Finally DV Rack on a Mac?
 

So now that Apple has released "Boot Camp" and you can now boot WIndows XP on a separate partition on an Intel Mac, does this mean DV Rack will run on a MacBook Pro?

I'm already ahead of you Tim. Well sort of, I was thinking the same thing about Canon's Console and DVPC recorder applications. I'm thinking there is going to be a Macbook Pro in my future. ;-)

-gb-

I fired up dvrack on a MacBook Pro and it worked fine. I didn't go into any details much but all the gauges and bars and preview monitors were lit up with the video I fed to it from a little Sony TRV22.

Hope that makes some of you happy.

btw: I have never seen windows xp as smooth and quick as on this MacBook. I recommed you install it just to see it run.

Donie

Donie,
What kind of latency were you seeing?

http://www.parallels.com has virtual machine software that will allow you to run XP without having to reboot your intel mac...it was released today and is in beta, 30 day free trial. I'd be interested to hear how it works from some brave soul, but don't have an intel mac to test it :(

--I am not a rep of the company in question--

Virtualization is an awesome idea, but in the case of Virtual PC has always been plagued by driver issues. I wonder if these guys have worked out a better way to tunnel through directly to the processor and graphics cards.

I don't own an Intel Mac yet, but I'd like to know if DVRack would work with Parallels' software?

That software is mentioned in this Wall Street Journal article about BootCamp and the Intel Macs: http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20060406.html

In the "side by side" table they say that Parallels runs slower than booting directly into Windows. I'd also expect that, although the author says he hasn't tried it himself. Will be interesting to see if they've solved some of the tough problems like Tim says.

I would dig it if HDV Rack went to Mac native, since I just bought a Power Mac Quad and PowerBook G4 (my wife would kill me if I bought another computer).

heath

The problem is that DVRack makes "extensive use of Microsoft's DirectShow Technology." So basically they are piggy-backing on technology built into Windows.

See http://www.seriousmagic.com/help/faq...cfm?p=3&c=1#48 for more info.

There's more to it than that, I think. Apple may not want to share some specifics. But if Windows XP is running well, ie, no lag like with Virtual PC, then I'll find someone with a MacBook Pro, grab HDV Rack, and get busy when I shoot my film this summer.

heath

Would someone clear up .....
 

whether Direct X is a motherboard hardware issue, software issue or whatever? I'd love to use DV Rack and Ultra on a Mac. If Boot Camp will
allow this to be done (love to see DV Rack in HD) then I'd get a Mac Intel in a heart beat!

DV Rack HDV (or is it HDV Rack) is excellent. Spot and I used it on the Sony HDV tour last fall/winter. www.vasst.com

hwm

I've been holding off posting to this thread until we've tested it ourselves, but we've now heard from over 10 customers that have loaded DV Rack on their MacBook Pro using Windows, and it works fine. Here are a couple of notes to be aware of:

1. Windows won't natively read the Mac partition - you'll probably want to get a small utility called MacDrive for Windows, which will ensure that Windows will read and write to your Mac partition, your Mac-formatted CD-ROM's, removable hard drives, etc. DV rack can record to any device with a drive letter, so if you have MacDrive installed, it'll record right to that Mac-formatted removable USB2 drive just fine.

2. The MacBook pointer device only has one button, and Windows doesn't have a keyboard shortcut to right-click like MacOS has. DV Rack uses the right-click for a lot of settings, especially if you are at 1024x768 resolution. You can either use an external mouse (like the Mighty Mouse) or use a freeware program like this one: http://www.geocities.com/pronto4u/applemouse.html. Or, run your screen at a higher resolution, and use the menu items in the top toolbar.

Karl,
You can plug in any USB mouse in your Mac and it will recognise the right click and the scroll buttons without any additional drivers. I am using right now a Logitech plugged in the Apple keyboard. The same keyboard and mouse is used on Wintel box and also in VP running on the Mac. All buttons are fully functional.

Did anybody tried this program as an option to Boot Camp?
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/mac/

Hi Valeriu,

Yep - using an external mouse makes right-clicking easy. I know a lot of MacBook Pro users who try to stay as "mobile" as possible, and the built-in touchpad device doesn't offer a right-click option. It was a shock to some that Windows didn't natively recognize the option-click. That freeware utility for Windows corrects that.

No news on a virtualization solution yet. Parallels doesn't allow for Direct3D calls, so it prevents DV Rack from working, at least today. They say that they are working on it, so keep watching their site.

Karl .....
 

any ideas about Ultra working on the Mac intel?

All Serious Magic software appears to run fine. A friend of a developer brought in their MacBook Pro to the office last night, and we loaded everything. Didn't do a lot of hardcore testing, but we recorded clips in DV Rack, brought them into ULTRA, keyed them, saved them back as QuickTime files, rebooted, and dragged/dropped them into FCP. We also tried Visual Communicator, and it also worked.

I would remind everyone that Boot Camp is beta software right now, and I have heard of a couple of cases where you'll have to reformat your Mac partition after installing Boot Camp, so make sure and backup, backup, backup!

What kind of latency are you guys seeing? Can you pull focus using the laptop as a monitor?

Any updates on this subject?
What is the best workflow with the latest MacBook Pro and bootcamp versus the virtual mode?

I'm running bootcamp and console 1.1 - it doesn't run with parallels and I recall reading that on location didn't either

Any luck with VMware Fusion?

If your going to run any video intense programs they won't work well with Parallel or other software that emulates the windows environment. But, they all run fine when used on windows via boot camp.

VMware Fusion works with pretty much everything, but I'm having trouble using the MacBookPro Firewire port. USB recognizes devices. Has anyone tried Firewire capture or tape write under Fusion?

Ok, I will use bootcamp and that extra utility to see the Mac Partition.

Before on the Serious Magic website, there was an explanation how to move a license from one computer to another as the license uses serial numbers from the motherboard. I think you needed to send a code generated, and you got a code back.
But I cannot find the info on the adobe website. Any help appreciated.

BTW, Scopebox 2.0 will be fully HDV and quicktime compatible, and of course OS X native. It will be available soon.
I fiddled with DVRack/On Location so much that I've come to the conclusion that even with using Bootcamp and a fresh install of XP it isn't reliable. It crashes too much for me to consider using it in a production environment.
I spoke with the developer of Scopebox at NAB and it seems he's figured out, without help from Apple, how to encapsulate an HDV stream into Quicktime. This includes 720p24, 720p25, 720p30, 720p50, 720p60, 1080p24, 1080i50, & 1080i60.
We'll know for sure when Scopebox 2.0 is released.

Thanks for the info Tim