hi there

i am currently working on a project involving a usb (logitech quicktime pro for notebooks) webcam, 2 movie files and one static background image. essentially the webcam is used as a mask for the 2 movie files, which in turn are overlayed (faded in and out) over the background image. all this actually functions, but performance is abysmal when using 640x480 compressed video files (tested with various codecs), and only gets a little better when going to 320x240/15fps for all source material and webcam.

i have now tried this on two computers, one a vintage Athlon 1.3ghz system with an 32MB TNT2, and the other being a contemporary Athlon64 with a phat GFX card of some kind, and the newer machine only is a little faster, both have no problem playing the files outside of PD/GEM.

Finally, my question - what kind of maximum performance can i expect out of GEM, i.e. how many movies at 640x480 @ 30fps can it play at once, and what would be a good codec to achieve all this in the broader communities opinion? also, does anyone have any experience with using logitech products in log-term applications (~ 3 months running time) - i seem to experience unpredictable, flaky behaviour of the cam, such as flickering, reverse images for the mask and actual live image, both off the same gemhead...? any ideas, suggestions, flames, jokes on my expense, desperatly needed!

thanks
matt in vancouver