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What is the big deal with Video Slave?

Hey guys - 2 Questions:

1. I'm looking to run Video Slave on a new Mac Mini as my slave computer. Any advice on how much RAM should be on the slave? Does it need RAM upgrades or just a basic setup is fine?

2. In regards to Video Slave vs Pro Tools - @charlieclouser I like how you say you dont even need to send quicktimes to your directors etc.. But what about situations where you will be recording live orchestra (or any other recordings... or when you are not sending the music straight from your computer to the production team)? Do you or anyone else have experience using Video Slave before recording? It seems as if using PT would be easier, because then your stems, mockups, etc are all ready in PT, ready for the recordings... Or is it cleaner to just use Video Slave and then set up fresh orchestral recording sessions in PT and just snap everything to their proper time codes?

Thanks!
 
Hey guys - 2 Questions:

1. I'm looking to run Video Slave on a new Mac Mini as my slave computer. Any advice on how much RAM should be on the slave? Does it need RAM upgrades or just a basic setup is fine?

I've never tested it on a Mac Mini, but I'm constantly impressed at how light and efficient it feels. I've run it on several computers, from a mac pro to a laptop. I'm guessing as long as you have your video on an SSD, it will work just fine. I've never had any resource limitation issues with VS.
 
I run VideoSlave on a 2012 Mac Mini with 16 RAM and 512 SSD. Total overkill for what it needs. I use Apple's Network MIDI capabilities in CoreMIDI to send MTC from my Logic machine over to the VideoSlave machine over Cat5 ethernet. Works flawlessly.

Not sure how to answer your second question. I don't use VideoSlave to prepare Quicktimes although it can certainly do this, and might be better / faster / easier than doing it from your DAW, depending on what DAW you use. In terms of "using VideoSlave before recording", uhh... not sure what that means. I just use it to save me the hassle of importing the movie into every single cue in my main DAW, but in some cases I do import the movie into Logic or ProTools, to verify sync, get super-precise about placing some events, or whatever. If I was going to do some outside recording I'd prepare a ProTools session that had my mockup stems, an audio version of my click track, any temp or reference tracks, as well as the video directly inside the ProTools session since they probably won't have a spare VideoSlave machine at the studio. So it's not an either / or situation. Use VideoSlave at home to make things quicker when switching between cues and lighten the load on your main DAW, but stick the video inside your DAW as the situation requires.
 
I run VideoSlave on a 2012 Mac Mini with 16 RAM and 512 SSD. Total overkill for what it needs. I use Apple's Network MIDI capabilities in CoreMIDI to send MTC from my Logic machine over to the VideoSlave machine over Cat5 ethernet. Works flawlessly.

Not sure how to answer your second question. I don't use VideoSlave to prepare Quicktimes although it can certainly do this, and might be better / faster / easier than doing it from your DAW, depending on what DAW you use. In terms of "using VideoSlave before recording", uhh... not sure what that means. I just use it to save me the hassle of importing the movie into every single cue in my main DAW, but in some cases I do import the movie into Logic or ProTools, to verify sync, get super-precise about placing some events, or whatever. If I was going to do some outside recording I'd prepare a ProTools session that had my mockup stems, an audio version of my click track, any temp or reference tracks, as well as the video directly inside the ProTools session since they probably won't have a spare VideoSlave machine at the studio. So it's not an either / or situation. Use VideoSlave at home to make things quicker when switching between cues and lighten the load on your main DAW, but stick the video inside your DAW as the situation requires.

Excellent! Thank you @charlieclouser, I appreciate the response :)
 
I've never tested it on a Mac Mini, but I'm constantly impressed at how light and efficient it feels. I've run it on several computers, from a mac pro to a laptop. I'm guessing as long as you have your video on an SSD, it will work just fine. I've never had any resource limitation issues with VS.
Thanks!
 
UPDATE: I successfully am running Video Slave on a Mac Mini and everything seems to be working great while connecting to Logic on my master computer (iMac).

Here's what's working, and then I'll ask a couple questions:

1. Very simple to set up and connect MTC/MMC so when I press play in Logic, or click around on the Logic time line, Video Slave (on the slave computer) syncs up perfect.

2. To connect MIDI - I needed no extra ethernet switches as I have an ethernet cable going out of my Master iMac to my internet router, and a separate ethernet cable going out of my Slave Mac Mini to the same internet router. The router acts as a switch, so no extra hardware is needed. Easy!

3. How I got audio working: I have a 3.5 mm audio cable coming out of the headphones jack on the Mac Mini (like @charlieclouser). I have it going into Input 1 on my Apogee Duet (with a 3.5mm to 1/4" adapter). In Apogee Maestro (their software) I have the Input 1 routed directly to my speakers, bypassing my DAW completely. So I have volume control of my Slave via Input 1 right on my desk. And then my DAW is still routed out independently on the Master iMac. Both audio signals going to the Apogee Duet and then to the speakers. Very simple. Works perfect.


