as of late, videos seem to be taking more resources to run, esspecialy MKVs and HD videos. i cant afford to get a new faster computer, so i was hoping there was a way i could use my 3 1.6ghz computers here (all 3 running linux...well the 3rd one isnt right now...but i will be installing it to do so...) to all run the video together and improve the performance.

so far ive only done basic remote desktop stuff with SSH and network file system (NFS) mounting. im looking to some day have more computers and a working cluster (possibly a beowulf) but im just now learning. the one i will be installing will be more closely integrated than the one currently connected (a laptop, 1.6 ghz, think 512 mb ram...not sure of the disk space.)
the second computer is the same make and model as my current one but with less ram (128, opposed to 640) and a smaller HDD (mine has a 40 gig and a 500 gig, and the other will have a single 20 gig) but for clustering that shouldnt matter. nor should the video card.

so what i need to know is a few things:
1: how much connectivity must the two have (can it be sent by just SSH or must some kinda schedueling software be needed) and if so..
2: where can i get a good schedueling agent for clusters.

and any information on clustering would be helpful, im a good reader...

perhaps im not being specific enough? or perhaps this is the wrong forum? it seems like none of my messages are getting replies..

ok, i have a video it is 1024x576 i have 2 computers available right now, and 3 available soon, would i be able to split this into 2 files 512x288 or 3 files 342x192 and have them all render just that part of the screen

so on two computers one will render one half the other the other half.
on 3 computers one will render little over 1/3 another little under a third and the other a third (or so because 1024/3 is a fraction...so one gets the greater the other the lesser or something)
this would take the task from having to render a 1024x576 video to only having to render maybe a 512x288 image which i believe it does quite well.

but i need to know what i would need to accomplish this

not sure how active the project is, but check out xdmx. should be exactly what you're after.

hmm...an interesting project...im not sure how well that would work seeing as im only outputting it to 1 display (my tv through svideo...which works fine)

the thing im trying to do is get the picture to render in parallel (so each node in the cluster processes a picture WxH/c (width x height all over number of clusters) but then outputs to the display a full WxH. since my cpu is too slow to render video very large videos (the size depends on the container, for instance 700x500 i think avi would play fine but as an mkv it would to have a lot of dropped frames and run like crap. mp4s run decently well at higher resolutions but not HD 1020x576...then it drops frames gets AV desyncs (since the desync increases over time i cant just use m and n) all sorts of problems.

i am hoping i can achieve this without editing the source (since my C++ is not very good...) so i was wondering if there are programs that allow for this. also since xine itself is multithreaded, perhaps an improvement could be gained by running those threads over the cluster...is that possible? again...without editing the source...or with small easy to make edits to the source.
the cluster right now is small, but even cutting it in half would make the problems go away...

--edit--
i should also mention i have been googling and man'ing for days...a lot of issues i have managed to work out, found the load balancing task manager with ClusterKnoppix, though id like one i can install in my current system...without the need to format...im still searching for that. lots and lots of searching, im doing this probably mostly as a learning experience for networking (though right now im at a very difficult task of setting up a diskless node because i ran out of HDDs...difficulty just went through the roof...) but thats not the issue.
i just wanted to get across, im dedicated to learning this, so much i have spent every waking hour for the past week on this...starting from knowing next to nothing about linux and absolutely nothing about networking (i still dont know where my dhcp is, nor my dns) so realy any help would be greatly appriciated..