Arkaos MediaMaster 1.1

ArKaos MediaMaster 1.1 brings uncompromised control to 8 layers of high definition video to the lighting design industry. With its state-of-the-art video mixing engine, support for high resolution output, LED panel integration and full DMX support, it proves you don't need to ruin yourself to integrate video performances to your light show. Since MediaMaster's extensive fixture is supported by most console manufacturers, you're directly in control.

Arkaos MediaMaster 1.1 Features:
-Software Genlocking to the output monitors for perfect playback up to 60fps without dropping frame
-Frame blending for smooth playback even at very slow speed
-Improved soft-edging algorithm
-Support for movies with alpha channels
-Build-in support for grandma MA-Net
-Native support of H.264 through FFMPEG 0.5
-New Cropping effect
-8 independent video layers
-Advanced Graphic engine: Fully hardware accelerated and Multi-threaded on multi-core CPUs
-Optimized for HD movies, HD output support
-Internal MPEG2-MPEG4 codec for enhanced reliability
-Intuitive user interface
-60+ effects
-50+ text animations
-Audio Visualization Generators
-Media library of 255 folders and 255 visuals
-Multiple video inputs (PCI card, FireWire DV / HDV, USB, etc.)
-Total control of your media: 3D position/ rotation, movie speed, color levels etc.
-Master brightness-contrast, keystone
-Multi-Screen and Wide-Screen with soft-edge
-MSEX Compatible: thumbnails preview and live output on your MSEX compatible lighting desk
-Windows XP, Vista and Mac OSX compatible
-3 available fixtures: micro, tiny and full
-Support of all common media formats (AVI, MPEG, QuickTime MOV, Flash, WMV, picture files etc)

Built on ArKaos’ latest generation of technology, MediaMaster’s multi-threaded engine delivers blistering performance, by taking advantage of multi-core machines.  Arkaos MediaMaster 1.1 now comes with improved frame blending support allowing extremely smooth video playback even at slow speeds and software genlock making it possible to play several HD movies at up to 60 fps without dropping a single frame.

A straightforward interface displaying all layer’s parameters simultaneously, as well as all layers preview, gives lighting designers improved visibility of their shows and the best ergonomics possible, version 1.1 can even generate a preview visual of your Soft Edge setup so you can't go wrong.  With MediaMaster’s new media management system, you can store up to 60,000 visuals in more than 200 folders, delete and move files at your convenience without having to re-stack a programmed show.

Arkaos MediaMaster 1.1’s audio visualizers are powerful visual animations that react to the audio input to create nice ambient visuals. Audio visualizers are perfect for clubs, live DJ performances and LED outputs. Take total control of your media: position, scale, rotate, adjust transparency, alpha, colors, compose with other layers etc. MediaMaster supports major media formats, multiple video inputs, and provides more than 60 effects with controllable parameters.

MediaMaster’s powerful video engine and integrated native decoders of MPEG 2/4, QuickTime photo JPEG and Adobe Flash (among other formats) guarantee a smooth and reliable playback of full HD media on all layers.  MediaMaster currently includes the intuitive LED Mapper extension, the flexible software solution from ArKaos to drive LED panels.

With all the above in the easiest to control media server software that ever existed, Arkaos MediaMaster 1.1 is even simpler to use than ArKaos VJ DMX.

The boxed version comes shipped with an additional DVD-Rom containing 4.1 GB of exclusive video footage in High Definition and Standard Definition.  This additional footage is exclusively available with the box and can't be obtained separately, it has been provided by selected sources offering professional quality footage for video mixing software.

Arkaos MediaMaster 1.1 comes with a brand new video engine which takes advantage of the capabilities from the latest hardware accelerated graphic cards (those which supports the Pixel Shaders II). All video treatment, mixing and effects application is now computed in the GPU, which allows to experience an unprecedented visual smoothness and image quality.

Thanks to the Pixel Shaders accelerated multimedia technology, all video treatment, mixing and effects are now computed by the graphic card using special algorithms designed towards image processing. This makes it possible to position and resize videos, apply advanced 2D & 3D effects to them and mix several layers together with luminance/chrominance keying as well as many different copy modes.. All this in real time and with a very high image quality allowing top notch projection on big screens.

All image processing is done through the GPU*: the CPU* has more time for other heavy processing such as video decompression; this result in a much better frame rate and visual smoothness.  All video treatment is accomplished in full resolution and benefits from a hardware texture filtering which makes the pixel artifacts disappear, even with low-resolution videos; the image quality is greatly improved.

By using the hardware GPU pipeline processing rather than a standard CPU processing, the approach to image processing becomes radically different: every image or video is equivalent to a texture in the video memory; updating several videos together consumes a high amount of AGP/PCI-X bus data bandwidth. The ArKaos engine reduces this bandwidth to a minimum to achieve the best possible frame rate.

Image-processing is done using texture as source data: it can easily be mixed with other textures, then being scaled, stretched and deformed using geometry meshes. Therefore, the per pixel/vertex processing totally changes the way of working on the image.

Pixel Shaders allow advanced image processing in a minimum development time thanks to the per pixel treatment, whereas vertex-shaders allow advanced light effects and volumes deformation thanks to the per vertex treatment.

Using hardware texture filtering in Arkaos MediaMaster 1.1 produces images with extraordinary high quality. Moreover, all the treatments are done in full resolution, making the pixelization disappear, even with low resolution videos.

Arkaos MediaMaster 1.1 System Requirements:
-PC
  -OS: Windows™ XP or Vista.
  -Processor: Pentium™ IV 2Ghz recommended.
  -RAM: 512MB, 1GB recommended.
  -Media Component: QuickTimeTM 6.5.x (and up), Adobe FlashPlayerTM 9.0 (and up), DirectXTM 9.0c (and up).
-Mac
  -OS: Mac OS X 10.4 (and up).
  -Processor: Any Intel Mac, G4/1Ghz (and up).
  -RAM: 512MB, 1GB recommended.
  -Media Component: QuickTimeTM 6.5.x (and up), Adobe FlashPlayerTM 9.0 (and up).
-Platform independent
  -Graphics processor:
    -3D accelerated graphics card required:
    -nVidia GeForceFX 5200 (and up), Ati Radeaon 9200 (and up), Intel GMA 950 (and up), etc
  -Free Space: 250MB - 1.5GB depending on the installer options.

*The GPU is the processor from your graphic card, as opposed to the CPU - Computer Processor Unit, which is your computer’s main processor.