Preview DV & Commotion

[Matt Silverman]

I assume that the Firewire card in your computer does not support the QuickTime Video Output Component (QTVOUT).

[Jeff Burford]

Hi Matt,

hmmnn, good question, I have never heard of this QuickTime Video Output Component (QTVOUT). Is this standard on all/most Firewire cards? I guess I need to figure out which card is in the System and get with the manufacturer to find this out. .

Thanks

[Jeff Burford]

In looking at the website of the manufacturer, there is no mention of QuickTime Video Output Component (QTVOUT). I sent them off an email asking them for further information.

I do have another Firewire card at home (Pinnacle from the LE 5.5 Set), but not certain if that supports it either. Guess I might have to go buy another card.

Thanks again.

[Matt Silverman]

I am guessing that most windows based firewire cards do not support it. Some write their own output drivers (ie. Matrox) for After Effects which “might” work in Commotion.

[Jeff Burford]

I received the following from the manufacturer of the Card.

Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. ,

since the card only delivers a kinf of lower layer for data transformatoin,
such upper protcols like quicktime transport protocols should be integrated
in the software, not the hardware.
Please can you refer?

Kind regards,

Mario Seng
QTEC Customer Care

[Jeff Burford]

So my question is anyone using this feature? If so, could they please provide the information of their card and setup. . .

Thanks
Jeff

[Matt Silverman]

Programs like Commotion, After Effects, Combustion, Shake, ColorTheory 😉 etc. use the QT VOUT to send frames to an output card. The reason why they use QTVOUT is because they only have to write it once for their software and do not need to write specific code for each hardware vendor. It works the other way as well… the hardware vendors only have to write code for QTVOUT, and then it should work with any software supporting VOUT. Pinnacle does not waste any time on Commotion, much less write specific drivers for each new hardware card on the market. Instead they rely on the QTVOUT code to automatically work with hardware supporting QTVOUT.

However… now that I am thinking about it more, I think that maybe QTVOUT is a mac-only protocol, so maybe Commotion only supported this on a Mac. And this explains why After Effects on Windows needs a lot of custom plug-ins from the manufacturers to get output to work. You can learn more at:

https://developer.apple.com/quicktime/qttutorial/videoout.html

[Matt Silverman]

I use it on the Mac with Decklink HDPro.