Isadora 3 - Status Report from Mark

Fred

I know this is a tough question, but I am liking the features of V3, I have been very busy on projects so not a lot of time for testing, but I am in a bit of a bind. I have a project that is presenting in 5 weeks. I have to finalise the software I use and I would prefer go with V3. It has been 3 months since the initial beta and lots of radio silence in between. Instead of a release date is it possible to get an end deadline, a date when the new version will definitely be done, I would like to put Isadora as the tool I will use but need to commit very soon.

Woland

@fred said:

@woland I know this is a tough question, but I am liking the features of V3, I have been very busy on projects so not a lot of time for testing, but I am in a bit of a bind. I have a project that is presenting in 5 weeks. I have to finalise the software I use and I would prefer go with V3. It has been 3 months since the initial beta and lots of radio silence in between. Instead of a release date is it possible to get an end deadline, a date when the new version will definitely be done, I would like to put Isadora as the tool I will use but need to commit very soon.

I will discuss this with Mark on Monday and get back to you. We are all working as hard as we can on Isadora 3, especially Mark.

Bennnid

1st Thanks for you amazing work !

Do you have an idea of a

month regarding the release? waiting to choose the osX update...

thanks a lot !

Juriaan

@bennnid

Hi there, sadly there is no release date yet. They are working around the clock to get it out :) Keep an eye out on the social platforms of Isadora to get a notifaction when the new version is out :)

mark

@fred said:

I know this is a tough question, but I am liking the features of V3, I have been very busy on projects so not a lot of time for testing, but I am in a bit of a bind. I have a project that is presenting in 5 weeks. I have to finalise the software I use and I would prefer go with V3. It has been 3 months since the initial beta and lots of radio silence in between. Instead of a release date is it possible to get an end deadline, a date when the new version will definitely be done, I would like to put Isadora as the tool I will use but need to commit very soon.

Hello everybody, it's Mark, rising from the bowels of coding.

I know everybody wants us to set a date. And, the fact is, we have a date in mind that's not very far away. So then, you might rightly ask, why are we not saying that date out loud?

Because we don't want to promise something and then not make it, which we've already done with our original release date.

I've consulted with two close colleagues -- one who worked at Apple for many years and other who has been a consultant to Adobe since Photoshop 1.0 -- in other words, high level experts. I tell them I'm freaking the "f" out because we're late, and they both say the same thing: don't rush because of your anxiety. If you release a dog you'll lose users forever. If you're late, they'll forgive you.

And that's the road we're taking.

Four weeks ago there were 110+ significant crashes listed in our bug database. Now there are 16 -- some of which only happen under relatively unusual/bizarre situations. As of this Monday (Feb 4) there were 210+ "failures" (i.e., stuff not working right, importance varying from significant to cosmetic) and now, three days later, that number is 150. These failed items will fall off relatively quickly.

In addition, we have had two special beta testers -- one on Mac and one on PC -- that are using the beta for significant projects that are live right now. Because of this, a handful of super serious bugs and/or reliability issues that might have escaped our attention have been fixed.

In other words, it's getting close. And I do believe we can make the date we have in mind. But I'm still not going to say it out loud... not just yet.

Honestly folks, it's coming up on a year since I started converting Isadora to 64 bit and adding the new features; I've never worked so hard for such a long period in my whole life. The team is working just as hard. We must deliver you the best and most totally reliable version of Isadora ever if we're going to continue to thrive in the future.

We'll give you a definite date as soon as we can be 100% sure we'll meet it.

Sincerely,
Mark

bonemap

@mark said:

Mark, rising from the bowels of coding.

It appears to be a very rarefied situation at Isadora HQ. I feel the pain and frustration of waiting, but empathise with the pace of development. The torch still burns. And I have deep respect for Mark’s ambition to reach the next level with the Isadora platform. We will enjoy many more years of relevant and timely features that pay back our patience and investment. Power to the code!

Best wishes

Bonemap

Aolis

@mark

This is a very reasonable way of moving forward.

Thank you, Mark.

