New QuickTime releases are usually accompanied by a rash of bug reports — not necessarily exclusively the fault of Apple’s; maybe it simply reflects the widespread use of the QuickTime APIs and the general fragility of digital video. We’ve heard surprisingly little, though, from the visual community about QuickTime 7.5.

Macfixit does report some major issues with audio performance:

“The problems brought about by QuickTime 7.5 have proven so dire — an issue with choppy or stuttering playback is most common — for some users that downgrading to a prior version of the multimedia architecture has become an attractive option. Fortunately, downgrading to QuickTime 7.4 is a relatively easy process and is proving successful at resolving many previously document. “

QuickTime 7.5 (#4): downgrading to an older version; No sound — fix; more [MacFixIt]

Sounds delightful … to which a chorus of VJs respond, wait, what? You listen to the audio on video clips?

Despite the gloom and doom, in this case it’s unclear whether these problems are largely on PowerPC, how widespread they are, and what other codecs or third-party software may be involved in the issues. So no reason to panic here. What is useful about the MacFixIt article is that it includes a reminder that Pacificist can be used on Mac to downgrade QuickTime. (Windows users can just reinstall.) I think if you’re going to use computers at all, you have to be prepared for a little of this sort of dirty work — and, naturally, not touching anything leading up to a gig. As an aside, I caught a lot of flak for pointing out audio issues on OS X Leopard recently on Create Digital Music. That case was very different, though, in that we had isolated the source of the issue, it was relatively widespread, and caused reproducible problems with hardware and software from a variety of variables, many of whom reported the issues through their support channels. The bottom line for me, though, is that none of us wants to be the person with a problem, whether we’re alone or not — and sometimes collecting anecdotal experience is the only way to find out what’s up.

Let’s get the anecdotal feedback going:

So far, I’m having good luck on both Mac and Windows (XP and Vista). If you gig regularly and have developed a healthy and understandable fear of updating too early, you may have steered clear of this so far, but we’d love to hear from you. How is QT 7.5 working for you? Be sure to be specific about OS version, apps you’re using, the exact circumstances of any problems, and whether you’re on an Intel or PowerPC processor on the MAc side.

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.)

In my computing life I’m very much into segregation. Until recently I’ve worked exclusively with PCs and have always had 3-4 machines around, each installed with a certain set of tools to do a specific job:

• Workstation with After Effects, Photoshop, Web Development tools, Content stuff…
• Laptop with Mail, IM and other communication/organization stuff.
• Server with bittorrent downloading, media serving and distributed rendering.
• Gig machine with just Resolume and required codecs.

Since this whole tour thing started I’ve had to consolidate everything onto my MacBook. All of the usual amail, browsing and IM duties remain, but are now encroached by editing in iMovie, flyer and poster design in Photoshop/InDesign, web administration and coding in Coda, Tour and Gig organization with NeoOffice, photo organization in Lightroom… My poor MacBook has been flogged half to death, with constant slowdown and frequent freezes and crashes. Quicksilver especially - my Mac raison d’être - has been having huge problems.

I was very close to just palming my trusty lil BlackBook off to the GirlThing and upgrading to a MacBook Pro. I was talking to Peter about which MBP I should buy when he suggested that perhaps a little RAM upgrade may be in order. Best. Advice. Evar.

Local MacStore price to upgrade to 2GB RAM: AU$400. Price of RAM from local PC bits store: AU$106. The installation was a little nerve-wracking, requiring considerably more force than I’m used to applying to RAM installation, but the machine booted first time and everything seems happy now. Less MacBook slowdowns = more time to play with my new HVR-V1P. 200FPS slow motion. Can I get a hell yeah?

Suddenly, that dual-booting Mac isn’t looking like such a value:

Boot Camp Beta 1.1: VGA adapters, Mini-DVI adapters are not supported

Reader Robotkid notes S-Video won’t work, either.

So, in review, if you want to boot your new MacBook into Windows XP, all will be fine — unless you happen to need to connect video output via VGA or S-Video. That means you’ll need to either use all-DVI monitors and projectors, or … well, stay away from Boot Camp, basically. This sounds particularly nasty on the MacBook, which doesn’t have a dedicated output port. In fairness, Boot Camp is still beta, but if dual-booting Windows is a big factor in your purchase decision, you might want to investigate seriously.

What I find puzzling is, why would this be an issue at all? Is there something really strange about Apple’s video drivers in Windows XP? Is there something weird in Windows to begin with? If anyone has a machine with Boot Camp, please, let us know if you can test this and see what’s going on. (And does the same thing happen with Vista? Linux? Parallels Desktop, when you’re running Windows apps inside Mac OS X? I would think not the latter, but no idea on the other cases.) Thanks to Robotkid, and to Chris Breen for sorting me out.

For more information, Bart from Resolume points us to this vjcentral thread, further evidence that I really should have been paying closer attention to this issue:

macbook pro: s-video out under xp?

Maybe mankind was never intended to run both Mac and Windows. Perhaps I should rid my mind of such unnatural desires. Anyone with a clue on what’s going on, please chime in. (I mean, I know it doesn’t work, but why not, I wonder?)

Updated: Quick clarification. Apparently the DVI-to-VGA adapter does work on the MacBook Pro. (Keep in mind, the MacBook lacks even a dedicated DVI; you have to use a dongle.) So the current score is, unless I’m mistaken:

MacBook VGA: No.
MacBook S-Video: No.
MacBook Pro VGA: Yes.
MacBook Pro S-Video: No.

Still disturbing. Given that Apple is aware of the issue, it seems a fix is likely; it’s just a matter of how long you’re willing to wait and what the technical obstacles are to making it work.

As someone relatively new to Processing, I’ve experienced equal parts excitement and frustration. 0115 is a reasonably mature build, and I’m glad I didn’t try this earlier, but more advanced work is likely to get easier as the software develops, improves, and squashes bugs.

Before I dive into the full, technical explanation for those of you using Processing, here’s the Cliff Notes version:

1. Processing is great, but think of it as a sketchpad — and “beta” is accurate; prepare to hit up against some limitations that could become a time suck if your project is dependent on them.
2. OpenGL rendering works, but has major limitations when mixing pixel processing. Then again, you’ll want to use Processing’s other built-in rendering engines so you can share your work on the Web, so try those, and consider waiting on your OpenGL sketches until the bugs are fixed.
3. Video capture on Windows (and Mac, to a lesser extent) can be a pain because of QuickTime for Java. JMyron works around this on Windows with DirectX, but there is an important caveat; again, you may find things feel like a work in progress.
4. JMyron is fantastic for doing simple motion tracking without a lot of coding. (Here’s where Processing wins; Jitter and cv.jit, for instance, are much harder to use in this area.) Example image below from JMyron’s site.

Interesting example of using JMyron/Processing: Shadow Monsters [Pixelsumo entry]