VIDEO RESOLUTIONS

[HeartBeat]

Hi all,

I've been an avid user of Resolume 2.4 for a few years, until a year ago when my Windows lappy died...I kind of stopped doing gigs around the same time. Switching to mac happily coincided with Avenue's release, and I'd just like to say that the Resolume guys really have nailed it this time! Bravo!

On to the subject in question...Video Resolutions. I'm currently running on a 2.4ghz (alum) iMac, 2Gb RAM and 128mb ATI card at home. My laptop is a brand new Macbook (White) 2.26 ghz, 2Gb RAM and Nvidia geForce 9400M. I'm still yet to gig with it, I will be upgrading the RAM soon. I'm not running any external HDs (damn MacBook has no firewire so I'm stuck there). So as you can see, the issue of what size video to use across my clip library is really important to wring the most performance I can out of what I've got.

So far I'm working in 640x480, which works fine. However I have heard on these forums that resolume processes video in 512 pixel blocks. Can someone confirm if this actually is true for Avenue 3? in which case, please advise on the relevant video sizes.

I would like to output widescreen (16:9) video. However, 640x360 (is this correct?) would seem to be a pitifully small size to output. I would like to output 768x426 but I'm wondering if 640x320 is easier for avenue to process (multiples of 10 and all?). In which case, would 800x450 be better?

Also, would I be better off cropping and exporting all of my videos for widescreen, to avoid scaling issues in avenue, or does this not really matter (regarding performance). Also if I say, go for widescreen PAL, should I export my 640x480 videos to PAL resolution? or will I not see much benefit?

Sorry if I don't make much sense. But before I decide on a resolution to stick with and get into possibly converting a lot of stuff, it would be good to get some advice! Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers
Steve

[bart]

For regular 4:3 aspect ratio projections most people use 640x480 and this sould run just fine on your MacBook. Some are moving to PAL (768x576) but if you want to do this should first try and see if your laptop os powerfull enough to do this.

When you use the Resolume DXV codec then you get the best performance over any other codec.

When you create your footage however we recommend making it at HD 1920x1080 and render smaller resolutions for VJ-ing. This way your source material is in a high enough resolution so if you want to change your VJ-ing resolution in the future you can just re-render from your source material instead of haveing to make it all over again.

[bart]

About 16:9 widescreen VJ-ing. If you use a V4 or V8 mixer then it's probably best to just output 640x480, PAL or 800x600 and mask your footage with black borders to give it the 16:9 look. Most affordable mixers do not support 16:9 input.

[HerrNieDa]

as long as your output device supports 16:9 mode or is native 16:9 like plasmas, the video signal from mixers etc.. get stretched out to widescreen...
my solution is a widescreen composition and normal 4:3 resolution on my output screen...
no problems so far.... on windows...
don't know the behaviour on osx

[willcopps]

Bart- What's the best codec to use for higher resolutions in Resolume? I can only figure out how to do 640x480 when converting to AVI to convert to the DXV codec in Quicktime. Thanks!!!!!!

[bart]

Bart- What's the best codec to use for higher resolutions in Resolume?

DXV! Especially on higher resolutions it's much faster than any other codec.

[HeartBeat]

Thanks for your help Bart. Unfortunately, my new MacBook isn't really up to it, even with 640x480 clips. The performance is not what I'm used to ala Resolume 2.3. But what the hey! Avenue is so powerful!

[HeartBeat]

P.S my 19" iMac does way better