The Mac OS X Thread

2013-10-22 08:28:28 am

HELLO!

Sparks? Never. And I unplug and plug in my Intensity shuttle a lot.

Speaking of thunderbolt, good news: I found a Blackmagic alternative. Matrox apparently makes some stuff. I don't know if it works well with stuff like Camtwist, but it's worth investigating!

http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo2_mini/

HDL

Edit history:

HDL: 2013-10-22 01:31:33 pm

2013-10-22 01:27:30 pm

I had known about Matrox before ever discovering Blackmagic and forgot about it entirely. Back then the price was prohibitively expensive, not sure about now.

Anyway, in case you guys hadn't noticed yet, OS X Mavericks was released today and it's completely free!? I'll probably take the plunge and test software compatibility with it soon.

presjpolk

Edit history:

presjpolk: 2013-10-22 04:02:42 pm

2013-10-22 03:59:18 pm

HELLO!

Yeah I need to make the time to do that upgrade. I'm excited about the new Safari, per-window processes are long overdue.

But yeah if Matrox stuff actually talks to standard interfaces so that we can, you know, pump the video right into Camtwist/Cocoasplit directly from the hardware, man, I'll have to put one on my wishlist. Cheesy

HDL

2013-10-24 09:24:52 am

So after a couple of days with 10.9, I have to say I'm really impressed. There are some changes I really don't care for (like fonts, side dock shadow overlapping your apps, plain gray login), but it greatly makes up for that with everything else. In particular App Nap, Timer Coalescing, and improved OpenGL performance should help for streaming.

Now some compatibility info:

Audio Hijack Pro: Instant On doesn't work yet, developers claim support soon.
CamTwist: Did not find any problems. I don't normally use webcams so I didn't test any, but everything else worked the same.
CocoaSplit: No issues so far. Haven't tested CBR yet.
Norichan: Same. Recording works as it did before.
EasyCapViewer: Normal, although I did see a strange graphical glitch. Couldn't recreate it after relaunching it.
Yua: Recent version fixes a crash; works normally.
Kumari: Same as Yua.
ScreenFlow: No issues so far.

That's all. I haven't done any extensive testing, only confirmed that none of these are outright broken.

So after a couple of days with 10.9, I have to say I'm really impressed.  There are some changes I really don't care for (like fonts, side dock shadow overlapping your apps, plain gray login), but it greatly makes up for that with everything else.  In particular App Nap, Timer Coalescing, and improved OpenGL performance should help for streaming.

Now some compatibility info:

[u]Audio Hijack Pro[/u]: Instant On doesn't work yet, developers claim support soon.
[u]CamTwist[/u]: Did not find any problems.  I don't normally use webcams so I didn't test any, but everything else worked the same.
[u]CocoaSplit[/u]: No issues so far.  Haven't tested CBR yet.
[u]Norichan[/u]: Same.  Recording works as it did before.
[u]EasyCapViewer[/u]: Normal, although I did see a strange graphical glitch.  Couldn't recreate it after relaunching it.
[u]Yua[/u]: Recent version fixes a crash; works normally.
[u]Kumari[/u]: Same as Yua.
[u]ScreenFlow[/u]: No issues so far.

That's all.  I haven't done any extensive testing, only confirmed that none of these are outright broken.

presjpolk

2013-10-24 10:04:08 am

HELLO!

Oh gee, super surprise: Blackmagic stuff broke again with the new OS update. Fortunately this time they didn't take a week to push the update.

DJS

2013-10-24 10:57:33 am

torch slug since 2006

yes mavericks is nice. although something is wrong with this font in my web browser (atm safari). its very thin. i liked it before when it was kinda fat.

http://puu.sh/4Ymda.png
http://puu.sh/4YmdF.png

i havent really dont any performance tests yet, but it does feel faster (placebo?).
(fyi i didnt do a clean install, i just upgraded)

HDL

2013-10-24 11:58:44 am

If you're referring to Safari or anything OpenGL related, it's not placebo. There are definitely marked performance improvements, as well as better responsiveness in other stuff like Mail (I can confirm this, I use it every day).

I mentioned the font thing too. I liked it more before.

DJS

2013-10-24 12:01:28 pm

torch slug since 2006

i do really like the tagging. one cool speedrun usage it could have, is when you save/load a video file/split file, you could just tag it with the game/run name. would be pretty neat.

NASASoCal

2013-10-24 02:58:46 pm

Tougher Than Leather

does anyone have any experience with the elgato HD or is it so bad no one was dumb like me and bought it cause this thing (from what i've seen) can not be used for proper speed run streams

presjpolk

2013-10-24 03:22:47 pm

HELLO!

The regular Elgato's software is pretty bad, so I don't have high hopes for the HD.

