STRUCTURE CLIP NODE

The CLIP node allows loading small clips that can be used in a variety of different ways. Some things to note:

* 320×240 or 640×480 clips (and only 1 size active at a time)
* 320×240 allows 1600 frames total
* 640×480 allows 400 frames total
* Max clip length can be set in system menu (like 20 frames per video)
* Max of 16 clips supported

The reason for these limitations is two fold. The SDCARD is too slow to stream actively and the frames have to be stored in system memory uncompressed.

The file supported by STRUCTURE are VERY specific. We recommend using an application like MpegStreamClip to process your incoming video.

Clips go on the front SDCARD in a top-level directory called “clips” (which you can create if it does not exist, or use the utility in the SYSTEM menu for creating directories)

/sdcard/clips/

YOU CANNOT DEVIATE FROM THESE SETTINGS!

Resolution: 640×480 or 320×240
Container: MOV
Compression: Motion JPEG A
Number of fields: One (NO INTERLACED, TURN OFF ALL INTERLACING SETTINGS)
Sound: No Sound (CANNOT HAVE SOUND TRACK IN IT AT ALL)

If you run into problems, reach out to us and we’ll help you get it sorted.

(SEE THE IMAGE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE OF AN EXAMPLE FOR MPEG STREAMCLIP. FOR FRAME SIZE DO 640×480 IF USING THAT SIZE. ALSO, CROPPING IS ONLY IF YOU REALLY WANT TO CROP OUT THINGS FROM THE VIDEO YOU DO NOT WANT)


TIMING

STRUCTURE is not a fixed frame rate system, it adapts to how much processor load is happening. For this reason, there is only one parameter which is CONTROL so you can dial in a speed depending on the GPU load to get the effect you want. (TIP, if you stuff a bunch of images in a video you can slow way down to just show frames!)

SETTINGS

Play Modes:
-> Plays video forward
<- Plays video backwards
<-> Plays video palindrome style
One ->, <-, <-> Uses the “Reset/Trigger Clip” to play once
Rnd Seg selects a random position and plays from there. The size of the segments are the clip length divided by the Rand Segments setting.
Wander allows the clip to play Wander Distance number of frames then randomly change directions.
Pos allows you to use the CONTROL parameter to set the position in a video mapped across the whole range of CV values!

Clear Clip (One Shot) sets the screen back to black after a One shot has been fired.

Rand Segments indicates how many pieces to split up a video clip. So if you had 100 frames, then a value of 25 would give you 4 random segment locations when you use the Random Clip Position with quantization on or use the Rnd Seg play mode.

Rand Pos Quantized is used with Random Clip Position to pick from the divided segment locations. If off any frame can be selected on random.

Wander Distance is the distance the clip will play in a direction in wander mode before randomly changing direction.

STATES

Reverse will change the direction of the video playback in any mode

ACTIONS

Previous/Next/Random/Last Clip will go to those clips.

Load Clip # will load that clip if present.

Random Clip Position will go to a random frame, or a quantized frame depending on settings.

Reset / Trigger Clip will either reset in the playback position based on mode, or trigger a clip to start in the One shot modes.


Using FFMPEG command line tool to convert videos

Given MPEGStreamClip will not work on 64-bit OS X we needed to find another solution for Mac users. Right now, we are using the command line tool FFMPEG to convert videos. There are GUI interfaces to this tool, we’ll try to find one at some point to make this easier to do, but for now, here is instructions for running in the terminal.

I used ‘brew’ to install ffmpeg. You can get brew from https://brew.sh, then in a terminal do:

brew install ffmpeg

Then wait will it installs. Once it is installed you can use the following on the command line:

ffmpeg -i <input movie file> -c:v mjpeg -q:v 3 -an -vf scale=320:240,yadif=3:1,mcdeint=2:1 -frames:v 100 output.mov

-c:v mjpeg sets the output type, in this case motion jpeg

-q:v 3 sets the quality of the encoding. Using 1 is the highest setting, 3 seems to produce nice results, 32 is the max. Using 1 takes the longest time for sure

-an is the flag to NOT include audio, this is absolutely important to do

-vf has multiple settings included in it, let me go through them as well:

scale=320:240 sets the output side. This is not going to crop, it will basically resize everything to this size. I am sure there is likely some cropping commands and stuff, but that seems to be complicated. Instead you might edit your video elsewhere to get it into the cropped 4:3 size then convert with this. Also note you can do scale=640:480.

IMPORTANT: STRUCTURE does either 480 or 240 mode, not both at the same time. To select which one, go to the CLIPS section of the system menu to make that change.

yadif=3:1,mcdeint=2:1 is for deinterlacing if it is present from what I can tell, so always include this.

-frames:v 100 says just do 100 frames. If you leave this off, it will do ALL the frames. Remember that STRUCTURE has a max limit on number of frames for each mode, which is 400 or 1600 based on resolution (basically both fill the same amount of RAM space)