4 ms·

> I don't understand why you're so combative about this. You say "professionals never do this", but lots of people are telling you that sometimes they do. For

> I don't understand why you're so combative about this. You say "professionals never do this", but lots of people are telling you that sometimes they do. For what its worth, from someone who doesn't work in this space, there's something really confusing to me: This thread is about professionals who: 1. Are displaying visuals at venues with million dollar A/V hardware budgets. 2. For which an orange dot (or anything other than pixel-perfect outputs) is a complete showstopper. 3. Who can't afford a $100 dongle mentioned upthread to output pixel-perfect graphics from their Macs. I'm with you right up until point #3, but I'm really struggling with the last bit. $100 doesn't even sound like "prosumer" money to me. If $100 is really a show stopper for your million dollar business, you need to charge more.

dave78 5y ago
The root of the issue is that things were working fine before this change for the particular use case of computers hooked up to A/V equipment. Perhaps a $100 dongle can fix it, but the point is that the $100 device wasn't needed before - people were happy with the way it was (again, for this use case - I see the value in the dot for other use cases obviously). Furthermore, while I'm not an expert on these $100 dongles, my understanding is that they do not present as just another monitor (since that would defeat the purpose). Thus, you cannot just show anything on their outputs that you could otherwise show on a monitor, right? My understanding is the application has to be written specifically to output to the Decklink (but I may very well be wrong on this) - if that's the case then the $100 dongle does not fix every situation here since a lot of things that get presented may not support it.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  >people were happy with the way it was Apparently not because the OS has always been able to do this. They're just not happy because the OS has now chosen something that they disagree with. Ignorance of the limitations is not the same as being "happy with the way it was" even if ignorance is bliss. >written specifically to output to the Decklink With the DeckLink specifically, yes. That's a choice made by Blackmagic, though. There are other I/O devices that let you output any window's content (like OBS does with its virtual cameras).
- labcomputer 5y ago
  > people were happy with the way it was (again, for this use case - I see the value in the dot for other use cases obviously). Sure, but this is a classic case of shifting the externalities of your industry onto the rest of the rest of the public. People who operate coal power plants were happy with generating tons and tons of smoke (but they do see the value of less smoke for the communities around the power plant). You're asking everyone else to accept being a little less secure so that it can be easier for you to make money. > if that's the case then the $100 dongle does not fix every situation here since a lot of things that get presented may not support it. The most annoying part of this entire thread is how the goal posts keep shifting. The use-case that the $100 doesn't fix is one that has all of these constraints: 1. Must use audio input on the same computer that is generating the visuals (so you get an orange dot) 2. Is generating the visuals from software (that can't be modified) that can only draw to plain old monitors 3. Is doing all the above in a professional environment with XX,000 people in attendance, where not looking professional (having an orange dot) is a show-stopper. 4. The venue and/or AV professionals have no facilities to crop / letterbox / pillarbox real-time video streams If a customer hands you a mac with a PowerPoint deck, you break condition #1. If the use-case is an artist who wrote a custom sound->viz app, you break #2. If this is a church group or a VJ in an underground club, you break condition #3. I'm having trouble imagining situation where #3 and #4 are not mutually exclusive. If a customer hands you a laptop at the event with custom audio->viz software that doesn't work with the dongle and this is a professional event with XX,000 attendees and you don't have a way to letterbox, I believe correct answer is "We're the AV team not tech support. Your equipment is creating the orange dot. We're just projecting what you provide". In other words, I'll stipulate that the $100 doesn't cover literally all use-cases, but the cases it doesn't cover are the nichyest of niche cases and ones where the customer has unrealistic expectations. If you're expecting Apple to turn off a feature that is useful (and wanted) by millions of users just to help a number of users who can be counted on one hand... well, those handful of users better be buying a lot of Mac Pros.
  - dkonofalski 5y ago
    Hey. When this is all over, we should get an apartment together.

dave78 5y ago

The root of the issue is that things were working fine before this change for the particular use case of computers hooked up to A/V equipment. Perhaps a $100 dongle can fix it, but the point is that the $100 device wasn't needed before - people were happy with the way it was (again, for this use case - I see the value in the dot for other use cases obviously). Furthermore, while I'm not an expert on these $100 dongles, my understanding is that they do not present as just another monitor (since that would defeat the purpose). Thus, you cannot just show anything on their outputs that you could otherwise show on a monitor, right? My understanding is the application has to be written specifically to output to the Decklink (but I may very well be wrong on this) - if that's the case then the $100 dongle does not fix every situation here since a lot of things that get presented may not support it.

dkonofalski 5y ago
>people were happy with the way it was Apparently not because the OS has always been able to do this. They're just not happy because the OS has now chosen something that they disagree with. Ignorance of the limitations is not the same as being "happy with the way it was" even if ignorance is bliss. >written specifically to output to the Decklink With the DeckLink specifically, yes. That's a choice made by Blackmagic, though. There are other I/O devices that let you output any window's content (like OBS does with its virtual cameras).
labcomputer 5y ago
> people were happy with the way it was (again, for this use case - I see the value in the dot for other use cases obviously). Sure, but this is a classic case of shifting the externalities of your industry onto the rest of the rest of the public. People who operate coal power plants were happy with generating tons and tons of smoke (but they do see the value of less smoke for the communities around the power plant). You're asking everyone else to accept being a little less secure so that it can be easier for you to make money. > if that's the case then the $100 dongle does not fix every situation here since a lot of things that get presented may not support it. The most annoying part of this entire thread is how the goal posts keep shifting. The use-case that the $100 doesn't fix is one that has all of these constraints: 1. Must use audio input on the same computer that is generating the visuals (so you get an orange dot) 2. Is generating the visuals from software (that can't be modified) that can only draw to plain old monitors 3. Is doing all the above in a professional environment with XX,000 people in attendance, where not looking professional (having an orange dot) is a show-stopper. 4. The venue and/or AV professionals have no facilities to crop / letterbox / pillarbox real-time video streams If a customer hands you a mac with a PowerPoint deck, you break condition #1. If the use-case is an artist who wrote a custom sound->viz app, you break #2. If this is a church group or a VJ in an underground club, you break condition #3. I'm having trouble imagining situation where #3 and #4 are not mutually exclusive. If a customer hands you a laptop at the event with custom audio->viz software that doesn't work with the dongle and this is a professional event with XX,000 attendees and you don't have a way to letterbox, I believe correct answer is "We're the AV team not tech support. Your equipment is creating the orange dot. We're just projecting what you provide". In other words, I'll stipulate that the $100 doesn't cover literally all use-cases, but the cases it doesn't cover are the nichyest of niche cases and ones where the customer has unrealistic expectations. If you're expecting Apple to turn off a feature that is useful (and wanted) by millions of users just to help a number of users who can be counted on one hand... well, those handful of users better be buying a lot of Mac Pros.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  Hey. When this is all over, we should get an apartment together.