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Movies

Onlyview usage

Playing movies is what a media server is for, and it is the most common media type by far. A movie is added to the media list like any other file (drag & drop, the Add Media button, or Add Folder), uploaded to every Media Server at Ctrl-O, and played back from their local disk — so playback performance depends on the servers' disks and GPUs, not on the network.

There is no setup dialog for a movie: everything is read from the file. The media list shows the resolution, file size, container, duration, frame rate, path and bitrate. Playback behaviour (in/out points, loop, freerun, speed, fades, effects) is set on the cue, not on the media — see Media Cues.

Supported containers

mp4, mov, mkv, avi, mxf, webm, wmv, mpv

The container is mostly irrelevant to performance — what matters is the codec inside it. A container can hold several streams: every video, audio and subtitle stream is listed as a submedia and can be used on its own or all at once (see Audio and Subtitles).

Supported codecs

Codec Decoded by Alpha Notes
HAP, HAP Alpha, HAP Q, HAP Q Alpha Dedicated HAP engine HAP Alpha, HAP Q Alpha Stays compressed all the way to the GPU (DXT). Cheapest to decode, largest files.
NotchLC Dedicated NotchLC engine Yes Decompressed by a GPU shader. Good quality/bandwidth compromise for high resolutions.
ProRes (all variants) FFmpeg (CPU) ProRes 4444 Up to 12-bit, 4:2:0 / 4:2:2 / 4:4:4.
h.264 (AVC) GPU or CPU, see below No Long-GOP: smallest files, most decoding work.
h.265 (HEVC) GPU or CPU, see below No Same as h.264, better compression, heavier to decode.
VP8, VP9, AV1 FFmpeg (CPU) No Long-GOP. Supported, but not recommended for show playback.

Anything else is refused at import with a "Video codec not supported" error. In particular, MPEG-2 is no longer supported — older shows using MPEG-2 media must be re-encoded.

Image sequences are handled separately: see below.

Choosing a codec

  • Intermediate codecs (HAP, NotchLC, ProRes) decode frame by frame, with no dependency between frames. They are the right choice for show playback: seeking and scrubbing are instantaneous, several layers can play at once, and they are the only codecs that support backward playback — so ping-pong loop is only available on them (and on image sequences).
  • Long-GOP codecs (h.264, h.265, VP8/9, AV1) need surrounding frames to decode one frame. Files are far smaller, which is why they are so common, but decoding costs much more and seeking is not free.
  • Alpha: use HAP Alpha, HAP Q Alpha, NotchLC or ProRes 4444. h.264/h.265 carry no alpha channel.
  • Above 8 bits: use ProRes (up to 12-bit) or NotchLC. The h.264/h.265 pipeline is 8-bit YUV.

The h.264/h.265 hardware decoder

h.264 and h.265 are the only codecs that can be decoded either on the CPU or by the GPU's dedicated video decoding hardware (NVDEC on NVIDIA cards, Quick Sync on Intel). This hardware is a separate silicon block: it does not compete with rendering for GPU shader time, and it decodes straight into GPU memory, so the frame never travels through system RAM. On heavy h.264/h.265 shows this is typically the difference between playing and dropping frames.

The choice is a show-wide setting, in File → Show options:

h.264/h.265 decoder :  [ CPU | GPU ]     Needs Online (Ctrl-O)

It defaults to CPU, and changing it only takes effect at the next Ctrl-O. It applies to every h.264 and h.265 media in the show — it cannot be set per media.

On Linux (Onlyview Nano), h.264 and h.265 are always hardware-decoded; the option has no effect.

The other codecs ignore this setting entirely: HAP and NotchLC always use their own GPU-assisted engines, and ProRes, VP8, VP9 and AV1 always decode on the CPU.

Limitations of the hardware decoder

Before opening a media, Onlyview asks the GPU whether it can decode it — checking the codec, chroma subsampling, bit depth, and the maximum resolution and macroblock count the card supports. If the answer is no, the media simply does not open and the cue renders nothing. If a cue stays black after switching to GPU, switch the show back to CPU, or re-encode the media.

Other points to keep in mind:

  • The number of concurrent hardware decoding sessions is limited by the GPU model, and 8K or high-frame-rate media can exhaust the decoder well before the GPU runs out of rendering power.
  • With Intel Quick Sync, only h.264 and h.265 are hardware-decoded.
  • The hardware decoder pipeline is 8-bit (NV12). The CPU decoder also converts everything to 8-bit YUV (4:2:0 for h.264, 4:2:2 otherwise). For >8-bit content, use an intermediate codec instead.

Image sequences

An image sequence is a folder of numbered still images played as a movie. Because each frame is a separate file, sequences seek instantly and support ping-pong, at the cost of a large number of files and a high disk bandwidth.

Use the Add Image Sequence button (not Add Media) and select the folder containing the frames. Supported frame formats: tga, bmp, png, jpg, jpeg, tif, tiff.

Onlyview detects the numbering from the file names, so frames must be consistently numbered (frame0000.tga, frame0001.tga, ...) and one folder must hold exactly one sequence.

Colorimetry

The color space is read from the file: media flagged BT.2020 are treated as REC2020, everything else as REC709.