Re: Video Visualization in Windows Media Player activated by audio

["Dennis Moser" <sinsofmachaut@gmail.com>]

Per,

*GRIN ... thanks!

"IN THEORY" (*grin), you should be able to do exactly as you describe, i.e., run Nicecast on a machine, run iTunes on the same machine and point it to the Nicecast local host/local server at IP 127.0.0. There is a possibility of a performance hit, but then I haven't tried this simply because I actually had the (relative) luxury of having a separate machine to run the software on ... as soon as the project I am running in the background right now is finished I will try this and see how well it works. Well, all of that and the fact that if I have things running on separate machines I can actually test things more easily ... if that makes sense to you!

Likewise, your first scenario of using two machines with an ethernet cable should also work (BUT you MUST use a proper ethernet cable, an ethernet crossover cable, to get that to work properly. As you describe it, it would probably be better to a.) have each machine have a unique IP address, rather than trying to point iTunes to the "local host IP" of 127.0.0 since iTunes would look for that on the machine in which it was running, rather than the one running Nicecast and b.) have them on the same subnet ... basically, you could create a "sub-net" with unique IP addresses such as 10.0.0.1, etc., and point to them to each other that way). We have five dedicated IP addresses, two of which are dedicated to my production machine (G5) and my streaming server (G4); the wife and I use the subneted wireless network for our laptops, so that I do have 2 more IP addresses to spare, should I ever need (read=afford the computers!) to use them.

To exand on what Per and I are gettng at: There are clearly a number of tools and approaches that can be used to do this. Some of them may work better if you can parse out the "heavy lifting" on separate machines, but the tools are there and we should be sharing our experiences by describing what we use and how its set up to get the effects. The Vimeo site that Todd set up is certainly a good place to share the outputs ...

Later!

Dennis

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Dennis Moser <sinsofmachaut@gmail.com> wrote:
> Okay ... some data points, rather than speculation:
>
> 1. iTunes can handle live audio feeds. I do this on a regular basis whenever
> I perform in Second Life. Granted, I am using two computers (well, actually
> three if you count the one I am using to run my Second Life client, but for
> purposes of this discussion you COULD do it with one). Probably the most
> straight forward way of  doing this is to use iTunes and a NiceCast.
> NiceCast would be your "broadcast server" that would provide a stream that
> iTunes would recoginze as a "radio" station. Nicecast can be configured to
> just be a "local host" (127.0.0.0) server, so you may need to do some
> fiddling in telling iTunes how to find it. I'm fortunate enough to have an
> old, heavily upgraded G4 Mac that I use as a separate server.

Dennis,

That's a brilliant idea! Thank you for posting such valuable
information. Do you think it would be possible to run the NiceCast
server on the audio looping MacBook and cable an ethernet line into a
PowerBook that runs iTunes + the Magnetosphere visualiser?

But if it is possible I would prefer to run the NIceCast server on the
same machine that runs the iTuens vis. That would mean iTunes has to
connect to an "internet radio" link that is local, on the same
machine. I wonder if that can be done? (will read up on NiceCast in a
minute...)

I think Magnetosphere (iTunes 8) may look interesting if someone is
VJ'ing it by pressing the F key now and then to put it into freeze
mode during certain algorithms.

Another alternative would be to use a visualizing Windows machine and
buy a license for the Windows application Audio Visualisaton
Screensaver. It comes bundled with all those Sonique visual plug-ins
that I think are a bit cooler in some aspects (Jazz, Acidpunk, Cosmic
Belt and some more). I must say, I was very happy this morning to find
that at least someone did realize in time (before the buy-out and
turn-down) the value of Sonique 1.96. The URL to download is
http://www.3delite.hu/Audio%20Visualisation%20Screen%20Saver/index.html
and the USD 25 license is picked up at
http://www.shareit.com/programs.html?productid=300186562.

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Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)
www.myspace.com/perboysen
www.stockholm-athens.com

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