Midivid GPU

[djMidnight]

Hey all,

I'm looking for a few people interested in beta testing the new version of Midivid, both users and developers.

Midivid GPU is a DX9.0c (Summer 2004) based app, and all rendering is done by the GPU, so you need a DX9 compatible video card on a Windows box to use it. I've added support for live capture cards, multiple monitor systems, and you can now render a performance to an AVI file.

From the developer side, we're planning on making the plugin API public, and I've been working on cleaning it up and authoring help files for it. I'd love to have a couple developers poke at it a bit to find the holes before we make it public.

If you're interested, send me a mail through this site.

Regards,
Jason Dorie

[klumsy]

what are its features?

[monty]

then, hardware accelated midvid avi file???

and shorter render time???

it will be big one for me!

[PiedPiper]

Does this still only work with midivid compressed files?

or will this new version work with any/most format's of avi's / mov's?

Either way i guess i would be interested in testing it out.
I have GeForceFX 5900 XT, for GPU, and a edirol PCR 30 as my midi kb?

just a quick request: make the midi really easy to set up!
there's nothign worse than trying to remember how to set up your midi controls half way thru a show.

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
oh oh i think i've gone teusday craaazzzzy!!!!


oohh and let me be the first (cos there will probably be many) to ask / suggest freeframe support?

[djMidnight]

Features are, at present:

3D hardware acceleration - It's the original MidiVid MIDI engine with a redesigned plugin architecture and rendering engine made to help harness the power of current and coming generation video cards.

Support for multiple video capture devices - If you have a webcam, a Dazzle DCV-90, and an Osprey plugged in, they'll all show up as valid video sources.

Sources can be used for anything - Any video source can be used by any plugin. Current video sources are AVIs, BMPs, TGAs, PNGs, JPGs, capture devices, and the current framebuffer. (You can feed the framebuffer back through the system as a video source, so you can daisy-chain effects together easily). The current system will support any Video for Windows AVI codec, including DivX, CinePak, Indeo, MidiVid, and so on.

The plugin architecture supports the addition of new source types, so if someone wants to write a generic DirectShow source, you'll be able to use MPEG, AVI, ASF, DV, and anything else your machine supports. I have a DirectShow source plugin started, but not finished. You can also write sources that just procedurally generate data without reading files, and feed those into other effects.

Supports up to 128 concurrently running plugins - That's the number of plugins you can have in a single patch in MIDI, and your machine will choke long before you ever hit that number.

Support for multiple monitor systems, and multiple video cards. Midivid will not currently output to more than one card, however you get to pick which card.

Capture a MIDI stream, then render the performance in non-realtime at any resolution to an AVI using that captured MIDI stream.

Built-in support for MIDI continuous controllers - Parameter changes to effects can now be sequenced through MIDI.

Improved user interface over the original MidiVid - I'm still working on this, but I want the interface to be a little less barren than the previous one. It's already got knobs to change plugin parameters, and I hope to add drag & drop support and a few other bells & whistles as well.

Deals with non-power-of-two video issues for you automatically - If your hardware supports non-power-of-two textures, MidiVid will use them. If your hardware supports conditional NP2 textures, MidiVid will use them when it can, and automatically scale them (in hardware) for you otherwise.

The plugin architecture will be completely open - Anyone who wants to write plugins for the new system will be able to.

Rock solid stable - The original MidiVid started this, and I'm trying hard to continue it. It doesn't crash during a performance. Ever. If it does, I want to hear about it and fix it.

There aren't a ton of plugins at the moment, but I'm hoping that will change as more developers get their hands on it. I currently have:
- Display a source with position, scale, angle, and transparency
- Fade a source in or out, based on note velocity
- Color keying with user selectable color and tolerance
- Paint the screen with a color (with transparency)
- Warp a source (hard to describe this one, so I've attached an image - upper left, upper middle)
- Glow and blur (also in the image, lower left, and lower middle)
- Kaleidoscope (upper right)
- Brighten/darken (lower right)

These all run at better than 60fps on my NVidia FX 5200 at 640x480, even when the effects are "stacked" on top of each other, and the CPU load is minimal, since the GPU does everything except decode the AVIs.

http://jasondorie.com/NeoComposite.jpg

It's still alpha-ish at the moment. It's very stable, but the GUI and some of the interfaces are still changing, as is the plugin system, while I sort out what I want in it. I also still have to add audio support back in.

I think that covers it - I still want to write a bunch more plugins, but I've been focusing on making the architecture flexible and stable.

Feedback welcome,
Jason Dorie

[LEVLHED]

wow, very very cool to see midivid getting a facelift!

any chance it will be able to realize my realtime, A/V sample/sequence/resample dreams?
http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=8547


and another question that hasn't popped up yet: will it still be free?

[Meierhans]

Hey, never thought to hear anything new about Midivid!
:P :jump: Great news!
Your codec was the first one I used for visuals, your program was the first one I used for midi-triggering.
I would be very happy to help beta testing.

Could you build in a automatic crash form, giving you all the info you need together with a place to write down what have been done before the crash? Send by mail or ICQ this could speed up debugging very much & make life easier for the testers.

My specs: 1.8 Ghz P4, Radeon 9800Pro, 2 fast HD`s.
If it makes sence I could also test on my older Athlon 1.6.

[djMidnight]

Any chance it will be able to realize my realtime, A/V sample/sequence/resample dreams?

This is certainly a possibility. I do plan to write a few different sample plugins, though I'll have to read more on that thread to see if what I have in mind meshes with that. I do want to be able to sample in realtime to some number of internal sample buffers, then allow them to be played back by other effects. If you could private mail me with a bit more detail on exactly what you want to do, I'll let it roll around my skull a while.


Will it still be free?

Sadly, I don't think so. There will be a free version that includes most of the functionality, so you'll be able to try before you buy, but the pricing will be very fair. I'm pretty sure at this point that we're going to give it away to anyone who writes plugins for it and makes them available on our site. We hope to get something like a WinAmp community going for Midivid plugins.

Could you build in a automatic crash form, giving you all the info you need together with a place to write down what have been done before the crash?

This is tricky, but I'll look into it. I do have a logging feature I can enable that records some of the behind-the-scenes stuff that's quite helpful. I'll probably make a way to turn that on through the UI.

Random tangent: I read a little of the GPUChain thread:
http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=8189

There's some scary parallels between those ideas and how MidiVid GPU is actually built internally.

Jason

[LEVLHED]

it sounds like you are thinking of what I'm after, assuming you can make it A/V...being able to continuously sample/resample an a/v stream into buffers and trigger/retrigger the segments in the buffers via midi is what I'm after, to create a sort of realtime a/v beat remix that continuously evolves with the incoming a/v stream....or anything thats even close to that at this point!

I could beta test as well, I use a laptop: P4 2.8, 1gig 400mhz RAM, 2-5400rpm drives in RAID-0, XP, radeon mobility 9600 chipset (w/vid-in)....afraid I have no coding skills to offer though.

[PiedPiper]

Heh i was just about to mention that GPUmidivid is probably very similar to the GPUChain project ;)

So i guess there's no need for me to tell you any more.
I am also going to assume you have told them about yourself and GPUMidiVid.

btw, all is going well so far ;)

[Exavior]

djMidnight: Sounds very interesting.

What part of california are you from?

There's a local group of VJs in Los Angeles, (LAVA (http://www.la-va.org/)) and some of us might be interested in testing (if not just hearing about/seeing a demo of) your software.