Public BETA testing: ArKaos VJ 3.6.5

[matthieu]

Dear users,

We've been working hard on a new version with minor changes in appearance but important inside:

Mac / Windows:
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- The video path is now using YUV when possible. This has the advantage of using less CPU and twice less bandwidth for the video upload to the graphic board.

- Native MPEG 2 and 4 Decoder to support .MPG .MP4 .VOB .TS .M2V .MKV movies. You can now directly copy the VOB files from DVDs to your hard drive and play it.

We now use FFMPEG to decompress MPEG files (2 and 4). When using mpg, vob, ts, mp4 files nothing more needs to be installed on
the computer.

- The QuickTime player has been optimized to use YUV when possible.

Windows:
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- The Direct Show player has been optimized to support multi cores and YUV when possible. A bug that could happen when lot of movies were opened with this player has also been fixed in DirectShow player.

- QuickTime Player 7.3 on windows was crashing with some MOV files loaded into ArKaos.

Mac Only:
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- A crash on Mac Intel when editing position has been corrected.
- Sometimes Core Image effects were loosing their parameters when several kos files were opened in the same time.
- It was not open to select mpg, mpeg ... files in the file browser on Mac Intel.
- When heavily loaded it was possible to have horizontal small distortions lines in acceleration mode.
- Graphic Engine improvement (Open GL optimization)
- A problem has been corrected when using 2 graphic cards in acceleration mode.

DOWNLOAD:
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(PC) ftp://ftp.arkaos.net/pub/ArKaos/ArKaos_ ... _beta4.exe
(MAC) ftp://ftp.arkaos.net/pub/ArKaos/ArKaos_ ... _beta2.dmg

Some personal comments:
On an Intel DualCore 2.4 GHz with 3 GB memory, we could play two 1920x1080 MPEG2 movies with 30 FPS.
On a G5 which is generally very slow, we get a huge performance improvement, either with QuickTime or using DVD VOB files, MP4 and MPEG2

Please give your feedback replying this post !
Thanks and have fun !
Cheers,
The developper team

[FraKtus]

Sorry we first had a problem with the link, fixed now.

[rikhyray]

Works fine, I am not a geek, not much into beta testing anything .
Dragged some mpg2s into my QT only synth play perfectly, around 60% CPU.
I make all my Arkaos clips QT photo jpg, it is mostly recommended not to mix sizes and formats but I would see much use for me with mpg2 . I have archives of entire songs stored in mpg2 format ( for the use with hardware) looks like there is no problem to use those. My testing today didn't show any aberrations, it all work just like with QT only. I will never play more then 1 mpg2 at a time (since they are to serve as backgrounds anyway) great add on.
But where is the Pinifarina look ?

[matthieu]

Photo-JPEG is recommended if you have to play the movie forward and backward or to scratch it.
If not MPEG-2 will give better performances.

[rikhyray]

What do you mean by better performance ? CPU, other factors ?
As I said it worked perfectly, for test purpose I dragged few mpg2, run them simultaneously, experimenting with lumi, chroma etc, which I am not intending to do in real life, it worked just like old version while using QT only.
This new mpg2 option will be great for me from organizational point of view, will keep my QT- no audio and mpg2 as AV .
I dont use Arkaos with audio till today, but it would be interesting to have notebook only option now, instead of mixing with DVD players, external mixer+FX, having AV running mpg2 with audio in the background instead. Is it realistic, without any negative strain on computer ? Would be great place, weight, time saving, no DVD burning, no packs with DVDs just HD with mpg2s.
The other great aspect, when quality, resolutions are important, going directly via VGA, without degradation to s-video.
When can we expect the new version to be ready ?

[matthieu]

What do you mean by better performance ? CPU, other factors ?

Less CPU and memory usage.

I dont use Arkaos with audio till today, but it would be interesting to have notebook only option now

Audio is working with QuickTime files. The sound volume is not already controllable. It is realistic but is not planned in a short delay.

When can we expect the new version to be ready ?

If we don't find any bug, it could be released soon! Actually no bug have ben reported.

