used LiVES for the 1st time - some experiences from the usage here, about both preparing the set and performing with the tool, and then to some ideas about future development, both architecture- and featurewise.
preparing
The integrated video editing & VJ playback was the main things that brought me to LiVES, when searching for the right tool for this gig (i.e. 29.12.2004 HappiClub?). We had several hours worth of great raw material as video files (divx i.e. pretty thightly compressed .avis), and just wanted to select parts of it to have a set, with adequate controls for playback (minimal: switch, scrub - blending, effects being bonus). Didn't really have the time for the usual dance with a separate editing app, making clips as new files (usually involves clumsyfying re-encoding too), and then making the setup in a performance app. So had this dream in mind when thinking about this before christmas, and got interested about LiVES after being hinted about it, along with several other apps (like FreeJ? which we've used as a mixer sometimes), by a VjCentral? reading friend (an original (even if now former/non-active) KyperJokki?), and seeing from the docs that it might do this.
A back-up plan was to use QuicktimePlayerPro?, which is pretty nice for straightforward selection-making, and QuickTime has this nice system where clips (the new small files) can be references to parts of the original file. The problem there was, amazingly, that we had no adequate software tool for playback / performance on a Mac. Our earlier tool, KyperjokkiWorkPSX, would have been ok but it suffers from the PixelShoxJavascriptProblem? which results in instability (a memory leak in the plugin, will be fixed then PixelShox is newly released as QuartzComposer in MacOS? 10.4 Tiger next year (2005)). Many Mac VJ apps are proprietary, and we are not really into putting money into the inflexibility of closed programs for doing non-profit VJing.
So LiVES came in rescue, and we decided to give it a go. Just needed to give it time for importing the few gigabytes of compressed .avis, and enough scratch disk (dedicated a 140GB partition for the material) to deal with it - then all was fine.
(something about editing? it works.. the bigger issue: set structure future dev., coming later / elsewhere)
performing
Used SDL plug-in as advised, that is good. Had little trouble with the 16:9 aspect ratio material on a 4:3 display device: when going full-screen, the blitter streched the image screwing it. Kind of solved that by forcing a 16:9 resolution for the full-screen mode initialization in the SDL plugin, by hard-coding the resolution to the C source (plugins playback SDL.c). SalsaMan? hinted of another technique too (when we were already off-line at the club, though): "function render_frame_uyvy / overlay is the image / rect is the screen / just change that one command so it does the aspect ratio / or rather / you may need to make a black rectangle the size of rect / then resize overlay, composite it into the black rectangle / then blit the black rectangle to rect). In the end, used a different kludge: first doing the hardcoded 16:9 resolution for fullscreen worked all the way to the projector, but at some point the machine started sending 1280x1024 (even when set to 1024x576), which the projector could not receive (out of range).
Fortunately, the windowed mode in that X11 setup was in the mode where the display are is a subsurface of the whole desktop, focus moving with the mouse, so i just positioned the windows & view correctly. And as LiVES does not use the mouse for anything during playback (unlike in e.g. KyperjokkiWorkPSX where i've had it for scrubbing and controlling the views when using OpenGL), just put the device somewhere safe then and was fine off. This appeared to be a good solution also because not all of the material was 16:9, but some of it some other widescreen (but none 4:3) - it worked so that with 16:9 had a black strip, and with the taller material it filled the whole screen. Was missing some of the picture are with some of the clips, but that was all right, not a problem with the material used.
Found the controls quite adequate, even clever. First was suspicious of having the hold down ctrl for most central things, even thought of somehow forcing it down for the gig, but got accustomed to it quickly and started even liking it. Forgot to practice the use of the Mnemonics well before, remembered them only shortly before the gig, so they left underused. Found the mechanism for them pretty clever though (although think that individual ones should be possible to re-assing without clearing all, perhaps by pressing alt-n or something, if not ctrl-n?).
afterthoughts
After the gig, have let some ideas about future development arise - they're gonna go to LivesDevelopment and hopefully grow there later too.