Category Archives: ArKaos

Things connected to the company I created : ArKaos

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MediaMaster from the ArKaos VJ DMX perspective…

Every company has its own culture and ArKaos defined itself during his evolution. We had the chance to start early doing real time video software and this gave us the opportunity to have many users. At this early time we also saw the new generation coming and the opportunity to help it by providing the needed tools. Basically computers were allowing to replace more expansive hardware video players and were doing it with so much more flexibility.

The pricing is an important thing. While ArKaos VJ integrate perfectly with DMX it was first created to be synchronized from MIDI and it’s original price of around 300$ was adapted to the music business. When we introduced ArKaos VJ DMX used the advantage of having a large installed user base and so we priced it at around 700$. At first the lighting market was very careful and indeed that price originally was more a problem than an advantage. But now after having sold many DMX licenses we know that we were right.

After 5 years of distributing ArKaos VJ DMX we now see that we enabled something for the lighting industry. If you are a light designer that need to remote control some video content and if you don’t need complex programming like changing simultaneously 10 parameters of a video loops you will feel just right with the Simple Mode interface that was created first by ArKaos. You don’t need an expansive server, bellow 1000 $ you can get a decent software that will replace it. We also wanted to make sure that a laptop can run our software and use the architecture at the full extend, this allowed us to fight against the idea that you need a big physical hardware player to display some video content. This is an important decision when you develop software because it’s always tempting to reduce your target to just one configuration, while most of our competitors decided to do that we always refused to go for this facility, this in the end defines our culture of designing video software.

After 10 years of developing ArKaos VJ (it started in 1996) we had to decide to make a big step forward and redesign the whole application. In 1996 there was no GPU, no multiple cores CPU, no open source toolkits to develop cross platform software faster and easier. And so we started from scratch the development of MediaMaster for Mac and Windows but with full multi core support and with a very flexible GPU interface that will run on laptops and fly on high end graphical cards. The first version 1.x was purely dedicated to fixture control for modern DMX controllers but we knew that in order to replace ArKaos VJ DMX we also needed a simple mode interface that is introduced now in MediaMaster 2.0.

We will now continue expanding MediaMaster by making sure it works the best way under Direct X 11 on Windows Seven and use the latest Quartz Composer effects of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. While doing that we want users that bought ArKaos VJ DMX to keep on track with the latest development we are doing, this is why we offer a way for them to get a MediaMaster Express license at a reduced price. Switching to MediaMaster offers support of multi cores CPU allowing to play more loops in the same time, a flexible library interface to manage your content, frame blending that will allow you to slow down your videos while avoiding a jerky appearance, a whole new range of modern effects and finally a redesigned interface allowing to preview all running layers in the same time.

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ArKaos MediaMaster – what about creating the best video swiss knife for the show business ?

ArKaos MediaMaster is the latest incarnation of now a long list of video software created by ArKaos. All evolutions have always be triggered by request of users, ideas we wanted to experiment, goals we wanted to reach in term of performances.

When we decide a few years ago to rewrite our core engine we wanted to get the best out of current and future computer architecture. So we designed an engine made to allow playing multiple layers of HD video loops and balancing the usage of CPU having multiple cores and GPU allowing very creative layer blending.

This is what we released with MediaMaster 1.0 and evolved to the 1.2 by adding a very cool frame blending and audio support.

While we were focussing on pushing fluidity and making sure the pixel flow was optimal we did not spend too much time working on the front interface. This does not mean we did not care about that but we were just too busy having our hands dirty with pixel processing.

However during the last year we spent a lot of time talking with users, looking how they were working, watching how they used ArKaos VJ DMX. In January this year we finalized a round of meetings and design sessions were we came with the idea of bringing back the simple mode of ArKaos VJ DMX but in a modernized way.

The basic idea is that a typical light designer needs a video swiss knife. Some days you need to just do a little bit of MIDI triggering, other days you may want to use a few DMX sliders to automate a small theater play and once is a while you are on a big tour with some heavy automation done by a big lighting console. You may even have from time to time a small corporate event where video loops can be triggered from your computer keyboard.

This is what we will release with MediaMaster 2.0. MediaMaster will come in 2 versions, the Express that will be something like a 8 blades swiss knife and the Pro that will be more like a 12 blades swiss knife.

