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One of the cool features to get bundled into the version 4.5 and higher updates of VT[4] is iVGA.  Have you ever needed to capture video from a computer program, like a Power Point presentation, or a walk-through of how to use some software?  Have you wanted to use it in a live switch?  IVGA allows you to feed the display of any Windows XP computer to your VT system through your local area network (LAN.) 

Prior to iVGA routing a computer’s output live into the VT usually meant getting a hardware converter to convert the VGA output to NTSC video, and pulling cable to feed that to one of the VT’s inputs.

IVGA’s method of operation much simpler.  The client, iVGA program runs on the computer you are going to use as a video source.  It scans the data in the memory that is used by the video card to display on that computer’s monitor, and it copies that data into a realtime stream of data, which it sends out over the network.

The VT[4] software considers the iVGA client program to be just another virtual input in its switcher.  When the iVGA client is punched on the VT’s program or preview bus, the VT software decodes the data stream and generates a video signal out of it.  The video signal can then be recorded for later use in VTEdit, or switched live for television, presentation or IMAG use.

The frame rate of the video transferred by iVGA will depend on a number of factors, chief amongst which are the speed of the network and the network adapters on the computers involved. Bottom line is you want the fastest connections possible on the least congested network possible. The ideal situation would be where both compters have Gigabit LAN cards and are linked by a reversed pair cable - but for most situations I have run across recording software demonstrations, my office 10base100 LAN works well. The other big factors are the application being recorded and the speed of the video card on the source computer. The iVGA data stream is encoded out of data being processed by the computer's video card so both the card's performance and the type of programming generating the graphics come into play.

So how do we put iVGA to use?  Lets’ get cracking.

To begin, both the client computer, and the VT computer will need to be on the same LAN.  Setting up a LAN is a whole stack of tutorials in and of itself, and I won’t cover that here.  But, if you don’t have a LAN, and you have just a single laptop for example that you want to use with the VT, as long as both have an Ethernet port, you can get what is called a “crossover Ethernet cable.”  With a little web searching you can find tutorials on setting up a two-computer LAN with just the crossover cable.  Once you have the two machines networked, you are ready to roll.

First, you need the iVGA software on the client computer.  The iVGA software isn’t included in the VT install disks, because it doesn’t go on the VT, it goes on the client computer, so it’s a separate download available on Newtek’s FTP site, at ftp://ftp.newtek.com/pub/VideoToaster/Downloads/iVGA_Client.zip. 

Start by firing up a web browser on the client computer, and clicking on the link to the software.  Then tell your web browser that you want to save the file.  Your web browser software will ask you were.  Anywhere on your hard drive will work – your my Documents folder is a nice easy to remember place for it.

Then open the folder where it was saved – from the start menu, select “My Computer” then “My Documents” if that is where you saved it.  Double click on the file “iVGA Client.zip.”  Right now all the files for the program are in a Zip compressed archive, but Windows XP understands how to look inside that archive as if it was a regular file directory. 

Inside the Zip archive is a file folder called iVGA Client.  Click once on that to highlight it, then press <ctrl>C to copy it.  Now we need to put it on your hard drive where you can use it.  There are lots of places it can go, but one of the easiest for purposes of this tutorial is the “My Documents folder.”  Open “My Computer” from the Start Menu again, and double click on the “My Documents” folder.  Now hit <ctrl>V, which is paste, and you will paste a copy of the iVGA Cleint folder there.

Now you can close out any windows and programs you aren’t using on the client computer, and open your “My Documents” folder from the Start Menu.  Double Click on the iVGA Client folder, and you will see two .exe files, and a readme.txt file.  If you are the type that likes reading instructions, read them.  If you aren’t no biggie, we’ll walk though it.

Double click on NewTek iVGA.exe.  This will launch the client program.  If you are running Windows XP firewall (it will run by default to protect your computer) you will be presented with a pop-up asking you whether or not you want to let the iVGA client program talk over the network – you definitely do.

Your screen should flash to black for a moment or two, and then return with a small monitor with red green and blue stripes sitting in your system tray (the little bin, usually on the lower right of the screen that shows icons for key background programs like Windows Firewall, Sound Card Volume, Print Spooling, etc.)

