Nope. The jumpy waveforms cannot be fixed by getting a new machine. It's a software thingy-thing.

My waveforms only jump sometimes...More stress, more likely to jump. I am running output on high and latency as low as it goes though. I have the newest 2.8 17".

I do hate the only digital output though.

This is an external video card...not a new machine, not software based.

Or are you saying that the jumpywave forms are an VSL thing and not anything to do with the output of the mac?

My wave forms jump only when I touch the control vinyl or the cue keys...which is quite a lot, and I would assume a lot for most djs....

Get a PC























pulls pin, and runs.

Yes, get a PC and have a complete failure of audio / video where all your customers can see it...instead of just jerky waveforms that do not harm and only you can see.




















Scoops up the live grenade and throws it back at Joshua Carl and ducks. :)

I cooked it.
ur dead.

hahahahahhahha.

lol

Yo guys stop throwing the PC Vs. Mac grenade.... Just tell the guy to stop looking at the wave from and use his ears. Remember the days when you had to use your ears to dj? Any One? Or am I the only one that dose not look at the wavefroms? But on the PC Vs. Mac thing I am MAC all the way to the bank!

Sorry, its not just a waveform thing, i think its just a symptom. Not only are my wave forms jumpy, but even while cueing with the vinyl, it skips around (not just the waveforms but the audio as well), its annoying. It makes me nervous thinking that something isn't right. Add to that, if this piece works as expected, I can go back to use the DVI to VGA or DVI to Composite, and reduce the amount of cables coming out of the damn computer. This seems like a simpler solution. Anyways, I ordered it and I will report back. If it doesn't work how I want it to, I only lose the shipping money...

djbigboy: I might be able to help you.

What model of Unibody MacBook Pro do you have?
How much ram do you have?
When you have the jumpee wavefroms do you have your power cable pluged in?

There are very import questions...

Sorry about the spelling there.....

I have the Feb 2010 version of the unibody. 4g of ram, everything on the up and up. Power cable is always plugged in. the problems don't start until i plug in the mini display port. When I do audio only, it runs flawlessly, no latency, no problems...

When I plug in the mini display port, instant problems. Last week I even had VSL stop working and go into that "ignore or retry" mode which wouldn't go away.

Keep in mind, I had a pre unibody macbook pro that ran all the same videos flawlessly for over a year I am still a mac newbie, but it was all good until my mac got stolen. If the digital output was the issue, using this USB external graphics card might be the solution...

ok here is one more question:

Are you going mini display port to VGA or DVI?

Also are you using a Apple cable or a mono price cable?

sheeit. I have the cheap mini display port cable.

I got mini display port to usb adaptor powered converter. Just a regular pc to tv converter. Sometimes I use VGA, sometimes composite sometimes s video.

The video quality is all whack too, another reason why I want to avoid the converter.

Already out the door to get a proper minidisplay port cable...

Do the waveforms still jump if you turn the output quality in VSL down?

It happens to me as well but it hast to be a stress thing. Output on high, latency as low as it gets, effect on, transition on, both needles on the record, different encoded videos.

Yep - its on medium. It gets worse when on high. I have messed with all of the settings, nothing seems to work. Optimally right now, for video, I load my video, beat match asap, stop touching the tt's, and only mix when I am ready, i try not to over cue (if thats possible). Scratching doesn't really work, because I feel like scratchlive is losing its place in the waveform, so say I start scratching at the beginning of the sound...doing the same baby scratch over and over, i feel like its moving...I guess that doesn't make any sense....same baby scratches on audio only, sound tight and responsive....

ERGH....I would gladly trade for a preunibody with the same specs as my new macbook pro....I am so annoyed. You spend XXXX amount of money on a newer machine and it has so many issues....2nd nature is in town this weekend, I think I may have him take a peek at it and say wtf...

any chance its a certain version of quicktime?

I know there have been issues across the board with certain releases.
maybe a roll back to an earlier version

My unibody works better than my old one and I had and that was the highest model (I believe 2.66). I can run my unibody on HIGH output and even get the 1 for latency.

