After a little random number generation, I have the pleasure of announcing the winners of our 3L Beta Giveaway.

• Leon Grant Bussinger
• Chateau Bezerra
• eri
• Michael Hart
• Nek

Soon you’ll be gaping at this interface in awe, wondering what to do next. So I hope you’ve read the manual!

Those of you who didn’t win, don’t fret! You will soon be receiving an invitation from artificialeyes to join the 3L mailing list, so you’ll be among the first to know when the commercial release happens. Stay tuned for more 3L information as the software nears release, and those lucky Beta winners, please tell us when you have some 3L output available online for others to see!

Thanks to everyone who ran the system spec gauntlet and proudly entered our 3L Beta Giveaway. We’ll draw and announce the winners on Monday when ExiledSurfer and I have finished our respective travel itineraries.

In the meantime, for those who would like to get a head start on the 3L interface, artificialeyes have released the manual for public consumption (Download link: 1.2MB PDF).

When you open that file, you’ll be confronted with the following image.

Sage advice. artificialeyes have made some very interesting interface design choices with this software, and while they’ve packed a huge amount of control and signal flow functionality into a single screen interface, few would accuse it of being intuitive. Even with Michael and Todd showing you through the system it’s still quite confusing, and takes some time for the 3L paradigm to sink in. So for those 5 new beta testers hitting the software on Monday, getting a head start on the manual will have you blasting pixels out smoother and faster.

Good luck! As the commercial release of 3L approaches I’m sure we’ll have more exciting news coming.

Hang tight — we will have that announcement here. It’s Monday in New York for another few hours. -Ed.

It’s been 2 months since artificialeyes announced their new Mac-only visualist tool 3L ("Thrill"). The ae guys have just pushed out a new beta release, updated the 3L manuals, posted a new features page with screenshots, and the word from Michael is that the commercial release will happen as soon as they have the infrastructure in place for selling it.

To further whet your appetite, over 100 free VJ loops created with 3L have been posted to archive.org:

Free VJ LOOPS created with 3L
3L VJ Loops Series 2
Free VJ Loops created with 3L Series 3

… and leading by example, they have also released two content DVDs on VMS. These feature content generated almost entirely in 3L and are designed to be used with the VMS Video Moving Systems.

Hungry? Well, how would you like a main course of "Free 3L Private Beta" to go with that? artificialeyes have provided CDMo with five invitations to give away. The beta group is currently under 50 people, so this isn’t your average web2.0 style "put it out there and call it a beta so we don’t have to make it stable" software release.

Before you go putting up your hand, however, there are some conditions. Most importantly: You’ll need a machine which is capable of running 3L.

2.33GHz Intel based MacBook Pro or Mac Pro running:

• OSX 10.4.1 or later (leopard included)
• Quicktime 7.2 or later
• Minimum screen resolution 1440 x 900 pixels
• 2Gb RAM
• 256Mb VRAM ATI or NVIDIA video card

If you can tick those boxes, then all you need to do is leave a comment on this post (edit: Entries are now closed. Winners will be announced on Monday). Entries will be open for 72 hours, then we will randomly select 5 people to join this exclusive group of visual visionaries beating their graphics chips into submission. Those who have been chosen will receive a beta invitation, and the others will receive an invitation to join the 3L mailing list (opt-in, of course).

If you miss out, don’t fret. The pricing for 3L - €200, €150 for students - is very competitive, and I’m sure that artificialeyes will keep us in the loop on their release progress.

2008 is looking like an extraordinary year for visualists: there’s an explosion of new software tools for live visuals. One of the most eagerly-anticipated is 3L (pronounced “Thrill”), a multi-purpose live visual application for Mac, from the massively-talented artificialeyes trio of Pascal Lesport, Michael Parenti and Todd Thille. (Todd, FYI, you may have to change that last name to 3iL.) We’ll be showing and explaining where 3L fits in, but let me jump into my unedited geeky take on it first.

