Comments on: First impressions of Arkaos GrandVJ 1.2 beta

By: matt.beghin

matt.beghin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:04:48 +0000

Interessant post, some comments:

- “So to spell it out: In GrandVJ you donâ€™t get a red dog with a blur unless you have it as a clip.”

You can, using two layers. And you can assign two layers to the same controller or keyboardd key and define the target layer, so until you need the 8 layers…

- Quartz Composer: “On the other hand you donâ€™t get direct access to tweak parameters of your QC file as you can do in VDMX.”

You can control 4 parameters if you set the composition as an effect, but not if you use it as a source visual simlpy drag&dropping it like a MOV or video file.

- “Also stability of the software was a topic not covered. Would be unfair to try and test that with a beta version.”

From my experience, both apps are very stable.

- Not covered by the article:

More movie formats are supported in GrandVJ
Multi-screen is more advanced in Modul8

To me both softwares are very different. I know GrandVJ better and understand its potential and efficiency. As well I saw Modul8 working in very widescreen or multi-screen environements and understood how easier it was than doing this with GrandVJ.
Modules programming is very interresting in Modul8 while GrandVJ offers customization through Flash programming, effects programming and Quartz Composer…

By: Aurelio Ramos

Aurelio Ramos — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:39:19 +0000

I have to make a correction to your comparison. It is in fact possible to apply more than one effect to a video clip in grandVJ. But in order to do so, you would have to load effects on any number of cells (without visuals) and then trigger the effects after or simultaneously with the cell that contains the actual visual being effected. Interestingly, the order in which effects are applied is dependent on the order in which the cells are activated. To do this you have to carefully set your priorities for the visual tab of all the cells involved, even those that have no visual, I can’t remember exactly the correct setting of the top of my head since I am a newbie.

Thanks for your well informed report and perspective!

By: Udart

Udart — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:39:15 +0000

You’re right. I have a hunch that GrandVJ has a bigger footprint, the fan on my Macbook Pro seemed to start when running simple clips on a couple of layers, something that I don’t see happening in Modul8. But I kind of shied away from the topic as there might be some configuration options in GrandVJ that I might have missed.

Also stability of the software was a topic not covered. Would be unfair to try and test that with a beta version.

By: Marc Nostromo

Marc Nostromo — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:23:36 +0000

Seems like a fair deal, comparison wise.. only one aspect seems to be missing from the comparison and it’s performance.. have you tried to see when both hit the wall and start lagging playing heavy clips at high resolution ?

I think it’d be an interesting aspect to cover.
M.