Using Sonar to play video...

I have a situation that I am unable to find a solution for, in either the sonar documentation or by "googling"...
 
I am using Sonar to run "Tracks" for a live band... our set up has front-of-house- audio, a click track, and a midi track. The "click" goes to our drummer to keep the live band in sync with the audio tracks we send to the front-of-house PA... The midi track sends data through a DMXIS box to run our light show in sync with everything.
 
Now, the issue we are having...
 
We are trying to add video to this set up. We DO NOT want to use Sonar to run the videos. We have tried this, and the results are unsatisfactory. Running HD video from Sonar causes the computer to freeze, the software to lock up, and in some cases the computer to crash. This is unacceptable fora live show situation.
 
We know what we want to do, but we cant quite figure out what we need. The solution we are looking for, is to create a midi track, and send that midi data out to another PC, and trigger the launching of video files. For each "song" we launch in Sonar, we want to send a midi command out that will launch a video running in a program on another PC.
 
Can someone please recommend a solution for this? I need specifics... as in, the hardware needed to connect the two PCs, and a software solution for the other program to hold and launch the video files...
 
We have been running our current setup for over 4 years, as a live band, so we have a lot of experience using Sonar to run audio tracks, and trigger midi lights.... now we need a solid robust solution to add HD video to the mix.
 
Regards,
HC

Thanks for the reply Dave...
 
I should have also added... we are trying to run the video up on large 65 inch monitors.... not videos on the PC monitors.... so we need ot send the video output feed into a dedicated HD output that can then be routed to the TVs we are using to display the content...
 
I am not aware of what it means to use an external clock source... but will look in to that.... I should add, that for my day job, I am an electrical engineer doing ASIC/FPGA design.... I say this to point out that I do have a decent understanding of the level of complexity going on here... its just not very clear to me on the point of.... how do I route a midi "note" into another PC to trigger/select a video to play.... with that video being sent out of an HDMI port to a screen...
 
HC

I did a little more investigation.  I think what you actually need is some VJ software.   The trick will be to get a midi message from your Sonar DAW to the other PC running the VJ software.  It might be worth trying to use the VJ software on the same computer, but I don't know if you will have enough horsepower.
 
Check the ableton forums, they might have some hardware suggestions to connect the two PCs.

I don't think a Sonar tech would be able to help you.  This is very much an edge case use of Sonar.
 
But thinking about this more - I would think that a midi interface for the video computer would be able to receive a midi signal from your sonar computer (assuming you have a midi interface on that one.)
 
Any VJ software that is capable of being triggered by a midi controller should work in that set up.

I don't think that Sonar was ever designed to be the heart of a live multi media show. There are  theater and (as said) VJ type software that this is their main purpose. Sonar is a DAW, not live performance oriented. Like you noticed, it crashes when asked to do to much. That's not a risk I would want to take live.
I would think that the software you seeking would possibly be run on a Mac as well. Not that Macs are more stable, but this sort of thing seems to show up in that camp more often.
 
As far as syncing, you can do this with multiple computers using midi syncing which has been around since the 80's.
I'm not up on Video software but I would imagine you will need professional playback ( Sony Vegas?)  to have access to Midi or SMPTE within the video domain. Then you'll have to decide which software is going to be the master clock. Sonar (or?)  or the Video playback. It would also look like each computer will need a good quality audio/Midi interface.

Thanks for all the replies everyone... lots of great information, and all of it is much appreciated...
 
I would like to quickly say that my band has been using this "Sonar based" track system since 2010, with very little issues... when considering issues that can affect a live performance.... broken strings, popped drum heads, wireless dropouts, dead batteries, faulty cables, etc.... Sonar has probably been the least of our issues... I would be glad to give more details about the issues we have encountered, and about what we are specifically using Sonar to do (maybe in another thread) if anyone was interested...
 
So... Using Sonar, to actually run the videos has been very problematic... we do long montages (30+ minutes) which are considered "one song" to Sonar, and the software has a real problem pushing out 30+ minute video data... so the problem we are having can not really be solved by the obvious "conventional" route of having Sonar just push the data out...
 
I am going to look into some of the ideas that have been suggested here... again, thanks for all the suggestions... I will continue to follow this thread in the event there are further suggestions.... and I will also be sure to post here at some point in the future, regarding the actual solution we end up finding to our video issue...
 
HC