Right clicking on the iVGA icon in the system tray will give you its menu options.

Under setup, you can choose to send the primary or secondary display.  A common use for that secondary display is churches who display song lyrics with a program like EasyWorship or Church View.  The controls are on the main display, while the secondary display shows the lyrics.  In that case you’d want the secondary display to be the one iVGA sends.

You can also alternatively have the mouse pointer hidden from the iVGA feed, or have it show.

The Gigabit uncompressed option, increases the quality of the video by sending it uncompressed (otherwise, you may notice at some times there will be some compression artifacts) but you have to have high speed Gigabit Ethernet cards on both the client and the VT for this to work.

The next menu items are magnification.  The default is magnification off.  At this level, the entire screen on the client computer – regardless of its resolution – will be scaled down to NTSC (or PAL if that’s what you’re running) resolution to be fed to the VT Switcher.  That means small type on a computer screen won’t be readable if you’re doing something like, say editing a tutorial DVD on how to use a web page editor.  That’s where magnification comes in.  You can zoom in 150%, 200% or 400%, so that the video feed can make small text very readable.  While you are zoomed in, the magnified area will follow the pointer around the display, keeping it in the center of the feed.  The Zoom settings are also hot-key selectable, by pressing the right hand control button, and 0,1,2 or 3 on the numeric key pad.  I should note that this feature does not work on my Sony Vaio Notebook.  I suspect this has to do with the method the software uses to check for the key press, the Vaio, like many notebooks does not have a separate numeric keypad (the number keys at the top of the QWERTY keyboard are not the same as the number keys on a numeric pad) so for most programs <ctrl>NUM 1 is actually achieved by pressing <ctrl><fn>J, which iVGA doesn’t see. 

Privacy mode allows the user on the client machine to block the signal they are sending.  This is handy during a presentation, if the presenter needs to enter a password, or make sure something he or she is doing isn’t fed out.  When Privacy mode is selected the system tray icon on the client machine shows a gold P, and the feed received by the VT displays a privacy screen with a VT logo, the VT[4] software version number and text which reads “Privacy Mode.”

Media Player is checked by default.  This is a nifty feature.  Normally, Windows Media Player prevents what it is displaying from being captured by screen capture programs, as a part of its digital rights management.  How nice that is that Microsoft assumes that the only people capturing an image from the screen are those who aren’t doing it legally and legitimately.  Anyhow, the Windows Media option overrides this protection allowing a full screen view to be sent to the VT, including what is on Windows Media Player.  One should note, this is not always perfect, as I have been unsuccessful in getting screen captures from DVDs in this method (DVDs for which I did have copyright permission to capture as a part of a review being written) with Windows Media Player not displaying the video on the client display, or iVGA feed.

Now that we know how to deal with the client side of things, what do we do on the VT?
First we need to open the switcher.  I usually run the 16 input switcher skin, so I can use the control panels on the right hand side.  Switching skins is easy, just right click on the Switcher menu, and choose a skin – the default 8 or 16 will work fine.  We’ll also need to run at least one VT-Vision, and or use an external monitor to watch the at least the program out, so we can see the video we are dealing with.

On the right hand side of the Switcher are a number of tabs, for Effects, ProcAmp controls, etc.  The rightmost tab is labeled VGA.  Click that, and we will see the VGA controls.

Under Network Input, we will see “Not Connected” in a pulldown menu.  All we have to do is pull it down, and we will see a listing of every client running iVGA on our LAN – it’s automagic.  The clients are listed by their computer name, so we select the one we want – in this case, my notebook, Max. 

As soon as we select our client, the icon in the client’s system tray will start scrolling colors, to indicate that it is actively feeding. 

Now we need to patch the VGA signal into the switcher.  Right click on the label above an unused input – we’ll use input 16 as an example – and select VGAin, from the Computer Generated Video Sources category.  

Now we punch up, or transition to 16 on our main bus, and viola, we’ve got the screen from the client up on Program.

That’s all there is to it.  We can work with the feed live, or if it's for something to be edited, we can record it with a DDR to import into VTEdit.