DeckLink Support Enhancements

For those of you who are using a GoFishMedia ProKey system (and the much smaller number of you who have dared to venture into the DeckLink feature on your own), the May 2012 Edition offers a number of enhancements for you.

Transitions
First, nearly all of the SongShow Plus transitions are now supported when using a live-key video background. Previously, only the Fade transition was supported. There are just a few that have not yet been converted, but the majority of transitions are now available.

PowerPoint
Up to now, playing PowerPoint presentations was not an option when using the DeckLink card. This is because when SongShow Plus presents a PowerPoint file, it uses the PowerPoint player -- and that player doesn't know how to present to the DeckLink card. The May 2012 Edition addresses this issue. Now, if you want to use PowerPoint along with DeckLink, you can do so.

Web Pages
The same limitation of PowerPoint also existed with web pages. This is because when SongShow Plus presents a web page, it uses an Internet Explorer window to do so, and like PowerPoint, Internet Explorer doesn't know how to present to the DeckLink card. With the May 2012 Edition, you can now present web pages to the DeckLink card.

Note about PowerPoint and Web Pages: The fix for both PowerPoint and Web Pages does require a change in your system configuration. In order for these new features to work, you'll need to actually have your display window visible. Previously, the typical configuration for DeckLink support was to hide the display window.

Note about transitions: Transitions do work best when using SD video. If you are using HD video, you'll need the highest end DeckLink card available along with the fasted motherboard/memory combination you can find -- and it's still not a guarantee that you'll have glitch-free transitions. This is because using the DeckLink card involves rendering video frames in the GPU, but then extracting those bits back into system memory then pushing it out to the DeckLink card. That uses a lot of bus bandwidth.

(BE268)

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