GrandVJ 1.6 with Syphon support
Sep/110
Here is the first beta release version of GrandVJ 1.6 for you to play with.
The main new feature is Syphon support on Mac. For the rest, we’ve greatly improved the overall stability of the application and crushed a few bugs that made it to the 1.5 release (Read more for details and download links).
GrandVJ 1.5 RC2 with VST plugin (Updated)
Mar/110
Here is the Public Beta Release Candidate version of GrandVJ 1.5. This update will include several exciting new features such as Transitions, Browser Preview and the “ArKaos Connect” VST plugin, which you can immediately see in action in the videos below (then click “read more” for the details).
This Release Candidate version should be the last one before the official release. It includes all the features, graphics and documentation of the official version. All the bugs found in the beta have been fixed, we have also resolved some instability issues that were affecting previous versions of GrandVJ.
ArKaos GrandVJ and Ableton Live:
ArKaos GrandVJ and Steinberg Cubase:
Charlie Mars: France VJ Champion with GrandVJ
Mar/110
Those who read this blog frequently will probably remember Charlie Mars, the French VJ with the colorful hood.. It’s the third time we’re writing about this guy already!
We first spotted a great home demo on Vimeo that he did after using GrandVJ since just one day, then the week after he was already taking GrandVJ live on stage for the ZôL concert at Metamorphoses, a French Electronic music festival.
Well last week we were at the MixMove Expo for DJ & Club Culture in Paris and we met Charlie Mars there, he was participating to the first France VJ & Videodesigner Championship with our GrandVJ software.
Charlie had to compete with eight other French VJ’s and he won the championship thanks to his talent, his very creative content and.. with the help of GrandVJ.
Read below for his impressions and a few pictures (kindly provided by LeCollagiste – Merci Laurent!).
Karlax: the ultimate controller for Digital Arts
Apr/100
If NAMM 2010 had nothing new for the control and integration of music and video it looks like innovation was in Frankfurt, at the MusikMesse. Yes, the old continent brings a new and very innovative controller to the market: the Karlax. And one of you lucky guys will be one of the first to perform with it! (More info at the end of this post).
DA FACT introduced the Karlax at MusikMesse 2010 as the first controller for digital Arts that re-establish the artist’s body at the heart of the performance. With it’s revolutionary ergonomic design, this instrument transmits the artist’s own natural movements wireless (using radio-waves and MIDI trough USB) to a computer, giving musicians and digital Artists freedom on stage.
GrandVJ and Alioscopy 3D screen integration
Mar/102
3D is spectacular, eye catching and can amaze your audience.. But unfortunately it was not really accessible to live VJing.. until now!
Recently we’ve been in contact with Alioscopy, a French company that develops auto-stereoscopic 3D displays that can produce a sensation of depth without needing cumbersome eyewear and they asked us if we could bring live VJing to their 3D screens.
The problem is, even if you are only mixing footage that is compatible with 3D projection you are still missing live visualizers which are, most of the time, a very important part of the mix and which obviously can’t be pre-encoded for 3D projection..
How To: Create audio-reactive effects for GrandVJ with Quartz Composer
Feb/104
In GrandVJ 1.2 we have introduced the support for Quartz Compositions, either as visual or as effect. Note that MediaMaster 1.2 will also support Quartz Compositions, so you can use this with MediaMaster 1.2 too (the beta can be found on our forums)
Quartz Composer is a free graphics and imaging tool on the Mac platform which is available as an optional install that can be found on your Mac OS X DVD since version 10.4.
It allows very easy creation of complex audio-reactive animations or effects which can now be played in GrandVJ (read the previous article about GrandVJ and Quartz Composer). As I’m writing these lines, the last version of Quartz-Composer is 4.0 on Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
In this article we will demonstrate how to quickly create a bass-reactive Zoom/Blur effect like the one you can see below:
Important: This tutorial requires that you have some basic knowledge of Quartz Composer: if you have never used it, you really should first go through the “Getting Started”. You will also find some helpful readings at the Apple Developer Connection web site about Quartz Composer.
To create our effect we will simply edit Quartz-Composer’s default template named “Image Filter” to make it audio reactive. Basically, we will connect bass levels of the computer’s audio input signal to the “Amount” parameter of our Zoom/Blur filter. (Read more below..)
GrandVJ and Livid’s Ohm64.. Even better
Jan/100
Back in October we blogged about the guys from Livid blogging about GrandVJ 1.2 beta natively supporting their Ohm64 controller out of the box through Generic MIDI Feedback. Since then, we have been exchanging ideas with them by e-mail and we even met them at the NAMM a few days ago, and indeed we share the same view about how our products should be: open and expandable.
Meanwhile we have released GrandVJ 1.2 and we took the time to include a special template for the Ohm64 in this release. As we did for the Akai APC40, this new dedicated template allows even more bidirectional communication between both products and takes advantage of all the control and feedback possibilities offered by the device.
It’s just like if your GrandVJ was made for your Ohm64.. and vice-versa :)
And thus, below is a new video from Livid showing their controller in action with GrandVJ:
Using the right decoder for your video content
Dec/090
One thing that appears obvious to us after more than 10 years of working with the various solutions that can be used on Mac and Windows to decompress video is that not all solutions are equal.
We believe that our users should be able to play almost any kind of media with the ArKaos software and at the same time we do everything a team of developer can to get the best performance on the platforms supported.
Practically the ArKaos software can play media files through the following decoders: QuickTime, FFmpeg, the Flash plugin, Quartz Composer and Windows Media Player. Currently (December 2009) we don’t allow the user to decide through which solution a media will be decoded, instead we try to make the best decision based on our many years of experience and tests. In the case where several video codecs (such as Mpeg4) can be played through different decoders like QuickTime, FFmpeg and Windows Media Player, we always prefer, no matter the platform, to first try to handle those codecs with FFmpeg as we have always had the best results with FFmpeg during our tests, and here’s why..
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..
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