Syphon tutorial

tomthebom

Hi, I have been trying to find my way through to import video footage from an OS X App into Isadora using Syphon. It seems to be very easy, but obviously not for me... I have been fiddling with Syphon Simple Server/ Simple Client, (which seem to be only for testing your connection), Syphoner (whereI can choose an App and define it as the streaming source- how do I set up Isadora to catch that stream?). I have been fiddling with Syphon Virtual Screen, which kills my dock and makes my machines rather unresponsive...

Is there any friendly soul, who can point out a tutorial how to get video from any App into Isadora's projector actor? (I have also tried to install the ffgl-plugins into library/application support/Freeframe/ but without success...

There seem to be several possibilities: Which is the quickest one? Which is the best one? Best regards, t.

Michel

@tomthebom

What version of Isadora are you using. If 2.x is it with a 2.x license?

Best Michel

Skulpture

Isadora Version 2 with a Version 2 license has a built in Syphon Receiver Actor. Its the easiest and quickest method but as Michel has asked - it depends what version you have and with what license.

tomthebom

Isadora 2.0.5 with license on MBP Retina, 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5, OS X 10.10.4

Michel

@tomthebom

Then you can use the syphon receiver actor that goes into the projector. You have to click into the black field of the server input of the syphon receiver. As soon as a syphon stream is present it will show up there, but only if you click on it.

Best Michel

primaldivine

If the app you want to use is not itself Syphon enabled, then Syphoner is a good solution to create a Syphon stream from that app, since you choose its application window and Syphoner then creates a Syphon stream from that window.

If the app is already Syphon enabled (by the author of that software) then all you need to do is to 'unpack' ie to receive the Syphon stream in Isadora. This is done differently in version 2.x and version 1.x of Isadora. The lovely guru guys above already told you how to do it in version 2.x.

If you are using a version 1.x license then you can download the Syphon plugins from the Syphon website and put them in your QuartzComposer folder...However this solution does require that you have a Core Video enabled 1.x license of Isadora, but if so, then you can do it that way.... The QuartzComposer plugins show up in the toolbin inside Isadora as QC Syphon plugins.

tomthebom

Thanks a lot to everyone here for the quick response, that helped a lot.

@ Michel: I had not clicked into the black ;o)

I am just wondering about the other Syphon actors:

"Syphon Stage Output" actor:

I get it, that you can turn it on/off and specify the stage, but what does the "mode" parameter of the "Syphon Stage Output" actor mean?

"Syphon Server" actor:

Isadora is "syphon" enabled by default, isn't it? Do you use this actor do divide between the Isadora stream and the stream of your project?

And when do I use the "Syphon Client"? Would this be the actor to use to find "Syphon" streams on my machine, if I did not had "Syphoner"?

How do I specify the server name there?

Best regards to everyone,

t.

Michel

@tomthebom

The only two syphon actors that are shipped with Isadora are the "syphon stage output" and the "syphon receiver" all others you have installed separately. You would not need any others IMHO.

The "syphon receiver" gets all syphon streams on you computer into Isadora, you can use more than one if you have multiple streams.

The "syphon stage output" generates a syphon stream of the stage you have selected and can be seen either in Isadora's "syphon receiver" or any other application that supports syphon.

If you hover the word "mode" with the mouse while clicking the alt key you get a helptext of what the input is about. You can do this with every native Isadora actors heading (for general information) or every in and output.

Best Michel

tomthebom

Thanks Michel for your quick response and best regards from Denmark to Switzerland ;o)

eratatat

Hi there,

coming in this conversation a bit late.

SInce I don't have the latest version with the Syphon Receiver, can you please tell me how we can get the video from kinect into Isadora in the simplest way?

Thank you!

Marci

Should be able to download the FFGL Syphon Receiver plugin: FreeFrame GL

Or the Quartz Composer plugin: [Quartz Composer](https://github.com/Syphon/Quartz-Composer/releases/latest)

(http://syphon.v002.info)