Ableton Forum

Hi Ableton people!
Congrats to Live 6. Nice update. Although I have a few points on my wishlist. One of these is: Could you make it possible to play back the video out of the firewire bus, so that you can route it to e.g. a video converter and watch the movie on an external TV monitor. This feature is found (for example) in Pro Tools, Logic and Digital Performer, and is absolutely nessecary for film scoring and sounddesign work.
And by the way: The quality of the movie playback looks a little bit shakey. The movie seems to stutter a little bit - really just a little bit, but nevertheless disturbing.
(I don't have this problem with ProTools or Logic)

Keep up the great work!

You can watch a movie in Live fullscreen on a second monitor. If your computer supports a second monitor as extended desktop (ie not just video mirroring) drag the small floating video window to your second monitor, and double-click on it. It will now play fullscreen on the second monitor.

Hi Pitch Black.
thanks for your reply. Yes, I know this feature. But there are two problems with this. First: When you have a 2 monitor set up (like me), both screens are set up in such a way that everything is comfortable when you are working by yourself. As soon as you have a bunch of people over at your studio, it gets a little complicated and really uncomfortable to watch a movie on a computer monitor. And if you work on music or sound for a feature film you might want to watch the movie on a large screen (projected with a beamer) in order to get a better idea of how everything might work in a movie theatre.
Second: if you can send the quicktime movie via Firewire to an external DVD recorder and the audio (music) to the same machine, you do not need to go through all the hassle to bounce the audio to the movie and save it as a new movie and then go to iDVD and render a DVD (all these steps take very long). For quick approval purposes I found the first mentioned method very handy and fast.

True, true.

Let's hope they implement it soon.

+1 for FW playback!

Just be aware that playing video out firewire is NOT an ideal solution....
especially if you are after tight sync

this guy
http://www.syncheck.com/
makes a device that lets you physically check the sync between your audio
& wherever the video is being displayed...
You check out some of his test results here
http://www.pharoahaudio.com/ptvideosyncstudy.html

but he said this about the canopus DV-> video
"Canopus ADVC100, Hollywood Dazzle DV Bridge, Miglia Director’s Cut
3 to 4 frame latency with up to 1 frame start error. Additional slippage of 1 or 2 frames possible during moments of heavy audio processing demands."

3 - 6 frames is a LOT!!!
& even worse that its not a consistent lag,
ie u cant just put in an offset

In post half a frame is an issue...


Food for thought....

thanks for the tip! I am well aware of all these sync problems regarding quicktime DV and FW (Especially with Logic!). But since I am "only" doing music for films my sync issues are not as serious as for somebody who does sound design or sound fx. I usually deliver my projects as Pro Tools Session and with some minor tweaking before the film sound mixing sessions, everything works fine. So I always get away with the sloppy Quicktime DV>FW playback.
Although in the future I might replace my video converter (and ditch Quicktime DV) with a machine which is build by a german company and handles all video playback and sync problems very well (I saw it in action in a local post-pro studio and was very impressed). Check it out:
http://www.rosendahl-studiotechnik.de/bonsai.html

That bonsai drive looks cool!
but functionally i dont think i could seperate video out
to have it running on a seperate machine..

With a decent Radeon card & dedicated drive
& i get rock solid video even working on a G4 dp...
& i know plenty of people with the radeon cards with 3 outputs
ie two monitors plus a PAL/NTSC video out...

i get delievered all my video straight out of an Avid as a quicktime
(approx 2 Gig per 20 minute reel of film) copy & load/sync it up in
3 or 4 minutes & then can then lock to it tightly and scrub it at
any speed, still locked to your audio...

i totally appreciate a mix stage/studio have different requirements
(ie locking a dozen machines, video referenced to SPG etc)
but these Radeon cards seriously crank in a workstation environment

just my pov on it tho

interessssting. since i have ProTools mix+, all my PCI slots are filled up. so i never thought about using a video card. which Radeon card do you use? And which Radeon card has 3 outputs?
I also get my videos either as quicktime files from Avid or as mini DVs. The first one sure is the fastest and easiest way to start working. What bothers me regarding the bonsai drive, is that you need a DigiBeta machine to get the video on the drive. And you also need an extra machine for a good sync (wordclock, blackburst etc.).

My 2 output card is a 'Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Edition'
but its in a G4 dual proc, not a G5 so check which cards are compatible
http://www.ati.com/products/mac.html

I basically replaced the existing vid card in my mac, only difference being the
new card has a fan that is powered off the internal drive power supply
(ie one extra cable to connect internally)

I'll check & see which card the guys are using for 3 outputs & get back to you
I know Dialog supervisor was running PT on 1 monitor, ADR database on second
& PAL TV on third...

thanks a lot!