garageCube

[JaylikeBird]

This is all a bit reminiscent of a similar discussion on the Bias Peak forum. Anyone know of good crossgrade offers or should I hold out to the bitter end? I'm loving DSP Quattro, by the by.

[david]

Hello Vanakaru,

good example is in this video at 6.00 onwards. Just 3 layers running one with PNG+ 1024x768.

https://vimeo.com/29879872

I needed to drop a clip in the media bin and result is on screen. In the past this never happened with Powerbook G4. Now with good intel mac running just the OS and Modul8 off SSD we get this. I have reduced my shows to bare minimum so I can hardly create what I want - few clips, 3 layers, no intensive effects and I get stutters still.
I think it is very important to find out where the problem is. Is it Modul8, OS X, mac hardware.

When you drop a clip in the media bin, depending on your media settings, the media is preloaded/analyzed. If your disk bandwidth is already used near its maximum (even SSD has a limit), you will get what we see at 6:00 in your vimeo video. The media playback and the media preloading are fighting for disk bandwidth.

What is the size of the clip you dropped in the media bin ? what are your media settings ?

Regards.

[vanakaru]

Hello Vanakaru,


What is the size of the clip you dropped in the media bin ? what are your media settings ?

Regards.

Well the thing is that we ended using very limited amount of media. All clips were few sec long 1024x768 PhotoJPG 85%. My MBP was early 2008 with 512mb Vram. As you see the clips had been playing for some time so they should have been in the RAM already and to load another under 100mb clip from SSD should not be any bandwidth issue here. It has never been a problem to load clips on fly before. Now I am afraid to do it on the live show so I have everything set before. Unless I use other soft than Modul8.
Related to this we have moved away from VJ style work totally. We have all the show planned ahead. If we use Modul8 we have projects made and with two computers and pro switch with fader we just launch new project and fade live if all is working well. But for this kind of style there are better apps available like the ones with timeline.

[cvanhoose]

David...that is BS.......a few second clips.....1024x768? That playback should be flawless. I too no longer use Modul8 for the fact that it has embarrassed me on multi million dollar shows. RESOLUME! The difference is night and day. I have been creating plugins for Resolume and now have LIVE shadow drops..... My use for After effects is diminishing everyday from the capabilities I am receiving with this great software(RESOLUME). Playback is fantastic using 4 layers - 15 columns(scenes) @ 1920x1080, while using a couple handfuls of effects. Plus integration with flash and quartz is a must now. I can not believe all of the hoops I had to jump through to get Quartz and Flash integrated into Modul8. AND I no longer need to run quartz composer in the background to receive the compositions syphon input.
I want to shed a tear over my happiness with my switch.
Hopefully the garage cube team is still pursuing there software. They are toooo TOPSECRET with info for a release for a software that is losing the race.
Screen shots of syphon input from the developers that made it to the mainstream. posted earlier this year.
Madmapper is a great software, and it seems that they have abandoned Modul8 for its development. But who knows.....maybe in another year the team will release there 2 year timely update.
I would ask for a refund on this software, but I think I lost my support after 5 years of use.

[ilan]

@cvanhoose,

David is merely trying to find out more about your requirements in order to better assist you.

It is fine if you have found a better solution, to make your recommendations and voice opinions based on your own experiences. But it is wholly inappropriate in any forum to use such language and treat people disrespectfully.

We are not trying to hide anything or fool anyone. We will not make any announcements or promises until we are absolutely sure that we can fulfill them. This is a lesson we have learned from making that mistake in the past.

A lot of people are finding Modul8 to be the appropriate tool for their needs now, and thankfully so or I would not be writing this message now. We will continue to develop the software.

[cvanhoose]

?! I get a response for using the abbreviation "BS" for a response that was false regarding bandwidth on an HD. I would rather receive a response for my issues that were submitted through support?

[vanakaru]

It is really puzzling - app that used to work great suddenly does not any more what ever I try.
But this is just one nail in Modul8 coffin as we talk about the future. There are many problems discussed on this tread. While dropping frames problems may be my mac's specific ignoring your customers needs is rather general. What about all this talk about MIDI, Syphon, Quartz, Flash for years! with so little improvement.