We have your back. 100%

-Alex

SWDA

Just want to add my support as well. Looking forward to the release but would rather it be right the first time and you feel good about it.

take care,

Sheldon

mark

Hello All,

As further evidence of how close we're getting, here's the Isadora 3 Beta being used live to handle the video playback for the premiere of "Happiness Machine" by the world-reknowned Klangforum Wien last night in Stuttgart, Germany. The piece conisted of ten short films by women filmmakers scored by ten female composers, interspersed with monologues performed by members of the ensemble.

Overall, Isadora provided nearly three hours of continuous video playback over 22 scenes, and performed perfectly.

All of this was done on a recently purchased Mack Book Pro running Mojave.

Best Wishes,
Mark

Additional Technial Details

Isadora is not only sending the films themselves to the main beamer, but also sending a synchronized recording of the conductor to 30+ tiny monitors mounted on the music stands of the performers, allowing them to stay in sync with the film. This was accomplished by creating one movie (3000 x 1080 px); the left portion consisting of the full 1920x1080 film, the right had a smaller recording of the conductor. Two Chopper actors were used split the image and those outputs were fed to the beamer (main film) and the 30 mini-monitors.

Each movie had three tracks of audio: two containing additional backing sounds for each film and the third sending audio timecode (LTC) to the audio conrol system. The audio output was handled by a MOTU Ultra Light USB audio card.

At the request of some of the filmmakers, we even did some last minute color correction using the HSL Adjust and Contrast Adjust actors.

Juriaan

@mark

Do you also have a photo of those tiny monitors ? And amazing work !

mark

@juriaan

I don't... but if you like, I can contact the technical director of the Klangforum and find out what he used.

Best Wishes,
Mark

deflost

hello.

three tracks of audio?

would it work on windows also?

r.h.

Fred

@deflost yes there are several posts about this, I have done 8 tracks of audio embedded in a hap AVI file using direct show playback.

deflost

..maybe, there are some freaky workarounds, but the real problem is, that professional audio cards on windows need asio drivers.

so maybe in 3.0 we can use isadora also for tricky audio stuff, till now it is absolutly not possible to work with serious audio setups on windows.

r.h.

fifou

Hi Mark,

Great work !

How did you achieve playing 3 audio tracks with AVFoundation engine ?

I though it was only possible by using the old Quicktime engine..

Best

Philippe

mark

@fifou said:

How did you achieve playing 3 audio tracks with AVFoundation engine ?

You need to make the channel assignments in the movie using the OLD QuickTime Player 7. (Open movie, choose Window > Show Movie Properties, click the audio track, and then click the Audio Settings tab.)

Then, you follow these instructions:

1) Plug the Audio Device into your Mac

2) Open Apple's Audio Midi Setup in /Applications/Utilities

3) You should see the audio device in the list on the left.

4) Right click the audio device that will serve as the output and choose "Use this Device for Sound Output" from the popup menu. The device should now have a speaker icon near its name.

5) Click the button that says "Configure Speakers"

6) At the top of the Window that appears, click "Multichannel" and then chose "5.1 Surround" from the popup menu to the right

7) Below each speaker in the speaker diagram is a popup menu. When you click on it, you will see a list of all the channels for the audio device. (The device in this example, Soundflower, has 64 channels. Your device will probably have 4, 8 or 16.)

8) Ensure the following:

The Left Front speaker is set to output 1

The Right Front speaker is set to output 2

The Center speaker is set to output 3

etc.

9) Close Audio Midi Setup. You're done.

Marci

Watching with interest... been out of the game for a while and just dropped in to catchup - curious to see the NiTE / Kinect side of it all!

topherbb

As always, thank you Mark and the Isadora team for the hard work. Looking forward to the new features in v3. This was posted about six months ago, have there been any more updates since then? I've got a project coming up over the summer and it would be nice to know if this will be available by then.

Thanks,

-Topher

mark_m

@topherbb

Did you see this?
https://community.troikatronix...
Looks like you should be good to go with Isadora 3 this summer.