced output stage with 1920x480 bananas
4/ by setting the preview panel in 'Preferences' at 16/9, you get an advanced output stage with 854x480.3 bananas

It's not so logical, not so easy to handle, especially when you got more than one projector and more than one output clip or a soft-edge to set.
I dream for a virtual stage, where I could precisely indicate the total output pixels number, and set my clips, one by one, with their real values.
I do not know if it is very clear, my english is so …, but the idea would be swapping bananas to pixels, somewhat !


PS : To be totally honest, I got to add something : in every live production I make, I thanks the Big God of Video Bananas (He does exist !) because I'm sending video with bananas values and it works !

You're right, the virtual stage is never higher than 480 bananas (16/10 is actually 768x480 and 16/9 is 853x480).
But it gets a bit more complicated…
For some reason, even if you preview window can be larger than 640 (never higher than 480 remember) and you can see your composition in the preview window, the virtual stage will stay 640x480. It doesn't really matter until you're not using the normalize option with special ratio medias.

Example: your preview ratio is 4/1 so you'll have a preview window displaying 1920x480 bananas. If you're creating a media which is 3072*768 (because you have 3 1024x768 projectors) and you hit the button normalize, it will not fit the preview window but this 4/3 virtual stage, your media will be all small and alone in the middle of your preview window… This is very annoying I agree! But apparently it's not that easy to correct…

Regarding the Advanced Output. You can do any clips composition you want in any position as long as you stay in 480 bananas of height for your whole composition otherwise you will not be able to preview the whole thing in the preview window.