Josh - interesting idea - I am using the most current version....I actually had worse luck with video until I updated some stuff...but thats worth checking into....

I think like many people, I am just grasping at straws at this point...its just too frustrating...

Big boy we should iChat or something where I look through your mac. See whats under the hood and your settings. You shouldnt be having that massive of problems.

I have the 2..66 version I believe....

Big Boy ---- load your exact computer specs to your profile. It makes it easy for others to help

Gladly - now if I could just have my computer with my 24/7. my ichat is under aim, does that matter? jeremybass, we should set up a time, cuz I never get on ichat....

haha that was my original computer, I will try to do that in a bit...

question.
in the unibodys they have nvidia 8700s right?

do they still work off a driver system, or is it a "this is it, the 1 driver you will need"
for Macs..

I know with that particular card, on the PC side the driver is EVERYTHING.

dif on mac. no driver needed

Yeah I rarely use iChat anymore either. Let me see what my name is and maybe we can set up a time soon.

djbigboy were did you get the cheap mini display port cable from? Cause I had a problem like that to with my imac and it was the cable then I got the real cable Apple and never had a problem again.

I got it from amazon...so not the mono price one, but, it did say after market, so not official apple...

i use the aver quick play and i have problems but not right off the bat. hmmmm i'll look into this and run some test maybe tomorrow.

there have been a firmware upgrade for this... good thinkin Eloy

I have a MBP Unibody 5.1, 2.4GHz, 2 GB RAM

no waveform stutter, even when running camtwist and streaming

Is this what you are talking about?

support.apple.com

if so, wow, thanks! I wonder if it didn't already get downloaded or added into snow leopard

if that firmware update dose not fix your problem I would go and get a new "APPLE" mini display to VGA cable.

Wow i have had this same problem since day one with my unibody MBP, its makes it ridiculously hard to set cue points sometimes because it randomly jumps or slides.

My video settings are medium, i tried new records, new needles, calibrating, talking and meeting up with other ssl users. Everytime i meet up with them and they tried my setup the issue went away, I didnt think that it was VSL separately............. Now I found it happens when i turn the video plugin on. All my SSL non VSL friends kept telling me my records were too light, hands were too heavy etc etc.

I hope this firmware upgrades fixes it :).

I assume this is the case, but you're setting the MBP to use the Higher Performance graphics card right?

McMike: huh? You can set it to use the higher performance graphics card?

Yea mine is set on higher performance. I will do a test later to see if the issue is still there on battery saver mode.

Its in system preferences under energy saver. HIgher performance uses the better vid card. Battery saver uses the other.

thanks for the headsup, did not know that....

it may already be set tho...

Let us know if that helps or fixes it

We need to link up for sure. That's basics homey. I bet I can get your machine runnin near perfect (as long as your videos are encoded proper).

that'd be awesome - except I am watching SSL forums at work...so it would have to be at night...

Yeah...I would have to be at home as well. No iChat at the office aka real job.

I forgot off hand what my name was on there. I'll shoot you my number to text when we can link up.

update: I wasn't able to do the minidisplay update because the update says it doesn't see the adaptor. So I will be grabbing that one soon....

update 2: Bought official Apple Minidisplay port to VGA. No difference in trying to do firmware update on it, it still says that its not connected...so I dunno...

About the "other" video card, I think mine doesn't have it, this is brand new one month old from the apple store...

so here I am still kinda pissy....what are some tweaks I can do to the mac to make it work better...

I did some tests with the mini display cable plugged in, and the wave forms definitely get noticeably jumpy after its plugged in. I remove it, everything runs smooth...

^to install the update, the adapter needs to be plugged into a tv/monitor

for the "other" video card, go into power settings and choose "higher performance".... rebot and ur off to the races

This will teach you how to Switch to higher performance graphics on MacBook Pro. Thats if the laptop has it. support.apple.com You should also go to About this mac then press More Info, then look under Graphics/Displays and that will tell what you got 100%.