3L is unique in that it takes a lot of the cool generative effects people are doing in individual patches for Max or Processing, loads them into one massively modular interface, and mixes in the prerequisite amount of pixel processing, audio, and MIDI. It’s like the monster Jitter patch you’ll never have time to finish, all on one screen — one very big screen; the software actually requires 1440×900 resolution to operate. If they had just done that, Thrill might fade into the blur of other modular environments created in recent years, but the software has also been packed with features tested by the Artificial Eyes crew in their gigs — meaning a whole lot of what you’d want to be able to do in a club is there already, including countless features you may not have even thought of yet. Pascal also apparently coded his way around limitations in Jitter.

We got an inside peek at the software in Perth. In fact, we peeked at a little too much — so much, we’re still, erm, editing all the footage we shot. And we might have gotten into that editing in Perth were we not out until the wee hours of the morning VJing with Thrill. Jack and Coke, Western Australian nightclub filled with ridiculously young-looking clubgoers, plus a completely unfamiliar interface that looks like the love child of Max/MSP, a 747, and a spaceship? Hell, yeah. With everything wired for MIDI and sound reactivity, Jaymis and I immediately found ourselves zoning into pulsing abstract patterns, even when we weren’t entirely sure what we were doing.

We’re planning an in-depth test of the new visual vinyl plug-in for Serato’s Scratch LIVE, VIDEO-SL, but in the meantime, one beta tester has already got his hands on it. DJ Steel puts together a pretty clear demonstration of what VIDEO-SL does and what makes it special, particularly in regards to comparing something like Virtual DJ (another DJ product with control vinyl support for video). The demo video isn’t perfect — he calls the product “SLV” instead of its correct name, VIDEO-SL, misses out on effects, and says “H.264 files are less CPU intensive to decode than “ordinary .MP4″ files.” (For the record, that’s basically the same format; MPEG-4 video generally refers to MPEG-4 Part 10, the video compression standard.) But he does give a good overview of some of VIDEO-SL’s capabilities, why the integration with the Rane mixer makes sense, and how this might be used in a “DVJ” (hybrid DJ-VJ) setup.

VIDEO-SL I think is very important, and could yield different VJ styles, for those who like working with vinyl. Stay tuned for our closer look soon. And if you’ve got one on test yourself, let us know your impressions!

Previously:

Serato Video Scratch Software, Now in Beta; Break Out the Turntable!

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the perfect video scratching solution. The Ms. Pinky hardware is fantastic, but the software is long in the tooth, so for anyone not wanting to create their own Max/MSP/Jitter software, it may not be the best choice. Serato, while they’ve lagged seriously in basic features (only recently adding MIDI control, for crying out loud), nonetheless excel at rock-solid vinyl control. Vinyl-controlled digital DJing? Yawn. Vinyl-controlled digital VJing? Now that’s more interesting.

After a long wait, VIDEO-SL, Serato’s video plug-in for its Scratch LIVE software, is here. (Serato Scratch LIVE 1.8 is required; it’s an add-on. Updated: I erroneously said this was part of Scratch LIVE 1.9; not sure where I thought that up, but it’s 1.8!) It’s in beta for download now, with a full release shipping January 2008. (Yes, Serato, we’re clearing our NAMM schedule to talk to you about it.)

Here are the specs from Serato:

• Add video clips to your Scratch LIVE performance
• View loaded clips and output from your computer
• Manipulate playback with control records or CD’s
• Mix Audio and Video with the Rane TTM 57SL mixer
• Use built in transitions and effects

The "built-in transitions and effects", "bonus music videos and loops", and "mixer overlay" are a bit worrying — well, at least we can ignore the last two, but please, Serato, we’re hoping you’ve done some decent effects that don’t shout Cheez-Whiz. (Not that I don’t like spraying artificial cheese product onto food. I am American. Just not in my VJ sets.)

As for system requirements, the good news is this runs on Mac, Windows XP, and Vista, provided you’ve got a recent 2GHz+ processor. (I assume they mean that for simultaneous audio and video.)

The bad news: you need a Rane TTM 57SL mixer. So I’d say this fits into the "niche" category as far as audience. I’m sticking to computers; I can’t even lift turntables. But let’s say I know at least one VJ who could do some beautiful damage with this (and we’ve got one lined up for a CDMo review).

About VIDEO-SL [Serato]

We hope to have that full-blown review soon; stay tuned.

Previously:

New Serato Scratch Live 1.8 Will Scratch Video

Actually, let’s just roll the video again. Mmmm… embedded video. Nope. Still want hands-on time.

