i disagree to some degree. My friend has a brand new 13" MacBook pro and it runs Serato Video flawlessly on scratchlive. Haven't tested on SDJ yet. A 13" will work it just has to be a newer model. Prob something with Intel Iris Graphics is preferred.

He said serato dj which is a cpu resource hog . Not scratchlive
Smsh some times reading is fundamental before yiu comment . Lol runs and hides

Yiu = you

That's exactly why I mentioned "haven't tested with SDJ yet" sounds like you should read more👌

And it all depends what model computer you have. A brand new 13" MacBook pro could run video on SDJ. Esp due to the new graphics card which is highly advanced. The 13" he had prob wasn't good enough.

Resource issues aside, 15" just seems about as small a screen as I'd want to use for video....I was using 17" MBP's for a few years, and was pretty pissed when they dropped those.

With the 13" MBP's, you're not only suffering from an "integrated" GPU sharing main system memory, you also have only 2 CPU cores instead of 4.

Mine is a 15" MacBook pro and its integrated. If we could get someone in here running a brand new 13" without issue on SDJ running video that'd be great.

As I stated in the original post I was using a 2012 model. I'm sure a newer model is going to have better graphics handling but I would still be cautious about it. I wasn't concerned about the 2012 model when I got it because It did run itch and SSL very well. I never had an issue until I wanted to add effects and record my sets with ME.

i'll probably be interested in looking at a newer 15" in the future but only after I've seen the testing done that says it's suitable for SDJ and recording with ME. Until then this 2012 i7 quad core 8gb 650m-1gb MBP is perfect for me.

An ssd helps out too

My rule of thumb is a MBP with at least 1GB dedicated graphics card although I've seen some people get by with 512MB. I have a 2011 with the radeon 1GB card. I would have preferred NVidia card but I got this one for a good deal.

Just a note for all those constantly running down PC's for use with Serato. I used a 17" Toshiba Satellite for 3 years. Looked just as good as any Macbook I've seen, although its' GPU was in a status of red/yellow for brief milli seconds a handful of times every minute. I didn't expect much more from a GeForce GT 630M which benched at 709.

It did however give me confidence to invest in a real computer. I'm testing an Alienware 15 at the present time while I wait on my order for an Alienware 17.

I've got the 15 maxed in every area possible. Completely disregarded Serato's recommended settings and set everything to "quality" over "performance" on it's GeForce GTX 970M which benches at 5108, the same GPU finally going into the latest 2015 Macbook Pro. All Serato setting set to "best" as well.

Neither my CPU nor GPU begin to show any signs of problem. Video quality is fantastic. Big difference is frame rate. Looks like I'm watching a movie. Incredible. Decided to run Office, go online leave a ton of intensive websites open, download 6 Xtendamix videos, check email, plugged in an external soundcard, ran my old copy of BPM Studio, & opened up the latest episode of "Suits" for fun.....still not a smidgen of a sign of problems.

I'll agree that Mac still has a superior OS, but there's zero reason to be feel chained to their product out of fear. I'd have went Mac as well if I'd have had any experience on one, but I haven't used an Apple since the Apple 2E's we used in high school.

Bottom line is I'm likely sending my Alienware 17 back shortly after it arrives and saving myself $500, although it does come with a GeForce GTX 980M, the best GPU for laptops on the market, benching at 6,907.

It looks like dot matrix compared to ME.

LOL :)

If I had $2500 to piss away, I'd still have two major caveats to buying an Alienware: 1) can't use Mix Emergency. 2) their form factor is so fat compared to MacBook Pros :/

I could see keeping one on my desk at home, but I seriously would not want to haul that thing around venue to venue. What are the cases like now? Are they carbon fiber at least or is it all still plastic?

Yes, I'm sure there's many ultra cool programs designed solely for Mac that Windows users don't have access to. The only point I was making was that it works. I don't read these forums often, but when here every time anyone has a windows based question the level of disrespect is utterly brutal. Case in point the snobbish response to my post.

Forums are intended for users share & pool there knowledge & experience in order to solve problems. If you have nothing to offer in a post, don't respond at all. Not obeying simple forum etiquette discourages users from sharing their problems & more importantly eats up forum space, making finding solutions hard to find; particularly here on the Serato forums which are already embarrassingly bad due to poor moderation.

The post from popnwave is a good example of how one should act online. His/her post addresses the topic & adds valuable information regarding using Serato in an expanded way. I haven't yet heard of MixEmergency so took the time to look into it.

