Forum: VirtualDJ Plugins - Topic: Essential Media beta - Page: 1

Essential Media is a free upgrade and replacement for Essential Flash.

It's called Essential Media now since it does a lot more than just flash.

It has support for a varietly of movie types, camera, in addition to SWF and FLV files.

The accepted movies types are:

SWF, FLV, F4V, WMV, AVI, ASF, CDG, MOV, MP4, M4V, MKV, VOB, TS, OGV, 3GP, and DIVX

Some advantages of EM are:

o - Full support for SWF, FLV, and AVI alpha channel. CDG files are converted to alpha channel on the fly.

o - Smooth and accurate playback

o - Never pauses the display for any reason

o - up to 48 movies or SWFs are available for immediate selection

o - Sequental, Random, or manual playback

o - just rename the DLL and all parameters go with that

The Essential Media installer is here:

http://sms.pangolin.com/temp/EssentialMediaSetup.exe

My email is listed next to the Author in the plugin information area. Feel free to make suggestions, comments, or email me.

Read the help in EM for additional information.

One known issue is with the Denon MC6000 controller. I would to know your experience with this controller and if you would like to help me trouble shoot the issue, please contact me. My email is displayed in the plugin information area.

Don, this is a really cool plugin. I'm so proud for being honored to test this piece of art. Now you can forget everything about CDG extraction in 3 steps ;-))), because EM works really excellent. Here some pic showing mp3+g file playing with visualization from other instance of the plugin. Just unreal stuff, congrats!

[link removed]

Thanks wallter, I very much appreciate your input.

Just a note on CDG files. They also play just fine without an assoicated mp3 file. They are sort of a like a poor man's SWF file. There are lots for generators for CDG files and they can be used however you want.

EM fixes a problem with SWF's not being able to access external files in Essential Flash. This was because Flash could not find them but I was able to work around this. Now you can use XML to control your SWF files.

Thanks Don, Great work, lookin' real good...

Joey...

I'm not really sure what are CDG generators, but just tried an SWF file connected with an XML file and it works great. Here it is:

http://www.mediafire.com/?dvs685xj4lxldvz

You can edit the text from XML file with notepad and show it in real time clicking on 'Replay' button inside the plugin, refreshing it immediately. I'll try to mess with Flashoid for a while, thanks for this joy ;-) Guess there'll be some changes in my 'notorious' comparision table in my thread...

Thank you Joey,

Wallter, I was talking about something like Karaoke Builder Studio which gives you a lot of flexibility on how you can create a CDG file. Thinking maybe if some had tools like this already they could be used to create some simple displays but at low resolution. Just a thought that CDG files don't have to be used for just karaoke but these will never be as good as SWF files.

http://sms.pangolin.com/temp/cdgsample.png

Here's a pacman cdg file:

http://sms.pangolin.com/temp/pacman.cdg

Nice demo for using XML wallter.

Now I got you... No, CDG files will never be as good as SWF's, I'm working on my first SWF karaoke file made with Aleosoft software, and it's premiere will be on EM, I promise you... Your plugin deserves it, it's so good... But, I'm still on sunny island, those goddamned DJ's are coming all the time, nagging like a children... I'll make it as fast as I could...

Great Job!

Is my Second screen Output longer on the whishlist, o should we discuss about it here on topic???


Some Karaoke Guys will change to VDJ if this is possible too!

Thanks Lucky,

I did say I would think about that 2nd screen option. I will consider it. At the moment I can't think of anything that might be a problem with it outside of time, but we shall see. It would be good to see a discussion of this to see what others think.

Following up with another XML example, this is a sample countdown.swf. It's currently pretty weak but I will improve it and allow you to have serveral parameters.

It uses XML for customization but the only thing you can customize right now is the movie.

The zip contains 3 files: countdown.swf, countdown.xml, and fireworks.flv.

I have the countdown start at 10 seconds and then it will launch the movie. When movie is complete it retarts for this demo. This is temporary and you will be able to enter dates, backdrop images, and other things.

So imagine its New Year's. What happens at midnight ? All hell breaks loose doesn't it :)

Just unzip and put countdown.swf in Essential Media.

http://sms.pangolin.com/temp/Countdown.zip

Here's a cute little (6 kb) flash visualizer for EM:

[link removed]

Unzip it and add an MP3 file renamed to just 'song' to it's folder. Start VDJ, enable EM and load wallterizer.swf over it. Hope you have some nice big screen to enjoy it...

Very Sweet Wallter !!

make sure mp3 is named song.mp3

I have put up beta 18. The previous one was beta 17.

This only addresses an issue with SWF thumbnail generation. With the wallterizer.swf it was taking way to long.

Beta 18 fixes it. Download it here:

http://sms.pangolin.com/temp/EssentialMedia.zip

I have put up beta 20. The previous public beta was beta 18.

beta 20 adds a time period for SWF's to play when running in auto or random play modes. This time period can be set from 10 to 60 seconds and this setting is in the options tab.

SWF's in general, don't have a clearly defined end time like movies do so thats the reason for the timer.

http://sms.pangolin.com/temp/EssentialMedia.zip

Just keeps getting better all the time!!

Great job & Thanks
Huey

beta 21 has been put up.

o - fixes a problem where some mpeg2 style files (VOB etc) were not playing on some machines.

o - fixes a problem where in some rare cases, movies would stop playing.

o - adds some enhanced support for some special SWF files

http://sms.pangolin.com/temp/EssentialMedia.zip

new to this essential media beta forum ..done some testing on my desktop and found that audio in movie clips cant be muted always plays over song playing on vdj is there a way mute sound on media beta...,also read somewere in other forum issue with denon mc6000 with media beta ,could you specified issues so i cant test my mc6000 to see if i can simulate problem

Hi QUEWHAT,

The speaker icon in the upper right is a mute on/off button. It should mute your movies. If it doesn't let me know but it should not be a problem.

Yes most interested in your MC6000 experience. What I am seeing with the only user I have tested with is some kind of interference with that controller. I don't know if it's the mapper file or what. Just strange. When he unplugs the controller all is good. Please email me for more information. My email is listed in the plugin information area just to left of the plugin next to Author. When you email me let me know it's from QUEWHAT :)

I am loving this plugin. I am still messing around with it and coming up with endless possibilities on how to utilise this plugin. I will licence the plugin soon. Scott (SBDJ) mentioned in his freestyler thread something about controlling plugins attributes in the near future. His words were “You won't have to worry about that soon - you will be able to control those things directly from VDJ as shortcuts - so keyboard, MIDI and skin”. Any idea on when it would become available and would we be able to select a specific box eg: bank 1 Window 1. I would like to purchase an external controller to help speed things up as I work on my own and need to execute things quickly. I am already using The Denon midi controller and it would be great to have something like the X-Keys (www.ymouse.com/xkeys.php) to extend the use of plugins such as this.