Resolume Forum

hi

i'm completely new to vj-ing, but i have my first vj gig tomorrow. just a few questions -

- is there an ideal video format to load into resolume? i was thinking of using AVIs, MOVs, and SWFs

- would it be a problem if i load in a 15minute AVI? i'm on a toshiba satellite laptop, 2004 model. it would be loaded only on one layer. the other layers will be SWFs

- is there any way to import/export decks and effects from one laptop to another?

- is there any ideal video resolutions? i'll be outputing to 720x480. but i suppose it depends on how much a laptop can handle. i figure video compression plays on this as well.

hope im not asking too much. once i become a veteran, i'll be more helpful.

cheers

[Edited on 4-5-2006 by konvertore]

[Edited on 4-5-2006 by konvertore]

Hi konvertore,

- is there an ideal video format to load into resolume? i was thinking of using AVIs, MOVs, and SWFs

use Avi's and Swf's, we do support quicktime (mov). But if you go for speed and reliability choose Avi's. Best to load short clips (preferable not clips longer then a few minutes) and use Cinepak or Indeo or MJPEG codecs. Indeo is for best quality, cinepak for best speed en Mpjeg is in between.
There is no problem if you are running a 15 minute clip in one layer. It should work fine.

- is there any way to import/export decks and effects from one laptop to another?
you van import decks only if the files on your other system are exactly at the same location. The decks only store references to files and the clipsettings. They don't include the files themselves.

The ideal resolution now is probably 400x300 scaled to 800x600.
Don't run resolume in the 720x480 resolution, it won't be very fast.

Cheers
Edwin

I have now an Powerbook Pro. And was thinking of some codec and container for both OS'en.
But I noticed that there is some delay with Resolume when accessing an QuickTime container.

When browsing with preview
All the clips in the layers are stopping for an second

When drag-and-drop the clip into the bank
All the clips in the layers are stopping for an second

When targeting the clip into an layer
All the clips in the layers are stopping for an second

Can this problem be fixed?

this is why we do not recommend quicktime, compared to AVI, quicktime just does not run as well.

hehe... ok... then ill have to convert maybe everything to AVI with an codec that both OS-en can handle. Or Convert everything double. An dir AVI and an dir QUICKTIME.

I also use som samples in quicktime.and you say that quick time compared to avi isn`t good so there is any solution for me ??
apologize for such stupid question like this but I`m serious "fresh" in Vj ing

Video codecs (CO-mpressor DEC-ompressor) are widely varied and perform differently on different systems.
Codecs should not be confused with file containers (filetypes like AVI and MOV).
From my experience, the codecs that perform best in Resolume are codecs which have individual frames stored inside them, these are known as intra-frame codecs or i-frame codecs. MJPEG is a popular i-frame codec.
Unfortunately, these codecs either occupy a LOT of storage space (and play poorly from non-solid state hard drives) , or they have poorer quality than I-P-B style codecs.
Again, all of this is independent of the container type (AVI or MOV, etc.)
Resolume allows you to play video forwards and backwards, doing this with I-P-B is mathematically challenging, and therefore requires additional processing, so that's why MPEG-style codecs do not perform as well (or rather, require additional processing).
QuickTime is a proprietary technology produced by Apple. Unfortunately for us, they made this both a codec and a container (MOV), making all of this even more difficult to understand. They also jumbled this up with the native video processing libraries inside the Mac OS, so it's generally difficult to understand QuickTime altogether.
QuickTime is the native codec to Mac OS and video processing on Mac OS is dependent on QuickTime. QuickTime processing on Windows OS requires installation of the QuickTime libraries and some of the codecs are also installed at this time.
The AVI container is cross-platform, but is the native container for the VFW video processing technologies, first developed by Microsoft for Windows 3.1. AVI is NOT a codec.

So, just to summarize - I-Frame is best for Resolume, but requires faster disks (SSD is best), more storage (less efficient compression - large SSD is best , and generally has poorer quality than I-P-B codecs like MPEG-2, MPEG-4, AVCHD, AVC, ProRes, etc.
Resolume will require a faster processor to work efficiently with I-P-B codecs.

My personal preference is to pick codecs that have a lot of I-frames in them, but do not require tons of storage, and are contemporary.Generally, these are the professional MPEG codecs, one step above AVCHD/H.264. So 50-100Mbps codecs. These offer a good tradeoff for performance and storage. I personally dislike MJPEG, unless I am working with an older or slower comuting platform.

DWL

Hi im fairly new to vjing, and ive had problems getting some videos and images to load into resolume. the green bar will appear as if somethig was dropped there but it is blank. can some body tell me the file types or whatever size maybe the files need to be to work?