VDMX5 may be “perpetually in beta”, but oh, what a beta it is. The latest version includes some major breakthroughs, a new render engine, lots of new features — and significant signs that VDMX may be nearing its milestone non-beta release. And don’t bother mentioning the “beta” status to the many people for whom this insanely rich, Mac-only VJ app is the center of live visual sets. VDMX has been rock solid, and keeps getting better.

VDMX5 public beta 6.9.0 now available [Vidvox User Forums]

New in this release:

• Faster rendering: A new render engine with vastly improved performance - and OpenGL add/over blend modes (”extremely fast,” say Vidvox)
• Smarter sizing: Smart auto-sizing and syncing size
• Stills: Better still image / texture support
• Interactive Web sources: Live use of Flash files and even Web pages (evidently including applets like Processing), with basic interaction
• Slicker effects: Layer-specific effects preset chains, new delay and RGB delay FX (I always enjoy a little RGB delay), and better effects management

More documentation and improvements are coming, as well.

The render engine is clearly the worthy headline here, but I think people will be very, very excited about including Flash and Processing sketches. I have to give that a try. (CDMotion’s own vade hacked his own solution, routing visuals between apps on Leopard — but, of course, better integration would be great.)

It’s also worth noting that this yet again demonstrates that “native” visual support isn’t always better — that is, OpenGL in this case trumped the Mac-only Core Image for blending modes. Obviously, you use whatever works best, and that is at least in some cases the cross-platform API.

As VDMX plows forward, it’s not alone. Just to mention one rival, previous preview.) Resolume is now on Twitter if you want to stalk — erm, follow — the creators.

Apple slipped in some almost silent updates last night to its portable line: MacBooks have been updated to come pre-installed with Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), and sport Intel’s Santa Rosa chipset. This provides frontside bus speeds up to 800Mhz (up from 667Mhz), and includes a new integrated graphics chipset, the Intel GMA X3100 which should offer a speed boost for end users and increased shader support for developers.

Apple also silently updated the MacBook Pro, which now has an optional 2.6Ghz CPU upgrade (up from 2.4Ghz), for a mere $250.

Leopard improves not only OpenGL performance with some advanced backend llvm compiling, optional Quartz GL rendering, but also enhanced OpenGL extension and shader model support on certain cards. According to the Mac OpenGL dev list (which just today posted some new information regarding 10.5 - ironically the OpenGL cababilities matrix does not yet list the GMA X3100), Apple supports Shader Model 4.0 on newer ATI hardware, and possibly on NVIDIA 8-series cards (yet to be confirmed).

Both of these are good news for visualists - better graphics capabilities in 10.5 and updated integrated graphics chipsets will support more advanced visual effects for those who want the slimmer MacBook, and who doesn’t want dual 2.6Ghz of power in the MacBook Pro?

Ed.: My only disappointment with Apple is that there’s not much in the mid-range price-wise, and the Intel chips still lag behind dedicated graphics chips like the NVIDIA GeForce Go (8600 in the case of the MacBook Pro). But the flipside for the bargain-hungry: each time Apple bumps its MBP, you have a shot at getting clearance or refurb versions of the previous model at the sweet spot.

Note that the MacBook doesn’t support the advanced 3D features with its integrated video chip. The X3100 video on the PM965 chipset supports only Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 1.5, which leaves out some important shader features, etc., of use to visualists. So, if you can shell out the cash for the MacBook Pro, it will give you far more advanced 3D features — and by extension, hardware-based video. (On the Windows side, it also means DirectX 10 over DirectX 9, but the important thing is the integrated shader architecture.)

Onyx, the lovely open and extensible Flash-based live visualist tool, now runs on Mac as well as Windows. (Next stop, since it’s built in Flash: Linux.) And the latest build has some great new features:

1. Snap to tempo, tempo-synced filters
2. Build your own TempoFilters
3. Mutable bitmap filters
4. “Mix files” for saving multiple layers and filters
5. MP3 visualizations

Lots of new UI tweaks and keyboard shortcuts, as well, plus a home on Google Code. Add that to great features like the ability to use flickr streams.

Sounds like a must-install, even if as a secondary / backup visual tool.

Download Onyx
Demo Onyx

On the eve of Macworld Expo, Adobe has announced it’s finally restoring feature parity between the Mac and Windows versions of its Production Studio suite. That means Premiere Pro, its video editing app, and Encore DVD, its DVD authoring package, will both be available as part of the Mac suite.

That makes three Intel-native (and Intel-only) Mac releases:

1. Premiere Pro: First Mac release since its completely-rebuilt, Windows-only 2003 upgrade. (see original Adobe announcement)
2. Encore DVD: First time on the Mac since its 2003 introduction.
3. Soundbooth: New product; first major Adobe-developed Mac audio app ever and the first “Macromedia” audio app since SoundEdit 16 sales were discontinued in 2004 (after a long, slow death).

Macworld News: Adobe brings Premiere back to the Mac (Official Adobe announcement due later today)

Intel-only Soundbooth development caused a bit of a stir in the Mac community, but it’s clear that Adobe has decided they can develop these products for two platforms if it means developing for only one processor architecture. After a difficult year of making the Intel transition, in other words, 2007 will be the year Mac users can reap the rewards. I’ll be especially interested to see what video performance is like in the OS X release of Premiere, as the Mac has some very nice optimizations for video.

The response so far from Mac users seems to be very positive; a lot of Mac advocates are (rightfully) seeing this as real momentum — long lost momentum — for the Mac platform. Some will continue to question Adobe’s Mac commitment, but it’s important to note that Adobe didn’t really “drop” Premiere support on Mac. They re-built Premiere almost from scratch in 2003, and decided it didn’t make sense to make that version run on the Mac, partly because Apple made it clear they wanted to own the whole platform. Don’t get me wrong: I love Apple’s pro apps, both on the music and visual side. But I love multiple vendors and competition even more.

Ironically, the biggest challenge facing the Mac release may be that Mac users just aren’t very familiar with the package. I’ll talk this weekend about some of the integration features, but as good as Final Cut Studio is, my own feeling is that Adobe’s suite has both better, more comprehensive integration, and a more complete suite to integrate in the first place. Motion, while a powerful tool, isn’t comparable to After Effects, and Apple has no equivalent of Photoshop or Illustrator.

But whichever suite you choose — or if you use a combination of both — for the first time in a long time, the Mac will have some real competition. And Mac creatives won’t have to go buy a PC just to run the full suite. Windows just won my 2006 platform pick. The Mac may dominate 2007.

Now, about a Mac release of DV Rack to complete the picture. (Hey, at worst you can boot into Windows on Boot Camp.) (Jaymis: Your wish is their command: Previously mentioned ScopeBox was released recently and is the subject of an extensive review and comparison with DV Rack. Of course, Adobe have purchased Serious Magic, so the future may indeed hold a Production Suite bundled tethered shooting tools.)

Adobe will have demos of Premiere next week at Macworld; we’ll be there to cover it.

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?