NOW QUESTIONS (as I'm still debating using this or Pro Tools for video sync and printing audio to time code):

1. Video Slave on the slave computer has no audio coming from my master computer. Whatever I do in Logic, stays in Logic (isn't that the saying??) In order to get audio over to Video Slave, I have to bounce my cue in Logic, then drag the audio file over the network to the slave computer. Then import that audio file to Video Slave. Now, there is no automatic Time Code syncing of this audio file in Video Slave. This concerns me, because isn't that the entire point of this program? So without checking the exact start time (time code) of the cue in Logic, Video Slave does not know where to place this audio file. I can imagine once a project starts and there are 87 cues with different start times, we will need a SNAP TO TIME CODE feature here.
Looks Like Pro Tools can do this. Watch here from 6:56 .

2. Exporting video. I think there is still value and need to export a video that contains the composer's new music on it to send to clients (Director, producer, etc) for them to preview. Right now it seems as if there is no "Export Current Events" or "Export Selected Media" or something like that. It wants to export until the complete end of the time line, which could be an hour or more long. You can manually type in the time code where you want it to end the export, but it would be helpful to be able to export a selection, or all available media.

That's it! Would love other's feedback.
 
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UPDATE: I successfully am running Video Slave on a Mac Mini and everything seems to be working great while connecting to Logic on my master computer (iMac).

Here's what's working, and then I'll ask a couple questions:

1. Very simple to set up and connect MTC/MMC so when I press play in Logic, or click around on the Logic time line, Video Slave (on the slave computer) syncs up perfect.

2. To connect MIDI - I needed no extra ethernet switches as I have an ethernet cable going out of my Master iMac to my internet router, and a separate ethernet cable going out of my Slave Mac Mini to the same internet router. The router acts as a switch, so no extra hardware is needed. Easy!

3. How I got audio working: I have a 3.5 mm audio cable coming out of the headphones jack on the Mac Mini (like @charlieclouser). I have it going into Input 1 on my Apogee Duet (with a 3.5mm to 1/4" adapter). In Apogee Maestro (their software) I have the Input 1 routed directly to my speakers, bypassing my DAW completely. So I have volume control of my Slave via Input 1 right on my desk. And then my DAW is still routed out independently on the Master iMac. Both audio signals going to the Apogee Duet and then to the speakers. Very simple. Works perfect.


NOW QUESTIONS (as I'm still debating using this or Pro Tools for video sync and printing audio to time code):

1. Video Slave on the slave computer has no audio coming from my master computer. Whatever I do in Logic, stays in Logic (isn't that the saying??) In order to get audio over to Video Slave, I have to bounce my cue in Logic, then drag the audio file over the network to the slave computer. Then import that audio file to Video Slave. Now, there is no automatic Time Code syncing of this audio file in Video Slave. This concerns me, because isn't that the entire point of this program? So without checking the exact start time (time code) of the cue in Logic, Video Slave does not know where to place this audio file. I can imagine once a project starts and there are 87 cues with different start times, we will need a SNAP TO TIME CODE feature here.
Looks Like Pro Tools can do this. Watch here from 6:56 .

2. Exporting video. I think there is still value and need to export a video that contains the composer's new music on it to send to clients (Director, producer, etc) for them to preview. Right now it seems as if there is no "Export Current Events" or "Export Selected Media" or something like that. It wants to export until the complete end of the time line, which could be an hour or more long. You can manually type in the time code where you want it to end the export, but it would be helpful to be able to export a selection, or all available media.

That's it! Would love other's feedback.


1. Yeah I noticed this too, I think drag and drop is the only way. I have a PC for composing and mac mini as video slave for films. In the PC I've set up Quick Access links on the left of File Explorer as places to dump bounces for Video Slave, and the same bounces folder setup on the left in Finder on the mac - so that it's fairly quick to get those files in. Regarding snapping to Time Code, perhaps you could copy and paste the Logic Timecode into the bounced filename, then try and copy and paste that into Video Slave for the start time. I'm not doing any films right at this moment, and I'm fairly new to video slave, so there might be someone out there with a better solution.

2. For video export, it seems you would have to find a way to copy and paste in the start and end time of your desired video preview. Perhaps a method could be... have an empty .txt document open, move the cursor to desired start time in Video Slave, copy, paste in txt, move to desired end time, paste in txt, then move these times into the Export Active Timeline thing. I wonder if there's a "copy current timecode" shortcut.. maybe you could write a macro for this...
Another alternative is to use Open Broadcast Software, fullscreen the video, and just capture that display. Has to be done in realtime, but result should be good.
 
NOW QUESTIONS (as I'm still debating using this or Pro Tools for video sync and printing audio to time code):

1. Video Slave on the slave computer has no audio coming from my master computer. Whatever I do in Logic, stays in Logic (isn't that the saying??) In order to get audio over to Video Slave, I have to bounce my cue in Logic, then drag the audio file over the network to the slave computer. Then import that audio file to Video Slave. Now, there is no automatic Time Code syncing of this audio file in Video Slave. This concerns me, because isn't that the entire point of this program? So without checking the exact start time (time code) of the cue in Logic, Video Slave does not know where to place this audio file. I can imagine once a project starts and there are 87 cues with different start times, we will need a SNAP TO TIME CODE feature here.


UPDATE - Flo (creator of VS) just updated it with this feature! Thank you!!
 
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