[The Midi Thief]

We will not make any announcements or promises until we are absolutely sure that we can fulfill them. This is a lesson we have learned from making that mistake in the past.

But this is also a philosophy of the past. It might have worked great 5 years ago but now customers demand more transparency and I recommend Garagecube to adapt to modern methods. Sure we want a stable software but we also want to know if it's worth staying with the software. How about smaller but more frequent releases? Open betas, reports on what is being worked on, etc? I'm not so interested in hard release dates, I just want stuff that should have been there years ago and to know that the software is still alive. VDMX does it, CoGe does it, Millumin does it (ok, were yet to see what happens after the release but so far the transparency has been brilliant). Sure MadMapper is great but it really feels that all energy is going there and then we see a job post that leaves us guessing if there is a third software in the making (which, if it's true, would leave even less development time for Modul8).

I'm one of many who have spent a lot of time developing modules, helping out (and getting help) in the forum and educating others in how to use the software as well as recommending them to buy it. It just makes it sad to see it go down the drains. I still have a heart for the app. It's ease of use is brilliant but it is getting old now.

[gmint]

I have to agree. Just last night I downloaded Resolume and I'm going to start testing it on an install project that I currently have running on Modul8 (Mac Pro, five 1024x768 projectors, a 1080P monitor, and a 720P monitor) which just isn't performing as well as I think the hardware should allow. I'll probably continue to use Modul8 for some things, but I've got to tell you (GarageCUBE), it's not a good thing when your loyal customers start looking elsewhere. Generally speaking, I can understand the not wanting to tip off the competition but come on guys, at this point it's just hurting your loyal customers.

[vanakaru]

Our next show will not be run with Modul8.
And 7 months of this discussion have had very little to say.

[gmint]

I have to agree. Just last night I downloaded Resolume and I'm going to start testing it on an install project that I currently have running on Modul8 (Mac Pro, five 1024x768 projectors, a 1080P monitor, and a 720P monitor) which just isn't performing as well as I think the hardware should allow. I'll probably continue to use Modul8 for some things, but I've got to tell you (GarageCUBE), it's not a good thing when your loyal customers start looking elsewhere. Generally speaking, I can understand the not wanting to tip off the competition but come on guys, at this point it's just hurting your loyal customers.

Well, in all fairness, I thought I should follow up on my (very limited) experience with Resolume. As I said, I downloaded and installed Resolume Arena 4 after getting what I would estimate to be somewhere in the choppy 10-15 FPS range on my installation with M8. On the same hardware, with two outputs and one slice setup (as opposed to 7 outputs and 7 slices in Modul8) in Resolume I got a blazing--wait for it--3.5 FPS. Now, again in all fairness, I was using the exact same source footage as I was in Modul8 (Photo JPEG @ 75%) which is not the preferred DXV codec format for Resolume. So, I figured I'd try that. Transcoded footage to DXV and I did see a performance jump--all the way to 4.2 FPS. Just to be clear, we're talking one layer, one high def 1080P resolution video, no effects, nothing else.

Hardware is a Mac Pro 1,1, (Dual core 3.0 Xenon, Radeon HD5770, NVIDIA GForce 8800GT, and one other card which I can't recall right now) w/ 12 Gigs of RAM running 10.7.4.

Now, in all fairness, I very well could have had something setup incorrectly in Resolume. I know nothing about it and given my initial results, I wasn't much inclined to look too much further. Perhaps it doesn't like my video card setup (I wouldn't consider that to be unlikely given the mix and match configuration I've got going on) but it was an absolute DOG compared to Modul8. So, in short, there may be competitors to Modul8 out there, but as far as my experience goes, it isn't Resolume. Of course, I'd be happy to hear any experiences, but I did feel like I should be fair to the GarageCube guys and at least post my less-than-stellar experience with the competition...