The simple mode implementation we added to MediaMaster will be very efficient to use because it will be based on presets. If you are doing LED mapping over your video output you can by example create a preset for the position of your LED wall and have it recalled very easily for many cells. You can also edit this preset and see the modification be applied instantly to all cells using it.

So the advantage of this new simple mode over what we did on the past is that:
– it make use of the media management of MediaMaster
– it benefit from the performance of the new video engine (frame blending, audio…)
– the preset system make it very quick to use
– it allows to mix DMX, MIDI and computer keyboard triggering
– you can break your performance in up to 64 patches of 64 cells
– all information in concentrated into the Media folder (content, patch information, show setup) and so it’s very easy to move your files between computers

Here is a video showing the main interface of MediaMaster express that was demonstrated at Frankfurt Prolight and Show last month. We trigger video loops with a LSC DMX desk and with a small Korg MIDI controller. Since then we made some minor evolution to the interface but it will give you a good idea of what it will looks like:

We are now close to the final release and we expect to start some public beta testing before the end of this month. We will also make public soon the pricing and upgrade policy but we can already announce that all MediaMaster 1.x users will have a free upgrade to MediaMaster Pro 2.x

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Pushing boundaries with the Karlax controller…

NAMM 2010 was the death of VJ as the industry did not have anything new regarding the control and integration of music and video.

It looks like innovation was there at the Frankfort music and sound show, the old continent has something new and very cool regarding control. DA FACT did introduce the Karlax and we added support for it in GrandVJ just in time for the show. And now at ArKaos we have a proposition for artists that would like to explore this with us, read this, watch the video and the details are at the end of this article…

It’s all about maximizing control and using your body to express your ideas. 10 fingers running on a MIDI keyboard can allow triggering many events but as Nintendo did show to the game industry gestures and your body can add a whole new fantastic layer to expression and control.

This is the idea of the Karlax. It’s a MIDI instrument that generate key press and control values via standard pads and sliders on the instrument but it has also gesture support to generate even more MIDI controller.

It’s a delight for GrandVJ because when designing it we made sure that everything can be controlled via MIDI. In this video you see the mixer interface mapped to the various MIDI notes and controllers generated by the Karlax. In this first implementation we did map 5 controllers to the intensity of the first 5 layers of the mixer. You can use 2 keys to select the next and previous layer so you can edit live the state all layers directly from the controller. Other controls can affect loop speed, triggering visuals from the patch, select next previous effects, moving the visual position, changing effect parameters value… the gesture itself is mapped to loop speed.

In this video you see GrandVJ controller in the same time with an audio processing application.

We have received an interesting proposition from DA FACT, we would like to receive submission from GrandVJ users living around Brussels or Paris. DA FACT will provide a controller for one month, we will provide software and support. During that month the artist must create an original piece both audio and video. We will shoot the progress and record the final presentation. This will be used as an example of what can be done today when you use such powerful combination. Send us your proposition via mail at contact at arkaos dot net.

A big thank you to Christophe Martin for making this happen!

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A new way of driving LED devices ?

At ArKaos we are writing software to drive LEDs since many years. We have our standard media server software MediaMaster and our VJ software that is used every day to drive LED walls and LED fixtures. We have also our LED mapper that is a cool way to drive LED fixtures based on DMX or ArtNet.

Still it’s too complicated and/or expensive to use. It’s too complicated because simple LED fixtures do rely on DMX or ArtNet to work, and there are too many magic numbers that can go wrong and prevent the magic pixels to blink. On the other side bigger LED walls have expensive hardware interfaces and make it unpractical financially for too many performers and clubs.

There must be a way to create LED device having an ethernet connection and there should be a way for a LED device to say hello automatically to a Media Server and to describe itself to it. It would be so cool if a LED device could contact MediaMaster and configure itself automatically, it would explain it’s capacities saying “I am an LED device having 48 by 12 pixels and I expect pixels in the formats of 5 bits or red green blue”… Of course to make this economically practical the LED devices should not have a too expensive processor, you don’t want to add a PC behind every light 🙂

That’s the prototype we built lately, it uses an inexpensive open-source electronics prototyping platform called Arduino, here is a video explaining this:

If you want to know more details, here is a start:

A technical introduction to Kling-Net

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Using the right decompression engine with ArKaos GrandVJ and MediaMaster

Animation Facilities

Animation Facilities

One of the thing we did master after more than 10 years of learning the various API that can be used on Mac and Windows to decompress video is that not all facilities are equal.