We’ve covered Lightroom from early in the beta. Now adobe have put up a product page, thanked the half-million beta testers, and announced that Lightroom won’t be a part of CS3, but will be shipping mid-feb, for an introductory price of US$199 (until May, then $299).

I feel that $200 is quite reasonable for the standalone product. I’ve been loving Lightroom for my image tagging, cropping and simple colour correction needs, and for gifted amateur photographers who want a little more power but don’t have the time or inclination to learn Photoshop it’s absolutely superb. I can definitely see where Photoshop users would want to use it instead of Bridge though, so I’d hope that there will be some of Lightroom’s workflow improvements implemented in Photoshop CS3, or that a bundled version will be available at a later date.

Vista Compatibility: Works, but no CD or DVD burning

In October, we covered evolving support issues for Apple, Boot Camp Beta, and video output from Windows on Apple’s MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops. Boot Camp is still in beta, but it is widely used, and people understandably want to know if they’ll be able to output from Windows to a projector. It opens up possibilities like, for instance, booting your Mac laptop into Windows to run Resolume.

We’ve gotten lots of feedback since then (another reason to subscribe to the CDMotion comments RSS feed), but still no conclusive evidence. Al, for instance, has had trouble with his MacBook Pro:

I just bought a 2.16 MBP 15″ and plugged a walmart 15″ “balance” LCD (1024×768) via the DVI to VGA adapter and here’s what I get:

1) using the ATI driver under bootcamp XP with the monitor plugged in, the computer starts up and mirrors the windows startup screens. Once started up, the Balance LCD goes black and the MBP’s screen goes into extended desktop mode. (no pull-down menus) Can’t configure anything at this point. I can move the cursor toward the external monitor, but it’s black, so I can’t configure anything.

2) At this point, I pull the VGA adapter out of the MBP and its screen resets. I check the display properties and it’s set at 1400 wide or something. (just as under OSX) I try everything, but can’t get the external monitor to light up. The only thing that works is uninstalling the ATI driver where I can run mirrored at 1024×768 on both MBP and external LCD. Video performance is SLOW and MBP looks like crap.

3) I run Parallels too. A bit sluggish performance wise, but I’m able to run mirrored or exteneded desktop to the external LCD. To get it working correctly for me, I must set my internal monitor to 1024×768 stretched.

Not sure where to go from here, but a $399 ACER PC is looking like a better option than trying to run bootcamp beta. Considering windows is $100-200, $399 is a pretty good deal for the OS and a completely different laptop.

Hope they fix this problem soon. I was really hoping the MBP was the be all end all. I was previously using a MacBook and it worked fine with the mini dvi adapter to the same 15″ external LCD monitor.

Bart from the Resolume team, in contrast, says the mini-DVI adapter is working fine on the MacBook Pro. He also notes that DirectX and OpenGL support may soon be coming to Parallels, so this could also be an option.

I’d still be wary of purchasing a Mac laptop with the intention of primarily running Windows, for a whole host of reasons. But for those of us wanting to occasionally boot the Macs into Windows, hopefully we’ll have some more luck soon — and I’m holding out for an updated Boot Camp beta that addresses this issue. If I track down the right people at Apple at Macworld in just over a week, I’ll be sure to let you know what I find!

Anyone know anything about (non-pro) MacBook video out support in Boot Camp? Apple says it doesn’t work, but … maybe they’re wrong?

Adobe Labs keeps pumping out wonderfulness on a weekly basis. The latest treat is called kuler, an online color theme app. You’ve seen plenty of these before if you do any Web work, but this is different. First, the interface is absolutely gorgeous and intuitive; even if you’re as color-clueless as I am, you’ll love exploring different color themes. Second, it’s built entirely in Flash, making it far more dynamic. Third, and most importantly, you can share the color themes you create. Navigate by popularity, rating, or tag, then open a color theme and edit it yourself, or publish your own. When you’ve found one you like, you can export to Adobe CS2 apps (or just make a note of the color values, of course).

Check it out. Flash 9 is required (and if you don’t have it yet, it’s time — it’s out of beta).

kuler [Adobe Labs]

I’m always looking for color inspiration for my visuals and designs, so I’ll be back.