It’s a small release number, but I expect Modul8 users will want to pay attention to this one. New in 2.5.5 are various fixes and improvements, most notably restoring Flash SWF support removed from QuickTime. I hope other VJ apps will be able to do the same.

Also in this update:

• Swatches, color picker for layer colorization
• Transformation knob for layer field of view
• Audio fading with layer opacity (neat idea!)
• Unlimited size for multi-output windows
• Media triggering by name
• Lots of other small fixes and features

Modul8 2.5.5 Feature Details

Read on in the forum, and you can find the fix that allowed GarageCUBE to restore Flash support: "Modul8 is using the Flash plugin of Safari, so you could load any file that loads in Safari. " Now, that sounds to me like even Java/Processing support could happen via the same hack. Any takers?

Let us know how the update works for you, ye Modul8 users.

The typical user likely has no idea that Flash is even supported in QuickTime. But VJ apps like ArKaos VJ and other applications (like Max/MSP/Jitter patches that use this support) rely on QuickTime to support Flash. Unfortunately, as of Leopard — or any Mac updated to QuickTime 7.3.1 — that support is gone, and will most likely never return.

What’s the reason? Security:

Multiple vulnerabilities exist in QuickTime’s Flash media handler, the most serious of which may lead to arbitrary code execution. With this update, the Flash media handler in QuickTime is disabled except for a limited number of existing QuickTime movies that are known to be safe. Credit to Tom Ferris of Adobe Secure Software Engineering Team (ASSET), Mike Price of McAfee Avert Labs, and security researchers Lionel d’Hauenens & Brian Mariani of Syseclabs for reporting this issue.

About the security content of QuickTime 7.3.1 (thanks to n0s10pm for the tip!)

In case this isn’t clear, this impacts only embedded Flash files within QuickTime, not Flash itself. But because some apps use QuickTime as a way of hooking in support for Flash animations, that’s a big deal — at least for someone. Windows users are impacted, too; this covers both platforms, though at least Windows users have the option of using Flash integration features available only on that OS.

Now, admittedly, the small niche pushing the limits of QuickTime and digital visuals is dwarfed by the potentially-enormous crowd who could be impacted by this vulnerability. But there’s clearly a philosophical problem here we’ve seen before: instead of fixing the vulnerability and providing a replacement, the entire idea is axed. Necessary? Perhaps, but I would love to see Adobe address ways of more easily integrating Flash technology with other applications. As the Flash/Flex platform grows, the potential here could be wide enough to justify the effort, especially as applications (not just VJ apps) add rich client features.

And in the meantime, if you use a tool that uses this support, you may want to hunt down an old installer or hold off upgrading. (Reverting to older versions is, unfortunately, really hard — you have to completely uninstall QuickTime, and you’ll only have luck if you’re on Tiger or earlier as far as I know.)

Via comments, Eelke (whose system is shown above) alerts us that previous video output problems running Windows in Boot Camp appear to be solved in Leopard — at least using the MacBook Pro. (Phew — get all that?)

See the ongoing thread on VJforums. Eelke says:

My configuration:
- MacBookPro 2,16, 2GB ram, with ATI X1600
- Upgraded to Leopard (OS X 10.5)
- Used the same Leopard DVD to update all drivers in bootcamp / XP
- Rebooted with DVI>s video dongle plugged-in, s-video out attached to small reference monitor

After the initial booting XP logo which we had all the time, I suddely saw my desktop cloned on the small screen. All I had to do is go to desktop>preferences to extend windows to the secondary monitor, and it worked.
After that I used ATI Catalyst control center to set the screen (now recognized as a TV!) to run in overscan, no problem at all, even during live rendering (with visualjockey).

Houray! Houray!

A sad side-note however is that regular macbooks with Intel videochips and mini-dvi adapters still don’t seem to work properly under XP. Maybe under Vista, who knows?

Okay, anyone tested MacBooks (non-Pro) on Leopard? Is there a way to make this work?

Certainly, booting the Mac side for Quartz Composer, Final Cut, Motion, VDMX, then switching to Windows for Resolume, vvvv, games, etc. has some serious appeal as a visualist dream setup. (Overkill? Sure. But a lot better than juggling machines or being forced into the OS by the hardware.)

Believe it or not, people making art with webcams don’t rate very highly on the priority list for big computer companies. (Who would have thought?) On the PC, at least, there’s a thriving market for webcams for video chat, since so few PCs have built-in cameras. Meanwhile, on the Mac, Apple has absolutely zero interest in you using any webcams other than those built into their machines, or, if you’re lucky, one of the FireWire iSights Apple made before Apple discontinued them. (Given the high failure rate I’ve seen on the iSights, that assumes you’re lucky enough not only to have found one, but to have it still working.) Ditto, naturally, third-party manufacturers, since there’s unlikely to be any significant market for their wares — and they’re busy navigating the morass of driver development complexity on PCs.

Long story short: the Creative Labs Live! Optia I raved about in the fall is one of the few choices you’ve got that doesn’t require drivers. It’s USB video class-compliant, though unlike other USB classes, it’s not entirely clear that that’s all that meaningful.

But, for several glorious months, through last week, I was able to keep my Live Optia working perfectly with Processing (and thus QuickTime for Java) and QuickTime (via tools like Jitter). Until today, that is. Now I’ve got two of them, five Macs to test, and — nada. On 10.4.10 / QT 7.2 and 10.4.8 / QT 7.1.3 and 7.2, I get either a black screen or (in QuickTime video capture) garbled video. It looks like the sequence grabber isn’t properly setting the resolution, so pixels are being dumped arbitrarily from the camera … I suspect the other errors I’m seeing are also related. USB video class support is relatively new; it only hit iChat in 10.4.9 and may have reached the OS at the same time — I would know for sure, except documentation from Apple is scant.

