MSAQTPlayer is an opensource, multiple output / fullscreen Quicktime player with fast, greater-than-4096-pixels support.

This app came about through a nessecity to play a 4,800 x 600 Quicktime file across 2 graphics cards outputs, each feeding a triple head to go into 6 projectors, and there wasn't a single application that could do this.

Most video applications which can output across multiple video-outs cannot play files larger than the maximum size of a texture (usually 4096 pixels). And even if the movie resolution fits in a texture, they are very slow because they convert each frame to a texture and upload to the graphics card. The only application I found which could play a large file is Quicktime Pro, but that cannot output across multiple video-outs.

MSAQTPlayer is a native Cocoa app (using QTKit and OSX 10.5). It assumes a simple physical screen layout - all screens are side by side and same height. For more complex screen layouts please get in touch.

Download the application here and the source code here.

Modes

The app has a 'Stretch to fullscreen' mode (toggle with 's' key), which simply stretches the video to cover the entire desktop area. If you have 3 monitors / projectors this will stretch across all 3 monitors / projectors. It doesn't preserve aspect-ratio.

It also has a 'in Front' mode (toggle with the 'f' key). This brings the player window to the front of everything (including the dock and menubar).

For my installation I didn't need the 'stretch' option, just set my two output resolutions to 2400x600 (3 x 800 x 600) giving a combined desktop size of 4800x600 and output straight to all 6 projectors with a 1:1 pixel mapping for best quality. The app was in 'front' mode, to cover the dock and menubar.

Startup settings

There is a 'preferences.plist' in the application bundle (right click on the MSAQTPlayer.app and select 'Show package contents', then navigate to contents >> Resources >> preferences.plist).

Double-clicking on this file should open it up with your default plist editor. If you do not have one installed you can either download one, or edit it with Text Edit - it will be ugly, but will still work.

Under Path, you can enter an absolute or relative (to the MSAQTPlayer.app) path. The default is mymovie.mov. If the movie is not found the app will just quit (see the system console for messages).

Stretch to fullscreen, Start in front, and Autoplay are all pretty self-explanatory. If you have a WYSIWYG plist editor they will appear as checkboxes, otherwise you need to type in true or false underneath them.

Save and close the file, next time the app runs it will use those settings.

Keys

esc          - quit
f            - toggle 'in Front' mode
s            - toggle 'Stretch to fullscreen'
space        - toggle play
j, k, l      - control playback rate: slowdown, backwards, stop, speed up etc.
home, end    - goto beginning / end
left, right  - frame advance back / forward
[ ]          - seek backward / forward 1/10th of the movie
pgup, pgdn   - goto previous / next chapter
m            - toggle Mute
up, down     - change volume