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Its actually really unfortunate this is the only way go to get power/ adaptability. I had a hackintosh for a couple years and while it ran great I was always n

Its actually really unfortunate this is the only way go to get power/ adaptability. I had a hackintosh for a couple years and while it ran great I was always nervous the next OS upgrade would render it useless. I got a Mac Book Pro and retired it (Linux and sold to a friend). Recently I went to a projection mapping seminar (its kinda like DJing but using video loops), everyone who attended had older macbook Pros (with hdmi to power the projectors). The production machines they use to do the projections live are all microsoft windows machines, as its the only way to get enough video horsepower to run the multiple displays. The artists running the seminar said they couldn't recommend macs anymore, excepting for some backend asset creation. Since most software is mac/windows right now its not a bid deal, I worry if the mac demand goes south, the software won't be ported. I'm hoping linux starts being more viable solution for content creation. Seems like its heading that way.

sdwisely 10y ago
This is exactly where I'm stuck right now. Using a hackintosh for mapping/vj'ing as the off the shelf hardware isn't at all practical and I want to keep using OSX only software. Honestly it's a nightmare. I want as many video outputs as possible, enough power to run multiple layers of video, be running game engines at the same time, transcode a video in a pinch and more. Switching to windows is probably the only option going forward.
glenneroo 10y ago
I've been VJing professionally for ~12 years with some friends and we have always exclusively used Windows machines because our internal testing showed that Macs were rarely enough to handle high-quality multi-screen projections properly. For the same price as a top of the line Mac, we were able to build a PC with roughly 2x the specs (and always a better GPU). We did however rely on Macs for QT encoding (usually PhotoJPG for best quality/size ratio), because even our fastest Windows boxes couldn't keep up with our slowest Mac (our conspiracy theory is that Apple intentionally crippled QT encoding on Windows). Over the last couple years we have switched purely to content production so we let another external company do the projections + mapping and we don't care what they use because it's doing mostly just video playback.
- pault 10y ago
  Do you have a writeup on your content production pipeline? I'm terribly interested. I used to use VVVV for sound-reactive video that I would project at parties and small DJ shows around town, but then I spent 8 years living out of a suitcase and couldn't keep up with the hardware demands. Edit: low res demo from 2008: https://vimeo.com/2577056 https://vimeo.com/2577056
  - glenneroo 10y ago
    We started out in a similar way, doing parties and shows, barely surviving. Then HD came along when all our hardware was PAL (720x576) i.e. useless. We couldn't afford to buy replacements for our MX50 (never mind that such a beast didn't and probably still doesn't exist), EDIROL V-4s, reliable DVD-players, projectors, multi-channel MPEG decoder cards, etc. We have several rooms full of PAL hardware we will probably never touch again, and which nobody would probably buy except for nostalgic purposes. I continually experimented with automating sound-reactive video, but it was unpredictable and difficult to get a pleasing, "fluid" result which didn't cause seizures, so we always did it by hand using hardware such as EDIROL V-4 or the MX50. It was also a lot more fun to punch buttons and slam sliders to the beat of the music ;) Do you mean current or previous pipeline? Unfortunately most projects are somewhat unique and require at least some variation, if not a complete overhaul in workflow, depending on what the customer wants. I never got a chance to use VVVV in a commercial capacity, although there is an upcoming project where we are seriously considering it. Generally we used custom in-house software (e.g. for 360 projections using 2x 4-channel MPEG-2 decoder cards) or VJ software such as ArKaos and Resolume. Like I said before, these days it's purely content production, so the pipeline is relatively similar to a game studio. We still encode everything into various QT formats and we rent hardware for shows because as you said, it's hard to keep up with ever-changing hardware demands. If you are interested in our projects, check out http://www.motionlab.at http://www.motionlab.at (go the old site for now, the new site is WIP).
    - sdwisely 10y ago
      Some of that gear may be worth more than you might expect. The V4s still sell quite well for some reason, some of the other analog gear is still in demand for circuit bending. If the projectors are decent they can still hire pretty well too.

sdwisely 10y ago

This is exactly where I'm stuck right now. Using a hackintosh for mapping/vj'ing as the off the shelf hardware isn't at all practical and I want to keep using OSX only software. Honestly it's a nightmare. I want as many video outputs as possible, enough power to run multiple layers of video, be running game engines at the same time, transcode a video in a pinch and more. Switching to windows is probably the only option going forward.

glenneroo 10y ago

I've been VJing professionally for ~12 years with some friends and we have always exclusively used Windows machines because our internal testing showed that Macs were rarely enough to handle high-quality multi-screen projections properly. For the same price as a top of the line Mac, we were able to build a PC with roughly 2x the specs (and always a better GPU). We did however rely on Macs for QT encoding (usually PhotoJPG for best quality/size ratio), because even our fastest Windows boxes couldn't keep up with our slowest Mac (our conspiracy theory is that Apple intentionally crippled QT encoding on Windows). Over the last couple years we have switched purely to content production so we let another external company do the projections + mapping and we don't care what they use because it's doing mostly just video playback.

pault 10y ago
Do you have a writeup on your content production pipeline? I'm terribly interested. I used to use VVVV for sound-reactive video that I would project at parties and small DJ shows around town, but then I spent 8 years living out of a suitcase and couldn't keep up with the hardware demands. Edit: low res demo from 2008: https://vimeo.com/2577056 https://vimeo.com/2577056
- glenneroo 10y ago
  We started out in a similar way, doing parties and shows, barely surviving. Then HD came along when all our hardware was PAL (720x576) i.e. useless. We couldn't afford to buy replacements for our MX50 (never mind that such a beast didn't and probably still doesn't exist), EDIROL V-4s, reliable DVD-players, projectors, multi-channel MPEG decoder cards, etc. We have several rooms full of PAL hardware we will probably never touch again, and which nobody would probably buy except for nostalgic purposes. I continually experimented with automating sound-reactive video, but it was unpredictable and difficult to get a pleasing, "fluid" result which didn't cause seizures, so we always did it by hand using hardware such as EDIROL V-4 or the MX50. It was also a lot more fun to punch buttons and slam sliders to the beat of the music ;) Do you mean current or previous pipeline? Unfortunately most projects are somewhat unique and require at least some variation, if not a complete overhaul in workflow, depending on what the customer wants. I never got a chance to use VVVV in a commercial capacity, although there is an upcoming project where we are seriously considering it. Generally we used custom in-house software (e.g. for 360 projections using 2x 4-channel MPEG-2 decoder cards) or VJ software such as ArKaos and Resolume. Like I said before, these days it's purely content production, so the pipeline is relatively similar to a game studio. We still encode everything into various QT formats and we rent hardware for shows because as you said, it's hard to keep up with ever-changing hardware demands. If you are interested in our projects, check out http://www.motionlab.at http://www.motionlab.at (go the old site for now, the new site is WIP).
  - sdwisely 10y ago
    Some of that gear may be worth more than you might expect. The V4s still sell quite well for some reason, some of the other analog gear is still in demand for circuit bending. If the projectors are decent they can still hire pretty well too.