Do we want Live to have more Video-functionality?

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:39 pm

forge wrote:
SimonPHC wrote: What the future will bring is not so sure. Your opinion is more visual, my opinion is we've been quite visual the last hundred years if not longer, so it's not really going to change that dramatically.
there has never before been the option to play such high quality visuals so cheaply and easily. It is only now that we are seeing computers that can do both together.

To me the idea of having a few video files playing in the session view either as you trigger scenes or with follow actions could be really unobtrusive and at the same time deceptively powerful.

well put as usual, I like your take on Live.

video is last on my list with Live. fun and simple, used it less than a dozen times. had fun midi assigning keys to track markers and making the video jump around to the beat.

ugh just when our computers can handle audio with ease along comes video to glut it all up again. more MIPS, more drive space...

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:48 pm

although the idea of more video sounds exciting and fun, there are only so many people on the Ableton team - and you can't just scale up the team to add new features. I think that there's a critical size for an innovative company, and it's perhaps somewhere less than 50 people. When you start to creep above that management and meetings takes up increasingly more time, innovation becomes increasingly hard to achieve.

So with the current team they have, I think there are other things that are more crucial to maintaining and expanding their market-base. Probably improving the 'Live' experience would be the best way to consolidate a corner of the Audio app market. Otherwise they could become "Jack of all trades master of none" as the old saying goes.

much better to focus on a core area and innovate like crazy, rather than lose focus on a nebulous drift to cover every angle of modern media production.

trexmatt · Post by **trexmatt** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 10:11 pm

Live does video???? AHAHHaha hahah HAHah ha! good one!
Oh wait you're not joking...

FlatBeat · Post by **FlatBeat** » Fri Aug 08, 2008 11:39 pm

they should make it work properly with audio + midi first. stop random crashes then consider it

craftycurate · Post by **craftycurate** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 12:44 am

No ... I want a cutting edge audio app. If I want video I'll buy a VJ app.

NorthernMonkey · Post by **NorthernMonkey** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 1:17 am

Angstrom wrote:although the idea of more video sounds exciting and fun, there are only so many people on the Ableton team - and you can't just scale up the team to add new features. I think that there's a critical size for an innovative company, and it's perhaps somewhere less than 50 people. When you start to creep above that management and meetings takes up increasingly more time, innovation becomes increasingly hard to achieve.

So with the current team they have, I think there are other things that are more crucial to maintaining and expanding their market-base. Probably improving the 'Live' experience would be the best way to consolidate a corner of the Audio app market. Otherwise they could become "Jack of all trades master of none" as the old saying goes.

much better to focus on a core area and innovate like crazy, rather than lose focus on a nebulous drift to cover every angle of modern media production.

Based on having worked in many development environments incorporating various development methodologies for the last 15 years, I agree 100% with every word of your post.

SimonPHC · Post by **SimonPHC** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 4:04 am

NorthernMonkey wrote:
Angstrom wrote:although the idea of more video sounds exciting and fun, there are only so many people on the Ableton team - and you can't just scale up the team to add new features. I think that there's a critical size for an innovative company, and it's perhaps somewhere less than 50 people. When you start to creep above that management and meetings takes up increasingly more time, innovation becomes increasingly hard to achieve.

So with the current team they have, I think there are other things that are more crucial to maintaining and expanding their market-base. Probably improving the 'Live' experience would be the best way to consolidate a corner of the Audio app market. Otherwise they could become "Jack of all trades master of none" as the old saying goes.

much better to focus on a core area and innovate like crazy, rather than lose focus on a nebulous drift to cover every angle of modern media production.
Based on having worked in many development environments incorporating various development methodologies for the last 15 years, I agree 100% with every word of your post.

I have no experience in working in software companies or development environments, but still me too, I agree with every word. What I said (sort of

), but backed by experience.

ava · Post by **ava** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 9:13 am

ava · Post by **ava** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 9:14 am

oops double post

Noel · Post by **Noel** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 10:44 am

Let's have support for more video file formats please.

ThrowAway · Post by **ThrowAway** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 11:05 am

Nope concentrate on the audio please

ekwipt · Post by **ekwipt** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 4:17 pm

I like the idea of live being able to handle video, Ableton's probably big enough to buy someone out like modul8 and incorporate it's features into the software. Or at least hire a few extra heads to concentrate on the video features.

But then where does it stop:

Live as a dj tool
Live as vj tool
Live as a DAW
Live as a video editor

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 6:17 pm

I dont think anyone wants Live to become VJ application. It is about development of what it already there in ver 6 & 7.
I absolutely agree with whoever said VJing is boring,even-dead.
Speedy video clips, senselessly FXed like a movie edited by a monkey on crack that is 90s and I dont thinbk anyone really enjoys seeing or doing it. And if so there are some softwares for that.
The world moved on and there is definitely more demand for visuals both live and as part of the music.
The only AV application is VJamm and it is absolutely primitive, extremely limited.
Ableton has chance to expand to new market or more exactly conquer and rule the AV as they did with audio.
They already showed how clever they are, did very little but unlike the unedning promise apps, whatever little video functionality Live has works 100%. That is what make it interesting for professionals who always appreciate reliable over "1001 functions that will be fine by the next update"

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 7:01 pm

Live + Grand VJ will be a superb combination once they've incorporated Freeframe and Core Image: simple to use, efficient, and hugely creative options with Follow Actions, MIDI FX, virtual MIDI buses, dummy clips, etc.

And able to run on a single computer!

SimonPHC · Post by **SimonPHC** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 7:27 pm

why is that demo video thingon their website so bad?

The only time I VJ-ed was at a pretty big festival. A friend on mine asked if I wanted to come along because she was scared of getting bored! She did this as a job, go figure! We decide that the only thing we could use was several electronic etch-a-sketches and a video mixer. It ended up looking realy bad, but the audience and djs loved it because we had conversations with them. At a certain part Ivan Smagghe was kind of starteled because the audience screamed like it was a peak moment in a track when in fact is was just a steady beat playing. Then he looked at the screen and gave us thumbs up

.