.Mov or Cubefaces for FPP

[Rodrigo Alarcon-Cielock-2]

Hi Hans

I thought I would start a new subject regarding your comment on
the "Major Fire in Montreal" messages.
on that you said
>"Forgot one important thing.
>Movies are not cached with FPP. With cubefaces you can see all
>panoramas with smooth transitions when you got them in the cache."

so you reckon that using FPP, it is better to convert the panorama
into cube faces rather than use the the .mov panos?

I have changed the look of my Miscellaneous page by using a flash
presentation in which the .mov panoramas is been use in conjunction
with FPP files.

http://www.alarcon.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pictureFlow29/pictureShow.html
 

kind regards,

Rodrigo

[aiwetir-2]

Rodrigo,

glad to see you've sorted out your fpp issues, sorry i couldn't help  
more.

i would recommend putting the cube faces up there too as i've had the  
movDecoder hang on more than a few occasions on more than just my site  
too.  you cannot anticipate the age and speed of your client's  
computer (or connection).

cheers
mmm
http://pdxvr.com
http://medina-photo.com


On 18 Apr 2008, at 01:19, Rodrigo Alarcon-Cielock wrote:

> Hi Hans
>
> I thought I would start a new subject regarding your comment on
> the "Major Fire in Montreal" messages.
> on that you said
> >"Forgot one important thing.
> >Movies are not cached with FPP. With cubefaces you can see all
> >panoramas with smooth transitions when you got them in the cache."
>
> so you reckon that using FPP, it is better to convert the panorama
> into cube faces rather than use the the .mov panos?
>
> I have changed the look of my Miscellaneous page by using a flash
> presentation in which the .mov panoramas is been use in conjunction
> with FPP files.
>
> http://www.alarcon. pwp.blueyonder. co.uk/pictureFlo w29/
> pictureShow. html
>
>
> kind regards,
>
> Rodrigo._,___
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Rodrigo Alarcon-Cielock-2]

--- In [hidden email], aiwetir <aiwetir@...> wrote:
Hi Michael,

Yes it took me a lot of trial and error and it seem to be working,
thank you very much for your kind help, much appreciated.
>
> i would recommend putting the cube faces up there too as i've had
>the movDecoder hang on more than a few occasions on more than just >my
>site too.  you cannot anticipate the age and speed of your >client's
>computer (or connection).
>
Your suggestion then lend more support to utilise cube faces.

kind regards,

Rodrigo  

[Hans-74]

--- In [hidden email], "Rodrigo Alarcon-Cielock" <alarcon@...> wrote:

>
> Hi Hans
>
> I thought I would start a new subject regarding your comment on
> the "Major Fire in Montreal" messages.
> on that you said
> >"Forgot one important thing.
> >Movies are not cached with FPP. With cubefaces you can see all
> >panoramas with smooth transitions when you got them in the cache."
>
> so you reckon that using FPP, it is better to convert the panorama
> into cube faces rather than use the the .mov panos?
>
> I have changed the look of my Miscellaneous page by using a flash
> presentation in which the .mov panoramas is been use in conjunction
> with FPP files.
>
> http://www.alarcon.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pictureFlow29/pictureShow.html
>  

I believe there is a large difference depending on what computer you are,

I tested your site on 2  of my Macs.
Its really a nice interface, I like it,
I would however create some new buttons they do not match your design.

I believe the  difference in the loading depends on the processor. If it is slower the
extraction of the cubefaces take some extra time.

On my MacBook Pro Intel dualcore 2.16 they only take 6-7 sec to load with my 6 megabit
connection, then there is a couple of seconds delay while the cubefaces are extracted.
Firefox seems to cache the movies, but you still get the 2-3 sec delay when you open the
cached panoramas. Safari downloads the movie every time even if you already seen it.

On my 4 year old dualcore 2.0 G5 the delay for extracting the cubefaces is 10-13
seconds.
You can see that the movie loads very fast just like on the MacBook in 6-7sec and then it
hangs for 10-13sec  with the loading text somewhere between 90-99%

I have tested some of my own panoramas using movies on an old 867mHz PC and it just
could not extract all the cubefaces  wile the same page using cubefaces displayed fine.

The sites I have using cubefaces loads in 6-7 sec also on my G5 and they are cached so
that if you go back to one you just seen it will load instantly.
You can test it on the Opera House by seeing the 3 panos and then load the first again.

Hans

[Freddy Stapersma]

Good I see you got pictureflow working now :)



regarding cube vs mov.
I would say cubic for sure.
Faster loading smoother transition.


for pretty fast conversion I use TOcube
a small program written by Roberto Gómez Torres.
at the cost of $25.- I find it very handy to convert into cubefaces.
only for PC...
http://www.tiempo-digital.com/en/software/tocube/tocube.html



I'm getting a bit tired for on te dibate of mov vs flash vs java vs
shockwave.
I tried them all.
For me the right thing to right now use is Flash.
But If shockwave or quicktime gets better I move over.
Just as I moved over from java to flash.
I use flash because the mayority of the people already have it installed.
The so called flash guru's are trying to build something as
interactive as possible.. some succeed some not.
Most people in the world never saw a VR before and do not understand
it at all.  (button scared)
So something as easy as possible is what they need.
But still I've seen so many very good things in flash I just love the
evolution of it.

My last tour is completly made in Flash.
Thnx to Aifos from visitarosario.com for his big help with the tour.
Right now I am still exstending the tour so the info button at the top
left is still in fake tekst.
http://www.discocandy.com/panorama/panoramas/zuiderzeemuseum/index.html

and final another one I am working on in FPP (all by myself).
http://home.quicknet.nl/qn/prive/dj.freddy/medemblik/index.html

regards,
Freddy.





