Anyone ever VJed with Linux or an SGI workstation (e.g. O2, Octane)?

[dcarmich]

Anyone ever VJed with Linux or an SGI workstation (e.g. O2, Octane)?

Just curious to see what your experiences are on those platforms (and what software you're using...)

[sleepytom]

linux is a little bit behind when it comes to realtime video apps - there is effectv and freej which both work but are limmited in functionality
i've never used ether of them at a gig but i have played around with effectv quite a bit and it has some of the most amazing realtime effects i have ever seen working on fullframe live camera input - they are porting the effects to a new crossplatform api though so there should be a windows version soon

i don't think there is any vjing software for the sgi irix platform - we have a couple of the sgi nt workstations (320s) but they are not really vjing machines - far better suited to 3d modeling or compositing - although you could make a very good bit of vjing software to run on there intergrated video capture / output system (as it has full genlock and a powerfull graphics processor) but it is very specific to these computers so would have almost no market

[BrainStove]

Well Tom, since you have a couple of the SGI NT workstations (320s), I hope you had given a try to the VideoCluster VJ software still available on the Dave site: http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vjprgpix/vidclust/vidclust.htm

Indeed there is no vjing software for the SGI Irix platform yet, but for the SGI NT yes and it could be improved even more nowadays, so Dcarmich if you have access to those machines you already know now where to devote some spare time around.

As for the Linux platform, I would add http://veejay.sourceforge.net/ as another option to the couple already mentioned by Tom.

[sleepytom]

yep looked at videocluster - its shite - ntsc only, the video is upside down! and it doesn't output from the video out (maybe that was my fault though)
really its a very sad bit of programing - i think anyone who can use C++ could have knocked it up in about ten minuets from the examples in the sgi SDK (and the author says this on the website)
also it doesn't run on win2k so is no use to me

i think VJamm classic will output from the video out on the 320 if you use the correct codec and there is a test app from sgi that allows you to select a portion of the screen to be sent to the video out (like a built in zooming scanconverter)

[Mattbot]

I've got an SGI Indigo 2 but I've never attempted any multimedia work with it. I know Pure Data (http://pd.iem.at/) will run on IRIX but Pure Data sure isn't pretty. I think you're limited to OpenGL stuff only. I might try to dig it out and getting it working sometime. Unless you have a deep seated hatred of yourself and yearn for auto-inflicted punishment, I'm pretty sure this isn't the best route to follow for a VJ gig.