I think my computer is newer. I already tried the update with the adaptor plugged in, power adaptor in, plugged into a monitor...

other video card, there's no option in the power preferences, in fact, they call it energy settings...there's no video option there...

I believe that I only have one graphics card, but I could be wrong I am gonna try to do a screen shot

Screen shots:

yfrog.com

yfrog.com

img232.imageshack.us


img265.imageshack.us

img222.imageshack.us

bigboy you only have the 9400M that's ok how much ram do you have on your computer. Now seeing this it might be a ram problem. Here is more info on the 9400M
9400M-G

* 16 Stream Processors.
* Memory Clock depend on System Memory.
* 64 bit memory interface (single-channel mode) / 128 bit memory interface (dual-channel mode).
* Memory Bandwidth depends on System Memory.
* 3.6 billion texels/s texture fill rate.

What this all means is the 9400M takes some of your system ram to do video work. So if you have 2GB of ram. The 9400M will take 256MB out of your 2GB of system ram and that leaves you with only 1.74GB or 1744MB of System to run apps. You Should be running VSL with your buffer at 2GB. So if you don't have 4GB of system ram this might be your problem right there.

ah shit.... sorry dude I assumed it was 15".... yeah Eloy is right, the 13" has the integrated card

4 gb ram - i read somewhere when someone actually thought it was the type of ram i had

I updated my system profile: www.scratchlive.net

I do have the 15"

This model actually came with 4gb ram installed

bigboy if you want know how much you have 100%. Go to About this mac and it will tell you there.

I don't know what to say about this.... I never seen that be for were waveforms jump on a 15" macbookPro with a 4GB Ram, the 9400M, and you got the right apple cable now... Thats crazy. Here is one more question to throw in the mix: When having the Apple mini display cable in and have that hooked up to your Monitor/Projector/TV, Run SSL but do not run VSL. Do you start to get Waveform Jump? If you do then I would take it in to Apple and have them take a look at it. Also start up SSL then take a MP4 and play it in Quick Time and drag the video to the other screen. Now look at your SSL and see if it's jumping.

It jumps only when the mini display port is plugged in

Then it's time to take it to apple bigboy..... Bitch at there ass!

OK - thx to charlie five, i got more info. We installed some stuff....it appears as though the major jumpiness doesn't start til the plug in is activated. My cpu, temp, memory, all that seem great...but when video is selected, it gets all jacked....so this is leading me to believe there's an issue with the graphics processor....I am thinking I can go and return my computer and get an upgrade....what a pain

by jacked I mean, the CPU usage goes up a lot as well as the temp...

I just installed the update from version 1.01 to 1.03 with no problems. I will see if it fixes anything at tonight's gig and report back.

DJCheLu,

What update did you install?

Gigs over the weekend went well but still having same issues, but I don't think it was AS bad as it was...thanks for everyone's help....

I think I may be trying to trade in this computer for the next up model

The update i did was on the vga apple adapter. I actually didnt notice any of the waveform problems i was having before. But my test wasnt entirely accurate because I also noticed there was a firmware update for my 57sl, which i updated also before the gig. Not sure which one fixed or helped with the problem.

I will do more testing this sat.

Hmm. Been doing a lot of testing today on different settings to not only resolve the occasional waveform jumping and I may, again may have found something.

Big Boy -- Try different transitions. When I was messing around, I found that on certain transitions I was getting the lag as soon as I moved the fader over. If I moved it back just to the left or right the lag went away. Also when I used the transition that just fades the videos I did not get the problem.

interesting. i will give it a go...I am still working on trying to return mine and get one with a different graphics card...

which graphics card is the issue, or is it not graphics card specific?

I am only at this point guessing, I believe its a Nvidia Geforce 9400M

I have gone through reading a lot on the subject. It seems that it could be driver related. I read where some djs have installed bootcamp and update the Nvidia driver and no longer had problems. My issues is trying to update the drive for the mac since these djs are updating a windows driver....