Greetings:
I've been playing with the Gem-0.87 alpha for Linux for a while, here are some random impressions:
1) pix_film works but it's *very* picky about what formats it will
accept. 2) When I switch the input to RGBA things slow down quite a bit. I'm running an 800 MHz Duron with a Voodoo3 AGP card, I realize it's outdated, but should I expect such a significant slowdown ? 3) Is it possible to convert an RGB movie to RGBA via a format converter ? Is there such a thing for Linux ? 4) Performance seems "brittle", i.e., sometimes certain MPEGs will load and play nice, at other times the same files will load but not play. 5) Often when I destroy the GL rendering window Pd will close with this output:
X Error of failed request: BadValue (integer parameter out of range
for operation) Major opcode of failed request: 128 (XFree86-DRI) Minor opcode of failed request: 13 () Value in failed request: 0x2e00004 Serial number of failed request: 36 Current serial number in output stream: 36 [dlphilp@localhost dlphilp]$ pd_gui: pd process exited
Is this a known bug ? 6) pix_movie doesn't seem to work at all. Pd crashes when I try lading an MPEG, and the MOV files that work with pix_film don't display with pix_movie. I get a flickering brownish window during the rendering, but no video. Also, if I try changing the named file in the pix_movie object Pd will often crash.
I realize the release is an alpha-stage version, but I'm already having some great fun with its possibilities. I apologize for my ignorance of things video, I'm learning as I go...
Best regards,
== Dave Phillips
The Book Of Linux Music & Sound at http://www.nostarch.com/lms.htm
The Linux Soundapps Site at http://sound.condorow.net