NASASoCal

2013-10-25 12:50:52 am

Tougher Than Leather

well it's not nearly as bad as elgato video capture, hell even the built in stream option works pretty well but being a speed runner i need my splits and maybe other stuff (facecam, text etc) so my biggest problem is the capture window where i would screencap is 3 seconds behind the live gameplay, and i can't find a single program that will recognize it as an input(to try and overcome the lag), Eyetv is supposed to and one gentleman on a help forum said Eyetv is lagless as well as an input, which sounded great, but Eyetv won't even recognize the device at all, and I checked all the right versions and i'm just at a loss, well even if no one here can help me on terms of what to, what do any of you recommend for streaming, capture device wise that, won't murder my wallet completely lol

HDL

2013-10-25 06:34:31 am

Have you read the first post? All known capture devices are currently listed as well as recording and streaming software. It sounds like you're trying to play off your preview window which is never good unless the lag doesn't affect your play. You need A/V splitters so you can play on a TV and capture simultaneously. Use the CamTwist + CocoaSplit combo if you want lots of control over your stream video or Kumari if you only want basic desktop capture.

NASASoCal

2013-10-25 10:13:49 am

Tougher Than Leather

sorry if i wasn't clear haha I do not play off my capture window but im attempting to stream, and because this card is not picked up as a direct input by camtwist i have to capture the preview window, but there is like 4 seconds of lag between whats happening on the tv and whats happening in the software, so while my splits and facecam commentary are commentating on whats on the tv the actual footage showing up on stream next to my splits and cam is 4 seconds behind, and on terms of why i asked about capture devices i was looking for what any of you currently use to stream, and my capture device is Elgato Game Capture HD which isn't in the list currently

HDL

2013-10-25 12:43:22 pm

I made the first post almost entirely with what I know so far, so I might be missing some devices. I'll add that one to the list.

A quick search turned this up: http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/1008718-elgato-game-capture-hd

Says the delay is caused by hardware compression, which means your video is getting compressed twice (2nd time from the stream software). Unless you can turn hardware compression off, there's probably no way to remove the delay. I use an EasyCAP which has little delay and doesn't compress, but I wouldn't recommend buying it. There are 4 different models and no way to tell which you'll get if you order one. You can use any model with EasyCapViewer, but the recording feature doesn't match Norichan's, which only supports the Syntek model.

Some people swear by the Blackmagic devices. I have no personal experience with them but they seem like the best bet currently.

NASASoCal

2013-10-25 01:37:09 pm

Tougher Than Leather

alright thanks a lot, im going to give this thing a couple days im contacting elgato about the eye tv issue, and the blackmagic stuff is just so pricey, i got a discount on this elgato but i still may return it if i can't figure it out, thanks for the help!

presjpolk

2013-10-25 03:26:29 pm

HELLO!

Yeah all the good options for HD are expensive unfortunately.

I wish I could afford to try the Matrox.

NASASoCal

2013-10-25 05:36:00 pm

Tougher Than Leather

I have another question (sorry im new to this) I have camtwist 3.0 but cocoasplit won't pick it up, is there something im missing?

HDL

2013-10-26 06:14:27 am

Make sure "enable the Syphon server" is checked in preferences and you use Syphon in CocoaSplit.

Also CocoaSplit will not display your video at all until you actually click stream. If you just want to test it without going live, uncheck your destination on the right and click stream. Video should appear if you have preview enabled.

NASASoCal

2013-10-26 10:25:00 am

Tougher Than Leather

wOW thanks! i'm so glad this thread is here or me and my poor mac would be out of luck when it comes to streaming Sad

NASASoCal

2013-10-30 12:48:56 pm

Tougher Than Leather

Hey I have another question when i use cocoa split and try and stream the application just crashes on me, any advice? I really don't want to use fme anymore lol

HDL

Edit history:

HDL: 2013-10-30 02:07:33 pm

HDL: 2013-10-30 02:07:18 pm

2013-10-30 02:06:39 pm

There can be any number of things causing that. I recall downloading the latest version and getting crashes, then fixing it by deleting the settings file in Application Support/CocoaSplit (it will make a new one next time you run it). Previous versions had also crashed when stopping while there were pending frames. That was supposedly fixed though (hasn't happened to me again since).

If you still get crashes after deleting that file you have to be more specific about your setup.

DJS

2013-11-01 03:58:59 am

torch slug since 2006

is it audio hijack pro i wanna use to mix my microphone and line-in/norichan(soundflower) to one audio source so i can stream both mic and game at the same time? from the website it seems to me that it just records to files...

presjpolk

2013-11-01 05:25:32 am

HELLO!

Audio Hijack Pro will let you route audio into Soundflower. It's a core part of my stream setup.

Line In is by the people who released Audio Hijack Pro. Line In however is missing the ability to add filters, including volume filters which let you get the levels right.

So Line In will sorta work, but if your mic is too loud or too quiet relative to your game audio, you're stuck. Audio Hijack Pro will let you fix that.

HDL

2013-11-01 07:00:34 am

AHP will practically let you do anything you want with audio with no fuss at all. I can't count how many streamers I've seen that always run into some kind of audio problem, things I never have to put up with because AHP is just that good. Just make sure you get the beta if you have 10.9 and want to use Instant On.

NASASoCal

2013-11-02 05:07:25 pm

Tougher Than Leather

yeah, I tried that and it still crashes my setup is capturing my desktop through camtwist 3.0 and getting it to cocoaspltt through syphon recorder, i'm trying my hardest to get away from FME cause it just fails me constantly, I also posted in the Kumari thread cause Kumari also crashes on me everytime i try and stream Sad