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Video Playback Software for Mac OS X
Hello! I used to peruse these forums back in my early days on Final Cut Pro, but was glad to see there’s a gathering place for folks working on live video events here, too.
My question is this: Any recommendations on video playback software for a series of lectures using Mac OS X computers.
Video format is flexible, as I haven’t exported final materials yet.
I’ve used Qlab extensively, but the rigidity of the cue stack there makes it a less-than-ideal choice for a lecture where the presenter may move around a bit.
I’ve explored ProVideoPlayer from Renewed Vision as well as PlayBack Pro. PlayBack Pro seems to be the more robust of the two. At present, I’m trying to ascertain which would be the most flexible in terms of licensing.
We will have three computers in the booth. One will provide video playback and another will provide still images/powerpoint. The third computer will act as a backup for the other two, meaning we will have two computers licensed for the video playback software simultaneously.
Thanks for any thoughts you can provide!
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8 Replies
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Hi Steven,
Are there any other special requirements for the playback? Why are you thinking about special dedicated video playback software? Do you have to sync slideshow on one computer with video playback on another and control them from single remote?
I had great success using Keynote with tons of embedded HD videos. Is there anything special about your lectures that prevents you to use just regular multiple Keynote installation?
Best,
Michael -
Hi Steven,
While the Keynote option would certainly be the less expensive route, we have had a lot of great success using PlaybackPro and PlaybackPro Plus. Its compatible with most video codecs, which is huge. The geometry and level controls in PlaybackPro always make me look like a video wizard and have saved countless hours of grief and stress.
I never get tired of hearing this during rehearsals: “Wait, it doesn’t look right, it’s squished, I don’t know, it doesn’t look right, it….Oh! Oh, wait! That’s perfect! Wow! That’s amazing! Great!”
I actually think the USB Enabler Key licensing method makes it easy to use the software on different machines depending on your needs. The software has a very small footprint and uses the existing Quicktime libraries for functionality, which means you can install it on 10 machines if need be, and then just swap the USB keys around depending on which machine you plan on using for each event.
Purchasing PlaybackPro or ProVideoPlayer would certainly be an investment on your part, but it would also be an item that you could continue to rent and eventually you would see a return on that investment. I don’t know that you could say the same of the iWork suite.
Something else to keep in mind is making sure that your hardware is up to the task of playing back your content without dropping frames. It becomes a very important consideration once you start talking about playing back HD content.
Hope that helps!
joel
Corporate and Special Event Staging Services
http://www.pacificstaging.com -
I can totally relate to what Joel stated, PBP is an excellent product, has also made me look good. Just to add to comment about dropping frames, when I spoke with the guys at DT Videolabs, they stressed that all video content should be running from a RAID 0 array, especially important if your running HD. I have run SD content from the hard drive, but depending on the codec it can be choppy.
Phil Senger
SW Audio+Visual
Vancouver, BC
http://www.sw-online.com -
Thanks Phil, Joel and Michael.
Keynote doesn’t possess enough power to do what we want here. I’ve done it and always felt I was losing control.
From what I can see, PBP presents a lot of the geometric control that I’ve become accustomed to in Qlab. As mentioned, I’ve also been in situations where being able to adjust visuals without a scaler makers the client giddy.
We will be renting PBP from a local firm for the run of our show and their machines look to be more than capable of handling the show.
Thanks again for your insights. Excited to put PBP to work here.
Steven Sokulski
Las Vegas, NV -
Have you tried sedna presenter. I am the Distributer in the USA and we have lots of clients that use if for events.
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What Vince said. It is amazing.
JPD
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I played out UHD video using ONE tricked out MacBook Pro retina and a Datapath X4 . the 4 HD signals were then fed to a Barco switcher then to 4 blended projectors for a end result of a 7000 pixel x 1080 image across a 110′ screen. sweet. no hitches, was even able to do fades between video loops. Playback Pro is the way to go.
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