I suspect some misbehaved QuickTime update, though I find it especially odd that it fails on multiple machines (all Intel — iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini) with different versions. I’ve tried reinstalling QT, zapping NVRAM (formerly PRAM), the lot. For once, I can’t blame QuickTime for Java, because everything else is broken, too.

Webcams working some of the time under unpredictable circumstances don’t inspire confidence. Suggestions, anyone? Any idea why this is happening? Anyone got a rock-solid solution for Mac webcams that doesn’t spontaneously cease functioning?

Incidentally, Windows isn’t much better; weird driver bugs there can cause fabulous results like an echo-cancellation driver knocking out USB MIDI devices, driver-related blue screens of death, and other goodies.

Maybe I should just start making my own cameras and writing my own drivers. Yeah, that’s it.

With all the attention on the other parts of Final Cut Studio 2’s fixes, released in an update yesterday, it’s worth noting some major tweaks to Motion. If you’ve been playing with Motion and found some — erm, kinks, as you tend to get in point-oh releases — this is great news. Motion 3 was a huge release, with lots of motion analysis tools and new 3D generators, cameras, and vector paint, so accordingly some of the biggest fixes in the Final Cut Studio update impact Motion.

Normalized flipping - new feature: When working with text on a path, the new Flip Normal shortcut menu option makes it easier to flip based on segments of a curve — i.e., one control point at a time. (Don’t worry, if you have to ask, it’s probably not an issue.)

Tracker size - new feature: I was already pleased with Motion’s tracking options, but the new Tracker Size lets you customize the size of the region you’re manipulating for better results. This is a bit like changing the range of what you’re tracking: you can configure it to track small details or bigger moving features.

Performance workaround for trackers: Motion does work in real-time, but complexity can slow it down — that’s just fundamental to some of what it’s doing, and the fact that it’s an open-ended tool. But this update does address some of the bottlenecks. “Soloing” a tracked object, for instance, can keep cameras in a scene from bogging down the system. That’s a step, but I’d love to see controls over entire compositions as far as what renders and how, so you can manage system performance, which is still an issue even on fast machines.

Optical flow disk management: Optical flow analysis (for smoothing between frames, retiming, and so on) requires rendering hard disk files; now you can manage those files.

Better thin shape performance: I’m still testing this to see how much of a difference this made, but this is promising, as I found shapes a bit slow.

Lots and lots of performance/stability fixes: Thin shapes are improved. Stability of shape and paint strokes and motion tracking behaviors are improved. Situations that could cause the software to stop responding have been fixed: certain tasks related to retimed audio scrubbing, third-party filters, reordering “Point At” behaviors, the Zoom Layer behavior, Directional Blur filter, cloned Clouds, Timing pane tabs, Lens Flare behavior, Curves Steel Menu template, Brush Source well, Mac Pro export, multiple filter dragging, and Frame Blending’s Optical Flow parameter. I’ll add, incidentally, that I used many of these features without incident, so some of the specific conditions are — well, very, very specific.

If anyone has experience testing the update they want to share, please do. Motion gets a lot less attention than its big brother Final Cut Pro, understandably, but it’s a fascinating tool for visualists.

Surprise! The one application with which I’ve had the most success on my Vista turns out to be Max/MSP/Jitter, the niche, Mac-first multimedia application built by a small handful of developers. Without so much as a single update, Jitter is running perfectly on Vista, running on an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 card on an Alienware m5550. (Next stop: upgrading my home-built Shuttle XPC SFF machine.)

The good news about this, especially in light of the generally mixed results in gaming, is that Jitter is a deeply OpenGL-dependent application. And for Windows users who have tired of glitches and stutters when showing OpenGL in a window on XP, you’ll love Vista. Thanks to GPU-bound graphics, windows animate smoothly, as on OS X. All I do notice is a slight delay when switching to full-screen, but these not-yet-released NVIDIA mobile drivers have been exhibiting little glitches each time the UAC (User Account Control) dialog appears. Otherwise, I’ve had good experience with this, and tellingly switching back from full-screen mode to pointless GPU eye candy like Flip 3D doesn’t cause a single problem. Vista could wind up being a great OS for running your home-built Max patches after all.

One major caveat that should keep Jitter users from rushing to upgrade, though: PACE copy protection isn’t officially supported yet, meaning you may have issues authorizing your copy of Max on Vista. I expect an update will come soon based on what I’ve heard from Cycling ‘74 and PACE. So, stay tuned; I’ll be sure to post more detailed Jitter results and information on the update once it becomes available.

Anyone else using Vista aside from me? More reports? I’m too scared to try Processing + Java; different Processing versions combined with different Java runtimes have been enough of a moving target as-is.

Vista for visualists is a problematic proposition. Typically, musicians have the toughest upgrade curve with any OS, but there’s a major incentive for musicians with Vista, as reported on CDM: the promise of significantly improved audio performance and stability. Right now, there isn’t enough software or hardware support for most musicians, though I expect that picture will start to change even within the next few weeks.

For visualists, though, we have two problems:

1. The only really major improvement (beyond what’s in Vista itself) is the new 3D platform, DirectX 10. That could be huge for advanced visualists willing to be platform-specific — but with the development tools only just now available and a lot of Microsoft’s own development initiatives (like XNA) still tied to DirectX 9, even programmers are unlikely to do anything with DX10 in the near future, let alone end users. (Cheap cards will be out soon, but more on that in a separate story.

2. So far, the big hole in Vista is graphics support. So, not only is the step forward (DX10) not quite ready for most users, in the meantime OpenGL and even DirectX 9 will see a big step backward for the short term.