We believe that you should be able to use almost any kind of medias with the ArKaos software and we will make our best to get the best performances on the platforms we support.

Practically we can open media thought those facilities : QuickTime, FFmpeg, Flash plugin, Quartz Composer and Windows Media.

Currently as december 2009 we don’t give the choice to the use to decide through what facility a media will be decoded, we try to take the best decision automatically based on our experience of doing that since so many years.

Several video codecs such as mpeg 4 can be read by QuickTime, FFmpeg and Windows Media. Based on our experience and tests we prefer to first try to handle those codecs with FFmpeg and we invite our users to trust us in our judgment.

Sadly QuickTime has become today almost obsolete and is just used to decompress the codecs needed by the iPods. Most codecs are not properly multi threaded and this is a big problem for us. With GrandVJ or MediaMaster you can use a multi core machine and make sure that each cores will be used to decompress the video layers you are mixing, this is only true if you are not playing videos that absolutely need the QuickTime support.

Windows Media is a wonderful technology but it’s architecture is completely incompatible with the sophisticated engine we use to do frame blending and frame prediction in the latest version of GrandVJ and MediaMaster.

Flash animations and Quartz Composer are unique in the sense that nothing else than the flash plugin or Quartz composer will handle their files.

So the conclusion of this introduction is that to get the best multi threaded performance and be sure that GrandVJ or MediaMaster can perform frame blending you should make sure that your content is played through FFmpeg. Once you open a media file your content can go through various roads and it’s important to understand that.

ArKaos Animation Processing

ArKaos Animation Processing

On the windows side it’s pretty simple because the software first try to play a file with the FFmpeg facility and then fall back to the other if needed.

On the Mac it’s more complicated because some files that could be played by FFmpeg may be rejected just because they are not saved in the right way. Many QuickTime files are created in a way that make them compatible with Mac OS X but also it’s old ancestor Mac OS 9 and 8 and 7 and … Those files used what is called a resource fork. When Apple introduced the Macintosh they decided that a file would indeed be really 2 files, the classical data file with an optional resource file. Many softwares used that resource files to store additional data. This is the case for many .mov files created many years ago and still today some application that were born under the Mac OS 9 time generate QuickTime .mov files that have a resource fork. This is a problem for us because we can’t handle those file with the FFmpeg facilities and we fall back to QuickTime that has a very bad multi core support for very common codecs such as photo jpeg. A very bad side effect of this resource fork is that most of the time when you copy a movie file that has a resource fork on a Windows or Linux machine it will simply not work because that tiny information in the resource fork is vital to play the content.

Here is a QuickTime file that has a resource fork, it’s opened with a programming utility called Resorcerer:

Slow Rain With Resource

Slow Rain With Resource

And here is the same file that has been flattened:

Slow Rain With Flattened

Slow Rain With Flattened

Hopefully it’s very easy to save a QuickTime file that has a resource fork in a way that will remove that annoying hidden data. The process is called flattening a file. You simply use the QuickTime player and save as your content.

But first here is how you can see what player is used by the ArKaos engine when processing a file, you simply leave your mouse over the cell that has the loop and you see the contextual help popping, here is for the video file with a resource fork that will be played through QuickTime:

GrandVJ playing a file through QuickTime

GrandVJ playing a file through QuickTime

And here is what you see once your video is flattened with the QuickTime player and goes through the FFmpeg path:

GrandVJ playing through FFmpeg

GrandVJ playing through FFmpeg

To flatten the file you simply open it with the QuickTime player, the pro version is not needed, and you save as:

QuickTime Save as

QuickTime Save as

And enter a new name:

QuickTime enter name

QuickTime enter name

This process is very fast and will not re-compress your movie, this is very important to avoid re-compressing when possible.

You will only need to do that if your file was created on a Mac, the free version of the QuickTime player is enough to do this. This manipulation work on all the versions of Mac OS X up to Snow Leopard with the latest new QuickTime player.

During the introduction of our new audio engine based on FFmpeg some users have complained that some old .mov files were not playing correctly audio with the beta version, this should fix this problem. More than that flattening your file will make them cross platform.

This should give some lights on what is happening when you drop a file on GrandVJ or MediaMaster, as you can see a lot of work is being done under the hood.