Resolume Forum

using
os 10.5.6
MacBookPro 5,1
Intel Core 2 Duo
2.4 GHz
2 GB ram
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
resolume 3

I am wondering if anyone is facing similar problems:
I am using Panasonic dvx 100 NTSC connected on the new mac book pro via firewire 800 (4 pin to 9 pin cable)
composition size is 640 x 480.
The video is very laggy, sometimes it freezes for minutes or forever. sometimes only a weird pixelated picture comes up. sometimes it works almost ok with a strong latency (about 1sec)
Somehow the performance seems to be linked to the picture that's coming in, when I move the camera it sometimes starts to go into flow again.
other applications (final cut pro) work fine with the camera, I can record and playback normally, through the firewire.
The same thing happens when I am using a 4 pin to 8 pin cable connected via firewire express card. so it's not the cable or the port.
the firewire ports give me the max speed of 400 mbits or 800 mbits but when the camera is connected it is with 100 mbits. But I think the dvx 100 uses only 100 mbits. Does any know if that's correct?
Could the problem be linked to the use of the stupid mini display port? I have the feeling that it gets stronger, when an external projector is linked through minidisplayport/vga adapter. When I tested the whole thing without hooking up an external display it was relatively fine...
This is scary. I just want to do things that were easy on my 4 year old pc laptop internal intel graphics with resolume 2.41..
Apart from that, mask don't work either. I drag them onto the assigned fields, the green plus appears and then... nothing happens. same picturefiles work fine if I put them in a layer, so it's not the pictures...
It would be cool if anyone could share their experiences on the new mac books, I have the feeling, they are not friends with resolume... nor with vjs in general.

more specifics:
did some more tests...
I downloaded demo versions of vdmx and modul 8, live dv feed works fine with both.
so it is a resolume problem.
i attached the log file.
anyone got any idea?
anyone experiencing the same stuff?
next I will try to go back on the beta, when I have the time...

I am narrowing the problem down.
I am not familiar with the software architecture but is there something like an image cache, where the images that come in are "collected"?
I think that is the problem.
It does the same thing with the build in Isight camera:
When I start up the video source it gives a picture of random images that I played in other programs minutes ago and weird stuff that is nowhere on screen. see here: So the question is: How and where are the images loaded in resolume before they go "on screen"?

Hi, Flow

I'm having the same problem. But in my case the macbook pro built-in camera works fine but the firewire don't.
The same setup works perfectly with Modul8 and vdmx.

1mpar

yeah I think the problem was adressed in the last release, I didn't have the chance to test it yet, but will soon, I hope that it is fixed!
the isight is working fine now in my system as well..
although the latency is still a bit annoying, but I guess that's normal if you mix it in a software...
flow

Hi Flow,

Those are actually three different problems you are experiencing.

The firewire ports give me the max speed of 400 mbits or 800 mbits but when the camera is connected it is with 100 mbits. But I think the dvx 100 uses only 100 mbits. Does any know if that's correct?

The latency is coming from the compression of DV and HDV streams. Although it would be indeed possible to transmit raw uncompressed SD (standard definition) video (but not HD) data over FireWire, it wouldn't fit on tape. So the video is compressed to about 25 Mbit/s, and the same output is sent to tape and FireWire. All this compressing and decompressing takes time hence the latency, and there is no way to get rid of it on DV nor HDV.

Don't worry about the FireWire speeds. FW400 can work on either 100, 200 or 400 Mbit/s, and it chooses the lowest it needs. In this case 100 Mbit/s is more than enough to get the 25 Mbit/s thru.

You can get rid of the latency by using raw capture devices. None of the USB capture devices compress the stream. There are also some FireWire capture devices, which output raw video not DV. If you need better quality, and have appropriate camera for the job, use HDMI or SDI or even HD analog component capture boards on desktop computer.

using
MacBookPro 5,1
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
Could the problem be linked to the use of the stupid mini display port?

Secondly, it appears that Resolume is not very good at dealing with multiple GPUs. It looks like it renders on the GPU, on which the main window is created - in this case where the desktop is rendered. New MacBook Pros have two different GPUs for LCD and external port. Coping data from one GPU to the other causes huge overhead and frame rate drop. Other software like Module8 apparently renders on the GPU, which outputs the final signal, and creates multiple render contexts on multiple GPUs if needed.

The format of the external port, be it DVI, mini-DVI, mini-DisplayPort or mini-something-else, has no effect on the video at all. Only that the mini version of everything is stupid, yes.

And thirdly, on osX the video input part of Resolume is broken. Haven't tested the new 3.0.1, hope it's fixed.

wow! thanks for the indepth explanation!
I am still experiencing the same problems with the dv input in version 3.0.1 I don't know what was fixed because the problem basically stays the same. So if resolume has a problem with the 2 gpu's of the new mac books pro, will this be an issue that will be fixed in a new release or is this unadressable?
might have to think about changing software or computer. what about hooking up dv cameras that have a usb port? I guess that won't make a difference as they are still sending dv compressed video through the usb connection, right?
So is there a light of hope on the horizon to get the live feed working?
Another thing that I am gonna test is: I will connect the analog video (rca) of the camera to a canopus external capture card and then hook it up via firewire.. Maybe that will speed up things a bit? It sounds unlikely but I will try it anyway...
thanks again!

I am still experiencing this problem with the version 3.1.2 of Avenue on Mac OS X.

I posted my problem here (viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4749) so I won't post it again, but I thought I should add to this thread too because this thread describes my problem as well.

please help!