Working at ArKaos
Feb/100
As you may know or not, we currently have an open position for a Graphics Software Engineer at ArKaos. It’s always exciting when our situation and coming projects allow us to grow our team and make some room for new employees in the company.
But as Chief Software Architect behind the ArKaos real time video mixing engine and also CEO and founder of the company, I feel the need to explain today a little more about how we develop software here and more wider, about the company’s philosophy, as this is something that can’t really be expressed in the Job Description.
ArKaos MediaMaster 1.2 beta1 with audio
Jan/101
Here’s the first beta version of MediaMaster 1.2.
It comes with support for audio and a few other new features.. more will come in further betas.
Please test it and report any problems you might encounter.
The download links are at the end of this post.
Update: The beta went fine, thanks for your feedback: we have made available the RC1 on the forums
GrandVJ 1.2b4 with support for audio
Dec/090
We’ve been a bit quiet lately but we’ve been working hard trying to move sound support from the old system (based on QuickTime) to an implementation using FFMPeg. This is because the QT support is getting worse and worse and we think it’s important we move to a more controllable medium.
The Beta 3 released last week on our forums contained the first result of this implementation but wasn’t very smooth or even stable especially with backward/forward playback.
The Beta 4 fixes the backward playback bug and relies on a new FFMPeg build that supports AC3. This means you can now drop VOB’s & MKV and get proper audio running… If the vob is 5.1, we also do stereo mixdown.
Surf to the forum post for more details about this Beta and the download links..
Quartz Composer integration in GrandVJ 1.2
Nov/095
GrandVJ 1.2 now allows to use Quartz Composer .qtz files directly, both as sources and effects. In older versions it was necessary to save them as QuickTime movies with the big drawbacks that it was slow and it did not allow to change compositions variables.
We have optimized the Quartz Composer integration in GrandVJ 1.2 so that the compostions are rendered natively through the fastest available interface.
Finally, when using a composition as an effect the application will scan the published inputs and map them as effect parameters, if the format is compatible with the engine. GrandVJ can automatically map parameters that are float values, indexes, colors and booleans and there’s one visual input of the composition that receive the cell visual.
Now let’s have a quick look at how you can use Quartz compositions with GrandVJ..
GrandVJ and Livid’s Ohm64
Oct/094
Jay from Livid just blogged another video where he’s trying out GrandVJ 1.2 Beta, this time with the gorgeous Ohm64 MIDI controller (you know, the one with the super-nice hand-finished wood body..)
And guess what? Setup was easy as 1,2,3 and it works great, just like with his Block he tested a few days ago.
As soon as we can get our hands on these cool toys we will prepare a nice little mapping template to include with the next release of GrandVJ.
GrandVJ works out of the box with Livid’s Block
Oct/091
The guys from Livid Instruments just blogged about GrandVJ 1.2b1 compatibility with their controllers, they posted a cool demo video to show how easy it is to setup GrandVJ with their Block controller right out of the box.. No need for setup or configuration.
“Now in the latest beta Arkaos GrandVJ add MIDI output and after never using it I was able to make a quick demo to show you how easy it is. They also have OSC support, which is really nice to see. This works the same on the Ohm64 and Block as shown in the video below.” (Read more..)
Using Flash ActionScript 3 in GrandVJ 1.2b1
Oct/093
As you might have seen from the list of new features in GrandVJ 1.2, we now have support for Flash ActionScript 3.
(Update: MediaMaster also supports AS3 as of version 1.2, so this is valid for MediaMaster also).
The issue that prevented previous version to support ActionScript 3 was that Adobe has upgraded their security mechanism preventing global variable declarations to be exposed to external parties (as explained in this great tutorial by Ben Guerrette).
However, in ActionScript 3, you can declare functions to act as external interface, allowing to communicate with the Flash movie through a specified channel.
GrandVJ 1.2b1 supports Flash AS3, Quartz Composer, APC40 and more
Oct/0915
We just released a new beta version of GrandVJ, you can download it from our forums:
http://www.arkaos.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=6828
This version has many new cool things which are detailed in the forum post, here is a recap:
- New ultra smooth engine
- Support for Akai APC40 & Generic midi feedback
(also for Behringer BCR2000/BCF2000, Livid OHM, ..) - Quartz composer player (Mac OS X)
- Support for Flash Actionscript 3
- Cell layer assignment
- Mixer state saving
- Added master blackout button
- New enhanced soft-edging algorithm
- Added vertical/horizontal position presets for TripleHead2Go
- Several Bug fixes.
- New fullscreen option (PC)
We plan to ship the final version at the end of this month so we encourage you to check if this new version is working fine and to report any problems or suggestions by creating a topic in the GrandVJ forum.
Happy testing, we hope you will have as much fun using this version as we had to code it!
Why software genlock at 60 FPS does matter!
Sep/091
MediaMaster 1.1 brings important modifications to our video engine and particularly how the video synchronization and multi threading decoding is processed. It has been optimized to perform what can be called “software genlock” in order to ensure the best possible fluidity on computers equipped with multi core processors.
The genlocking we refer to is the action of locking the frequency of a media to a reference signal or clock (check out the related wikipedia article for a complete explanation).
Let’s examine quickly the process of displaying frames. Roughly, 3 steps must be acheived:
- get video frames from the disk
- upload them to the graphic card
- do the composition / blending of the layers and present them to the display
Now let’s describe how these steps are achieved without genlock and with genlock:
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