Ha, thanks for the response Douglas, glad you had such a good time not getting into the app 'racket'. :-)
Perhaps it's less about commercial/non commercial, and more about the reasons behind releasing something open source, and differing ideas of what software is for and what it should look and act like. Of course programmers can take this source and improve upon it, I hope they do. For myself as an end-user, unfortunately I'm faced with some potentially useful software that I can't access because I don't know how to compile from sources, plus I have bad luck when running command line apps. As someone who works with technology a lot, I could do some research, some trial and error and work this out. To be honest, I don't think I should have to, perhaps that makes me a lazy user, and not part of the audience you released it for. Even though I've done quite a lot of (web) programming, I *like* apps I can drag and drop to install. I like iTunes sync, and AutoComplete, and interfaces so intuitive you don't need a manual. IMHO it's precisely the aspects that aren't part of any 'feature set' - how easy it is to install, how easy to use, how well documented, the support community etc - that make some open source software a joy to use (Audacity, VLC) and others frustrating (Gimp, Open Office). This video software is a little different in that it needs quite specific hardware, which sets up a somewhat niche audience (somewhere between the solitaire playing general public and oil refineries running siemens software). So perhaps it's not a typical example, and the people with the tech savvy needed to install video cards also know about Gstreamer pipelines. It seems a little strange, you don't want to maintain 'boring software' and want to do new things, but are willing to repeatedly setup the same software in person over and over again. Of course there's a social element there I can understand, but I would think most 'freeing' would be making it so dead simple to install and use you never hear from users. :-) Best, Luke On 12 August 2011 13:00, Julian Oliver <[email protected]> wrote: > This is great work Douglas. Mind if I fwd it to a list that would appreciate > it > greatly? > > Julian > > ..on Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 05:13:06PM +1200, Douglas Bagnall wrote: >> A few months ago I wrote some software to show synchronised video on >> multiple screens for Leilani Kake's Ngā Hau e Whā at Fresh Gallery. >> It is called Opo. >> >> Since then, almost every video artist I meet says that they once tried >> to do synchronised video which the gallery thought they could sync by >> pressing play on all the DVD players at the same time, but in every >> case the video drifted apart and was ruined and embarrassing. >> >> Meanwhile all the gallery technicians talk about expensive solutions, >> using DVD players that link up or other specialised hardware or >> gazillion dollar Mac software. >> >> Opo is free. All you need is a computer with multiple video outputs >> (like 4 or 6 or maybe even 8), or for heaps of screens, corresponding >> heaps of computers with multiple video outputs. Apart from the extra >> video cards, they are ordinary computers: after the show it can go in >> the office for normal stuff like accounts or solitaire or whatever. >> The Ngā Hau e Whā computer had 4 video outputs and cost $600. >> >> An advantage of this method over DVD players is that you aren't >> restricted to an archaic video format designed for 1990s analogue TVs. >> You can tune your video to suit the projectors (which probably means >> 1024x768 non-interlaced, unless you hire the 1280x720 ADA/Physics Room >> projectors). >> >> It can be a bit fiddly to set up though. So if you want to use Opo >> and aren't too sure about compiling C or testing Gstreamer pipelines, >> you might be best to get the gallery to hire me to do it. >> >> There are websites here http://halo.gen.nz/opo/ and here >> http://repo.or.cz/w/opo.git. >> >> The name references the Video Whale project, which used Gstreamer to >> synchronise video for a video wall in 2002. >> >> http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/apps/videowhale.html >> >> Video technology has changed quite a bit since then, not all for the >> better, so Opo has to do a few things differently. >> >> Douglas >> _______________________________________________ >> Ada_list mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/ > > -- > Julian Oliver > http://julianoliver.com > _______________________________________________ > Ada_list mailing list > [email protected] > http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/ _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
