Mosaic Designer and 60 Hz Output Refresh Rates

Enabling a 60 Hz refresh rate

Mosaic 2.8.0 introduces support for a refresh rate of 60 Hz.

As of release, this will be considered a beta feature.

This feature must be enabled in two places.
First, in the Project Features tab.

And subsequently in the network tab in the properties pane.

Why 60 Hz?

Recently KiNET has added support for a 60 Hz output refresh rate. This means output content will refresh at 60 times per second as opposed to the standard 44 Hz or 44 times per second. This becomes particularly important when recording video displays as cameras typically refresh at 30, 60 or 120 frames a second. Previously when recording content output at a different refresh rate to that of the camera, there would be noticeable synchronization issues. Outputting from the Mosaic controller at 60 Hz is intended to resolve this.

Why is this feature in beta?

Outputting at 60 Hz requires a significant amount of processing power. While this feature has been tested, there is potential that maintaining a 60 Hz output rate may adversely affect fully loaded controllers. This is primarily a concern with the MSC4 or Atlas Pro 3000 controllers when they are fully patched. By releasing this feature in beta, we can better understand these sorts of impacts in real world applications.

Does outputting at 60 Hz change anything else?

Changing the output rate to 60 Hz will cause the controller to up its tick rate to 60 Hz.

Is there anything that won't output at 60fps?

Matrices on the MSC and MSC X hardware will only output at 30fps. While the output is still refreshing at 60 Hz, the display will only change once every 2 cycles. This is very similar to how the Mosaic hardware has handled this in the past at a 44 Hz refresh rate. Previously matrices were capped at 30 Hz but would output at 44 Hz by showing 1 frame per two cycles.

What are the media specifications for using Media?