Modul8, Livid Union or VDMX5?

[benhanbury]

I'm looking to splash out on some VJ software for Macbook Pro - it seems the main three to choose from are Modul8, Livid Union or VDMX 5

I wondered if anyone had any preferences between them or good/bad experiences?

All seem quite good (the only downside I've found so far is that none of them can import swfs)

Thanks

[Hambone]

I don't know about the others, but Arkaos VJ handles SWFs without a problem. Add dynamic text on the fly to a SWF, and to use CCs to control individual Flash movie elements.

[Donnie Darko]

two n00b questions (sorry to hijack thread ben)

what are "cc's"
whats a "swf"

cheers

[Liquidmetro]

wikipedia is your friend.....swf

CC = Control Change and is MIDI terminology

[Ocular]

Just to clarify you can use .swf files in Union, you will just loose interactivity.

[stab]

Pretty sure Modul8 handles swf.'s

[vjrei]

I am a M8 fan and everybody has it here in my country.

In my experience:

I downloaded Livid Union once and it crashed on me, it was the demo. I feel it it has a lot of potencial but there is something missing, probably it will run way better with a midi interface. Is not a bad software but for some reason not my first choice.

VDMX is more fun to use, a bit "technical" but no as my primary software either.

M8 is way more fun and freindly once you see how it works.

I believe that VJ softwares need to be "drag and drop" freindly first. That was the best thing Motion Dive had. I need to acces my footage at a glance and trigger it. I belive that looking for footage in a menu is a big mistake.

M8 give you a decent preview of your material and some how they made it very intituitive even you need to have your mind organize here and there but they give you many way to avoid your own mess after several effects and leyers, how? by adding more leyers yet.

I have 4 powerbooks and now all of them runs Modul8, I am saving to get the new version 2.5 for all of them.

Still, I know very little about Livid Union, I know Jay is a good guy who works very hard for it.

[Bokonon]

Originally Posted by stab

Pretty sure Modul8 handles swf.'s

Only up to version 5, as it does all it's flash stuff through QT, I've given up with the flash stuff running on flash to be honest since the update to QT 7.2, and I'm hoping (as has been suggeted to Garage Cube that they use some other way of playing flash files, until then I'm using only QT movies and QTz compositions in m8.

[flowershower]

imho VDMX5 kicks the proverbial butt. granted, it's a steepish learning curve, but it does .swf, .qtz, movies, text, live recordable video input , has a customisable interface, wiimote control, midi, etc. and so on. it's very stable, great user forums and support, and it's not even out of beta yet .
with my clips on an external firewire drive i can push up to 6 layers of 640x480 video, with colorfx and keying, as well as custom sound reactive quartz files.

before you ask - no, i don't work for vidvox, i'm just a very happy user


btw, beta is fully functional, only you can't save your presets.

hope this helps

[mxmai]

VDMX all the way. daunting at first, definitely, but damn it's powerful and soooo fast.


I tried Modul8 out for a while when i first got my Macbook Pro and was seriously, seriously underwhelmed. No idea what all the fuss is about with that one.