VJ gig problems last night
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 18:28
I had a VJ gig last night and encountered some problems with Avenue 4.1.11 (registered version). I looked for these on the forums but no luck. These all happened separately and after I had shutdown all open applications except for Avenue. In some cases these happened after a full system reset and only starting Avenue. I was using 5 layers all running DXV optimized format vids or HD stills.
System: 2014 MacBook Pro (Yosemite) with 16GB of memory and all SSD, using built-in HDMI out and APC40-mkII controller
1. Using Mask50 blend setting on the top layer with intense white/black lines to create mask over composition, when switching to another clip it would sometimes slow down the video WAY down and kind of chug so while it is easing into the transition. Once it is done transitioning it runs fine again, but given the other crashes I was very nervous during this time and it did look horrible on the main output screen.
2. Twice when using the crossfader and also using dashboard knobs together I encountered an "output freeze" where the output was frozen but I had full OS control, Avenue was not responding to any clicks. I had to force kill Avenue and restart to recover.
3. Some of the my Mask50 clips on my top layer stopped working, no effect when fired and no A/B setting or layer blending issue, it just would not play. After some of the crashes I would play this clip and it would work fine.
4. Both times after restarting the app I had the Cmd-Shift-D issue (now I know how to fix it) but it caused me to have to use the main club projector to show my desktop so I could mouse over and drag the app on the laptop screen. It seemed to prefer whatever my "Display 1" was set to when displaying the Avenue application instead of the laptop screen. It happened twice so I felt really unprofessional after all of this.
Does anyone have any tips for preparing your VJ sets for live performance? I come from an Ableton live performance background so I know there can be a lot to preparing for a set that solves some issues ahead of time. Like rebooting from scratch before you start a long show, turning off virus scans, disabling wifi, etc. Anything else?
Thank you for any advice, have a nice day!
System: 2014 MacBook Pro (Yosemite) with 16GB of memory and all SSD, using built-in HDMI out and APC40-mkII controller
1. Using Mask50 blend setting on the top layer with intense white/black lines to create mask over composition, when switching to another clip it would sometimes slow down the video WAY down and kind of chug so while it is easing into the transition. Once it is done transitioning it runs fine again, but given the other crashes I was very nervous during this time and it did look horrible on the main output screen.
2. Twice when using the crossfader and also using dashboard knobs together I encountered an "output freeze" where the output was frozen but I had full OS control, Avenue was not responding to any clicks. I had to force kill Avenue and restart to recover.
3. Some of the my Mask50 clips on my top layer stopped working, no effect when fired and no A/B setting or layer blending issue, it just would not play. After some of the crashes I would play this clip and it would work fine.
4. Both times after restarting the app I had the Cmd-Shift-D issue (now I know how to fix it) but it caused me to have to use the main club projector to show my desktop so I could mouse over and drag the app on the laptop screen. It seemed to prefer whatever my "Display 1" was set to when displaying the Avenue application instead of the laptop screen. It happened twice so I felt really unprofessional after all of this.
Does anyone have any tips for preparing your VJ sets for live performance? I come from an Ableton live performance background so I know there can be a lot to preparing for a set that solves some issues ahead of time. Like rebooting from scratch before you start a long show, turning off virus scans, disabling wifi, etc. Anything else?
Thank you for any advice, have a nice day!