[rikhyray]

>Less CPU and memory usage. <
So mpg2 will work better for my purpose- long clips running as always in the backgrounds ?
It wont have negative effect that they have audio ? I remember reading somewhere that it is better to have alternative no audio QT version of clips to be used with Arkaos.
I never really thought till today about using Arkaos for AV but why not ?
Any plans for adding audio part ? Audio control wouldn't be much of issue, can be always done externally.
While it can be done for particular song easily using extracted audio and Arkaos record functionality. the AV with mpg2 option (size and all what you say about mpg2) would be quick and easier to use.
Testing some more, I tried nearly everything till now, and didnt manage any crash, neither noticing any problems

[matthieu]

It wont have negative effect that they have audio ? I remember reading somewhere that it is better to have alternative no audio QT version of clips to be used with Arkaos.

Yes with some versions of QuickTime, there is a delay when triggering movies with audio. But with our internal MPEG codec, no problem !

Any plans for adding audio part ? Audio control wouldn't be much of issue, can be always done externally.

It is planned to do it, but don't expect it soon.

Testing some more, I tried nearly everything till now, and didnt manage any crash, neither noticing any problems

Cool. Thanks for your feedback.

[preeves]

Hi Matthieu,
What I would really like to know is has the Vista issue of running the software as an administrator been fixed for this release?

Also I would really like to see resizable previews of the live video feeds as per:
http://forum.arkaos.net/viewtopic.php?t=5020
I really need this soon as otherwise I will have to buy a seperate monitor solution which will be expensive, cumbersom, and impratical as I have a mix of composite [video] and RGB [datapath] capture feeds.

Thanks,
Paul

[matthieu]

You are right. Your request makes sense. Thanks.

[paul-h]

Wow! I was just wandering what was going on up there since 3.6.1fc2 was forged long time ago. Unfortunately at the moment I've got no time to help you with beta but my soul is with you
Nice to see Arkaos is going ahead! Now it's a mature software but can still grow a little (uh? interface?)

[matthieu]

We are working on the engine and on the interface, but the new interface will come later

[JJJ]

Tested the beta using 3 simultaneous layers of different lengths. Each layer is 1024X768 coded with Indeo 5.1 100% - keyframes every frame. Had audio input generating controllers 7 and 8 for RGB effects and transparency. Also used a midi controller to rapidly change luminance/filter width/band reject on each layer.

Performance advantage for CPU load was about 15% for identical synth used with 3.6.1 FC2.

Using PC / Dual 2.8 / 3.5 Ram / 512mb video.

This is great - during gigs I have to watch my CPU load like a hawk.

Keep up the good work ArKaos team.



jjj

[matthieu]

Performance advantage for CPU load was about 15% for identical synth used with 3.6.1 FC2.

If you play your movies forward only, you can use MPEG-2 files, it's very efficient if you don't need to play backward or to play with movie speed.

[JJJ]

Hi Matthieu and the rest of the gang at Arkaos,

Regarding the event recorder and rendering engine:

With the BETA - whenever I render an event - my result is an inverted mirror image of what I was supposed to get. I was exporting to Windows Media 9 - 30 fps - 1 keyframe each frame - max bit rate - VBR.

Used the same .KOS file and opened up 3.6.1 FC2 and did a succesful render with the exact same parameters.
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On another note, whenever I do an event recording and choose an MP3 from my desktop for audio - many effects misbehave and also many effects that are controlled through controllers 7 and 8 misbehave.

When I do an event recording with the audio supplied by an external program or source - my results are successful with all effects responding in time to the music.

Automation is set to use beat detection from audio input and generate controllers 7 and 8. Event recording results are identical when using 3.6.1 FC2 and 3.6.5 BETA.

I don't mind using an external source for audio - however this leaves the problem of syncing up the audio track at a later stage of post production.

All clips are 1024X768 Indeo 5.1 keyframes every frame.

Using PC/3.5 RAM/ATI 512mb/Dual 2.8 GHZ / KP3 as Midi controller

That is all I can think of that might be relevant.
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Keep up the good work at Arkaos.

If you are interested in seeing how I use Arkaos - visit the attached link.

The file is about 70mb and optimized for play on an IPod.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ezfxnwudif0

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Have a nice day.