TeraVision Server or TeraVision box

The sending side is the only side that needs special harware to capture and stream the video. On this page we will describe how to build your own TeraVision server. The receiving end can be a simple PC running Windows or Linux with the TeraVision software installed on it. The only 'special' requirement for the receiver is that it needs a gigabit ethernet adapter to receive the high-bandwidth video streams and a decent graphics card (nVidia GeForce3 or equivalent). The TeraVision box also supports streaming to SAGE (www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/sage) displays. So the receiving side can either run the TeraVision or SAGE software.

The TeraVision box used as a video server is essentially a PC with a high-end capture card and a gigabit ethernet adapter. Currently version 3.1 of the software supports video capture of DVI or VGA video signals at upto 1600x1200 at 20 fps or 1080i HDTV signals at 20 fps using Foresight Imaging's (www.foresightimaging.com) Accustream 170 board. The drivers for this board are currently available for Windows only. We plan to support more capture cards on both Linux and Windows in the future.

Thus in order to build your box, you would need :-

  1. The Accustream 170 from Foresight Imaging ( http://www.foresightimaging.com ) and v2.4 of the IDEA software that comes along - approx $ 2995.
  2. A gigabit ethernet card (copper or optical) with the drivers.
  3. A Single or Dual CPU PC. We recommend either a 2.0 Ghz Opteron or a 3.0 GHz Intel Xeon system with at least 512 MB of RAM. A dual CPU system will perform better in cases where the video streams have to be sent to tiled displays.
  4. TeraVision software (v3.1 or higher). The software can be downloaded from the 'Download' section

Its possible to build one of these boxes in a couple of hours. There is no specific order in which the components should be installed. The TeraVision software has been compiled and tested agaist the v2.4 of the IDEA library from Foresight Imaging. So we do not know the behaviour if you install an earlier or later version of the software.

TV server

Figure 4: Innards of a teravision server

Notes:

  1. During the installation of the IDEA software, you will be prompted to install the Lead Tools and DICOM software. You can skip these steps. These components are not needed by the TeraVision software.
  2. The IDEA package comes with the the Auto-Sync tool to calibrate and test video signals being fed to the capture card. It is highly recommended that you run this software at least once with an active video signal to test the capture card and make sure its working before you try the TeraVision software.
  3. The Auto detection of the video signals in the TeraVision software is not completely bug free. Please try to use the preset calibrated configs in the Accustreams config screen before asking the software to try and calibrate a new signal.
  4. Everytime you start the TeraVision software, it will try and register with a TV station. The TV station is akin to a directory server and if this step fails the software will not work. It is recommended that you start your own TV station by simply doing a

        $> tvStation 8000

    On the command line. The parameter '8000' is the port on which the service is run. Every TeraVision sender or receiver that you run should have the IP of the machine on which the TV Station is running. This can be changed in the configuration screen. Restart the software once after you make the change.