--- In [hidden email], "Rodrigo Alarcon-Cielock"
<alarcon@...> wrote:

>
> Hi Hans
>
> I thought I would start a new subject regarding your comment on
> the "Major Fire in Montreal" messages.
> on that you said
> >"Forgot one important thing.
> >Movies are not cached with FPP. With cubefaces you can see all
> >panoramas with smooth transitions when you got them in the cache."
>
> so you reckon that using FPP, it is better to convert the panorama
> into cube faces rather than use the the .mov panos?
>
> I have changed the look of my Miscellaneous page by using a flash
> presentation in which the .mov panoramas is been use in conjunction
> with FPP files.
>
> http://www.alarcon.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pictureFlow29/pictureShow.html
>  
>
> kind regards,
>
> Rodrigo
>

[Scott Witte-2]

> "Forgot one important thing.
> Movies are not cached with FPP. With cubefaces you can see all
> panoramas with smooth transitions when you got them in the cache."
I think it is fair to say that FPP has NO effect on caching of panos.
Caching is solely determined by the browser and its settings. (This was
discussed / investigated at some length on the FPP forums.) So, on my PC
Safari absolutely refuses to cache my panos but there is no problem with
IE or FF. I know this because I can watch the network activity, or lack
of it, while loading panos in various browsers. That varies somewhat for
some people depending on their individual setup.

However, FPP takes longer to decode a MOV file than individual
cubefaces, which are already "decoded", so there is a slight delay in
displaying MOV panos vs. cubeface panos. The difference varies depending
on the speed of your computer but I would put it well under one second.
Personally I've decided that working with fewer files is more convenient
so my current and new projects are all MOV format.

--
Scott Witte
---------------------------------
*WITTE *ON* LOCATION*
414.345.9660
www.scottwitte.com <http://www.scottwitte.com>

Member, APA | Midwest





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Hans-74]

--- In [hidden email], Scott Witte <scottwitte@...> wrote:

>
> > "Forgot one important thing.
> > Movies are not cached with FPP. With cubefaces you can see all
> > panoramas with smooth transitions when you got them in the cache."
> I think it is fair to say that FPP has NO effect on caching of panos.
> Caching is solely determined by the browser and its settings. (This was
> discussed / investigated at some length on the FPP forums.) So, on my PC
> Safari absolutely refuses to cache my panos but there is no problem with
> IE or FF. I know this because I can watch the network activity, or lack
> of it, while loading panos in various browsers. That varies somewhat for
> some people depending on their individual setup.
>
> However, FPP takes longer to decode a MOV file than individual
> cubefaces, which are already "decoded", so there is a slight delay in
> displaying MOV panos vs. cubeface panos. The difference varies depending
> on the speed of your computer but I would put it well under one second.
> Personally I've decided that working with fewer files is more convenient
> so my current and new projects are all MOV format.
>

No Scott you are not right.

First you have to know that Quicktime Movies, also QTVR normally are cached by
Quicktime not by the browser. You set that cache in the preferences for Quicktime. Not
sure how this is handled on Windows though.

Its very easy to see that FPP is not caching the movies in this cache, Just find the cache in
your Home/Library/Caches Quicktime.
Empty the cache and load  some panoramas in a FPP site using movies. You will se that
when you take info it will not grow at all.
Load some standard QTVR pages and it will cache all the movies.

You can check the same with Safari and cube faces.
It will cache them but the max cache size seems to be very small. It stops on my G5 at
only 19,2 mb.

You can also see  that as you can only go back around 6-8 panoramas with instant
loading.
And it does not cache the extracted cubefaces from movies which is just as easy to check
the same way.

According to one blog Safari is not caching images larger than 209,715 bytes. but I can
not see that.
It caches fine the cube faces I have and they are 300-400 kb.

Hans

[Scott Witte-2]

Hans Nyberg wrote:
> No Scott you are not right.
Oh... those be fight'n words, Hans :-D
> First you have to know that Quicktime Movies, also QTVR normally are
> cached by Quicktime not by the browser. You set that cache in the
> preferences for Quicktime. Not sure how this is handled on Windows though.
OK, but we are talking about FPP, not Quicktime. Quicktime has no effect
on FPP as I'm sure you know. If a computer doesn't have Quicktime
installed FPP can still display QTVR format files. So Quicktime isn't
telling FPP where or whether to cache the files.
> Its very easy to see that FPP is not caching the movies in this cache,
> Just find the cache in your Home/Library/Caches Quicktime. Empty the
> cache and load some panoramas in a FPP site using movies. You will se
> that when you take info it will not grow at all. Load some standard
> QTVR pages and it will cache all the movies.
Sure. Now do the same thing but watch your /browser's/ cache and you
will see the files, whether cubeface or MOV, being downloaded there, at
least for FF and IE. (It may have a cryptic name like "42898C7Dd01" but
just rename it to FOO.mov (assuming it is a MOV file) and it plays just
fine in Quicktime.) FPP simply issues a urlLoader command that downloads
the file. The browser determines if the files stay in cache. Safari does
some indecipherable things in this respect. It may be that it doesn't
cache files over a certain size or type. I can't figure that out (and it
sounds no more comprehensible in your own experience). But FF and IE put
all these files into their cache up to the cache limit, which is user
settable, unlike Safari's.

What all this tells me is that FPP really has no effect on whether a
file is cached. The browser does, especially in the case of Safari. Am I
missing something?


--
Scott Witte
---------------------------------
*WITTE *ON* LOCATION*
414.345.9660
www.scottwitte.com <http://www.scottwitte.com>

Member, APA | Midwest





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]