This newsletter is a service of Barco Control Rooms. 17 November 2005
The information provided should be treated as confidential.
Please contact rudolf.winghart@barco.com for remarks and suggestions. page 1 of 2
ProductNews
17 Nov 2005
Apollo release 1.8 is available! The new release features improved
desktop management, enhanced viewer control and supports the most
recent BCD devices and drivers. The software as a major part of the
TransForm A - Suite Edition 5.4 is shipped with every TransForm A
Windows system.
Release note
Apollo – Release 1.8
Summary
A
POLLO Release 1.8 comes with following innovations:
• Desktop management with improved viewer integration
• Remote desktop with content preview and viewer status indication
• FRG Viewer with new picture control options, remote keyboard and mouse support, and
prepared for T
RANSFORM SCN
• Enhanced display quality and update options for ProViewer
• Loop mode for MPEG Viewer, which is now based on Windows Media Player 9
• Improved Remote Pointer with enhanced squid mode options
• Mouse events from viewer windows
• Updated API
• TCP/IP command interface
Desktop management
Creating layouts has become much easier. The Layout Editor now includes all configured
viewer sources in a tree view. Intuitively dragging and dropping the desired viewer source
into a layout automatically creates the shortcut, which still can be edited to set and configure
any viewer parameter if desired.
The A
POLLO Explorer has been enhanced to show a content preview of the windows of the
display wall on the Remote Desktop. This functionality is based on the ProServer, as such
only data content of the display will be previewed.
For windows of the FRG Viewer, where no content preview is possible, predefined bitmaps
indicate if the source is playing, paused, frozen, or stopped. In addition a banner on top of
the window shows the first In Display Caption (IDC) of the assigned source in the viewer,
thus allowing easy identification of the source by its name.
All Viewers
The viewers now also detect mouse events. Using the API, these events allow controlling
A
POLLO based on user clicks on the insertion windows themselves.
Mainly useful for the screen scraping viewers, the time interval for reconnection to the source
in case of a broken connection has become configurable. Up to A
POLLO 1.8 the viewers had a
fixed reconnection timeout of 30 seconds.
This newsletter is a service of Barco Control Rooms. 17 November 2005
The information provided should be treated as confidential.
Please contact rudolf.winghart@barco.com for remarks and suggestions. page 2 of 2
ProductNews
FRG Viewer
The property pages of the FRG Viewer reflect to the new features of the Windows Driver
version 4.0, allowing to control pre-scaling, transparency, noise reduction, de-interlacer
mode, sharpness, pixel format, and frame rate. In addition the FRG Viewer offers the
possibility to control inserted sources remotely with keyboard and mouse, provided these
sources are connected to the network and run either VNC or ProServer.
Additionally, the FRG Viewer now supports the soon-to-be-released T
RANSFORM SCN. This will
allow projects with network only sources, even for legacy computers or PC’s where screen
scraping is not an option.
ProViewer
The property pages of the ProViewer have been reworked and now show a content preview of
the desktop and the scraped region. This makes it much more intuitive to select a region as
the actual content is visible in the property page. The optimal display quality can be selected
from a list of multiple render modes. If a desktop is rather static, manual update mode can be
activated to specify a longer time interval between screen updates to minimize network load.
MPEG Viewer
The MPEG Viewer has been upgraded to Windows Media Player 9. As such it is now possible to
play media files in endless loops or connect to streaming media sources over the network.
Remote Pointer
The squid mode of the Remote Pointer, which allows to seamlessly switch mouse and
keyboard control from and to remote displays has been enhanced by a configurable hover
delay. The hover delay prevents from unintentional loss of control when moving the cursor to
the edges of the screen. Taking control will only take place after a defined period of time.
Next to that, the release of control by moving to the edges of the host desktop can be
selected as well. This way users can control remote windows up to the extreme edges of
displays without the fear to accidentally break or make a connection.
TCP/IP command interface
The TCP/IP command interface enables A
POLLO to receive simple, ASCII based commands
over the network. Syntax and interpretation of these commands are analogous to the serial
command interface.
API
All new functionalities have been integrated into the A
POLLO API. Polling for mouse events that
occurred inside viewer windows, controlling of video and RGB quality in terms of frame rates,
noise reduction, pre-scaling, transparency, sharpness et cetera can be done via the A
POLLO API.
Furthermore some extra calls have been implemented which simplify integration of A
POLLO into
other control room systems, such as an additional command to start applications directly
without the need for shortcuts; and an additional command to activate a window to force the
focus to that window. Also projector status can now be received through the A
POLLO API as well.
The system now includes samples for Java programmers using Eclipse 3.x.
Karel Buijsse
Product Manager
karel.b[email protected]
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