[david]

Hello Gmint,

Hardware is a Mac Pro 1,1, (Dual core 3.0 Xenon, Radeon HD5770, NVIDIA GForce 8800GT, and one other card which I can't recall right now) w/ 12 Gigs of RAM running 10.7.4.

mixing various types of GPU is not recommended (ATI + nVIDIA + ... in your case) as their OpenGL driver does not cooperate very well. This is especially true with latest OSX version when multi-GPU support is getting worse and worse.

So Modul8 and Resolume are not the culprit on this test and 10fps is as unusable as 4.5fps.

Regards.

[gmint]

Hello Gmint,

Hardware is a Mac Pro 1,1, (Dual core 3.0 Xenon, Radeon HD5770, NVIDIA GForce 8800GT, and one other card which I can't recall right now) w/ 12 Gigs of RAM running 10.7.4.

mixing various types of GPU is not recommended (ATI + nVIDIA + ... in your case) as their OpenGL driver does not cooperate very well. This is especially true with latest OSX version when multi-GPU support is getting worse and worse.

So Modul8 and Resolume are not the culprit on this test and 10fps is as unusable as 4.5fps.

Regards.

David, that's good information. I'd kind of suspected as much, but on the upside, it does seem like Modul8 handles it better than Resolume does. After some further tweaking, I was able to get more acceptable frame rates out of Modul8 by changing the format of my composition (I had a very wide composition which I changed to a more rectangular shape) and making sure that I didn't have any overlapping edges in my slices (this seemed to incur quite a performance penalty and it seems like maybe the magnetic edges feature in the Advanced Output setup doesn't always work quite right).

That said, what's your sense of whether I should be able to get in terms of performance if I switch to (likely all ATI Radeon) hardware? I know it's very hard to say because there are so many variables, but it'd be nice to know if I'm just out of my mind (likely ) or not.

[vjspetto]

Guyz,
I want to post some of United VJs experience using Modul8.
We have two Hackintosh machines: i7 QuadCore 3.03hz 24Gb RAM 2 SSD Drives (1 to the system and 1 to the videos), ATI 5870 Eyefinity 6 DP, 2 blackmagics intensity pro, Lion system.
Its very commom to us work with video files that reach 6000, 7000, 8000 pixels horizontally.
Sometimes we used 8 outputs: 6 thru 3heads plus 2 straight from DPs. And it works very well.
Well, we prepare every media, rendering it in the right way: photojpg 30fps or 60fps, depending what we want. We dont be afraid to do that at 85% or 90% quality.
Personally I am really exaggerated: I love to play with 10 opened layers mixing with a Nano Kontrol. And what I could say about performance: its like to cut melted butter. EASY. No stuttering, no dropping, no lag. Stable.
One of this machines was turned on during six months in a museum 24h/7d a week without turn off and didnt crashed at all.
My deep impression is: there's something wrong with original Macs. My experience: if you tweak your PC and make it a Mac Machine you could have impressive perfomance.
And about video output: nowdays we are doing a daily tv show in the most important TV station here in Brazil - the TV Globo. 5760x1080 pixels, 6 projectors, doing a VideoMapped scenario. I think everybody knows that TV asks for broadcast quality ALWAYS. And we are approved. Video output is superb.
Finally, we have this limit: after 8000 pixels there's no machine to play that. Maybe could be a Graphic Card limitation, maybe could be the system. I didnt realized what happen with more than 8k.
Anyway, I still requesting that things that everybody does: timeline, blend, freeframe 1.5, better mask system, quartz input without tricks, machine syncronization, ... I hope M8 v3 do it.

[vanakaru]

My deep impression is: there's something wrong with original Macs.

I have that kind of suspicion too. I mean mac and OS X and Modul8. It started probably when Apple upgraded Quicktime to fix Flash problems. I remember well how after every new update everything was broken and developers worked hard to get their app working again.
I may do a test to run Tiger with old Quicktime and see if my Modul8 problems persist.
Hackintoch is something I have been thinking for some time already. On the other hand I have got too tired to dig into the guts of a computer constantly. But it is food for thought for sure.