ArraySync with 3 mac minis over the network

[Mazze]

Dear NaSoLab-support and arraysync community,

i need your help! I want to use 3 mac minis with 6 screens. Each mac mini has 2 of them connected. Mac mini 1 runs the server and the other 2 are clients. They are all connected by LAN and can find the server without any problems.

My video file was set up accordingly. (Made with keynote in 2560x2160) 2 wide - 3 high 1280x720 each

Questions is: How do i get my video spanned over all 6 screens? Do i need to split them up and put the split files onto each mini? How do i do that without "ArrayShaker" since it's not available anymore?

Thanks in advance

[Turboladdade]

You can do this with just one video file. First you want to set ArraySync into spanned mode. Then drop the video file into ArraySync on each machine.

For our purposes let's label each Mac Mini as 1, 2 and 3, and connect your six displays as follows:

[1][1][3]
[2][2][3]

Make sure in System Preferences, they're arranged properly (side-by-side on Mac Minis 1 and 2, stacked on Mac Mini 3).

Now, on all three machines, enable the Offset feature. If you have HD1080 displays (1920x1080) your offsets will be as follows for each machine:

Mac Mini 1:
Right: 1920
Bottom: 1080

Mac Mini 2:
Top: 1080
Right: 1920

Mac Mini 3:
Left: 3840

These numbers create an virtual extension of each Mac's desktop space to compensate for the other displays. ArraySync will then stretch and crop the video accordingly. If your displays are some other resolution like 1280x720 you'll have to redo the math accordingly:

Mac Mini 1:
Right: 1280
Bottom: 720

Mac Mini 2:
Top: 720
Right: 1280

Mac Mini 3:
Left: 2560

Please let me know if this makes sense or if you need any further clarification. Thanks!

[Mazze]

Thanks for the quick reply and the explanation. It's working now (even if the video is stuttering sometimes, gonna play with video settings a bit to tweak it)!

Got the following setup:

[1][1] = 2560 * 720
[2][2] = 2560 * 720
[3][3] = 2560 * 720

Which is 2560 * 2160

While 1,2,3 are mac minis. Screens are samsung with a thin border.

Wouldn't it be better to just split the videos to save "bandwidth", since 2/3s of the video aren't needed?

Anyways, it's an awesome app with brilliant support. I'll recommend you wherever i can!

Have a nice weekend. Greetings from overseas

[Turboladdade]

Thanks for the quick reply and the explanation. It's working now (even if the video is stuttering sometimes, gonna play with video settings a bit to tweak it)!

Try using Apple Intermediate Codec for video and AAC for audio. Might work better than H.264 if that’s what you’re using (H.264 is extremely resource intensive).