First thing I noticed was it was reviewed well by DJ 2nd Nature, well known for his work with the Ultimix brand of remix services since the 90's. Checking out some of his recent work using ME, I was rather impressed with what I saw.

Back on topic, my original post was intended to note that PC's, particularly those released in the past 3 years & costing just north of $800 can easily run Serato video using performance based settings.

Thanks again popnwave for sharing your experience with ME. I've got a few friends off at Canada's national DJ convention & have asked them to look into this further for me.

You didn't get a snobbish response, you got the simple truth from two of the more experienced people on this forum. The improvement in video quality using ME is not subtle at all, nor is the improvement in efficiency.

Glad your Windows machine works for you. It would be more helpful to know EXACT configuration, since results with video on Windows seem to be extremely configuration-dependent (sometimes among very similar products from the same manufacturers).



These forums aren't heavy-handedly micro-managed the way a lot of forums are. Some, myself included, would say that makes them among the more useful, honest and well-moderated of company-provided forums.

That is was makes the serato forums so great. You get unfilter information from real users.

We are sharing our information. PC's and Video mixing (with serato) are like using a monkey wrench can take off a lug nut. It will "work" but it's not right.

If you got pc use Serato Video, nothing wrong with it at all. As long as the video card supports direct x 11 your solid.

I know this has nothing to do with serato but I go to a karaoke night every once in a while where they use virtual DJ and play videos between singers. The computer looks to be a brand new I7 dell with win 8 and nvidia of some sort (saw the I7 and win 8 stickers on the palm rest) I cringe all the time because at least twice during the night the video just freezes and the audio keeps going. They eventually have to stop the music and go into the settings and do something or re-open VDJ. I'd be so embarrassed if this happened to me during a night and they just brush it off as normal. Kills me...

you blame the operating system or the hardware for that? ever consider it could be the source files? Nah, lets just assume its windows.. bad windows.. beware!

They only use promo only files. I haven't seen their settings though and I don't know what external hardware they are using that may be throwing problems with drivers or whatever. I'm just sharing my concern. I can only go off what I know and I've found that Mac with serato and ME just works and damn well. I have had problems with hardware but I can't blame that on the software. Most of the time a firmware update fixes whatever my problem is. If anyone asks I'm going to suggest Mac and ME instead of serato video due to the fantastic quality I get. I'm not saying not to go with a windows system. By all means if that is what you feel comfortable with then I'm sure you can make it work. In my opinion though for video you're just throwing money away when a reasonable 15" Mac setup can be had for around $1000 if you do some searching.

And I agree that I love this forum because you can have opinions without getting deleted. There will always be fanboys,flamers, and people who think they know everything wherever you go though.

I am totally just busting balls with that post brother, I want to say it really depends on their setup and specs and possibly the way they encoded their files.

The Alienware 15 I'm using is running Windows 8.1 Has an I7 & a dedicated NVIDIA Geoforce 970M as it's GPU.

I've opened the NVIDIA control panel, adjusted option 1 "image setting" to "quality" disregarding every post I've read suggesting this to be set at "performance"

For the second group of options "manage 3d settings" serato dj & serato video have both been customized to use the NVidea card

For the 3rd option "Set PhysX configuration" again the NVidea card has been selected.

Within Serato under "expansion packs" "output quality" has been set to "best".

No other configuarions have been necessary. Works like a charm. I've witnessed dozens of dj's within my community using Macbook Pro's of varying models, including well known touring dj's who host seminars at trade shows regarding dj mixing. Their quality doesn't begin to approach what I'm seeing. Just did a wrap party this past weekend for a well known tv series. Their video editor was very impressed with what he saw. The words "dot matrix" never came out of his mouth.

As mentioned I don't often read or post here. As an avid hockey fan I do spend far too much time on hfboards.hockeysfuture.com

This is an example of a VERY well moderated site, particularly within our own local community of it for the Winnjipeg Jets at hfboards.hockeysfuture.com

6 moderators handle between 4000-20000 (recent Evander Kane trade was a busy day for them) posts daily. People not obeying proper etiquette receive warnings scant minutes after their post. Off topic conversations are moved immediately to areas that are better suited for their conversation with follow up emails immediately to the poster so that they can find their post in it's new thread.

No one gets paid. All volunteer work on a massive scale for every hockey team / league in the world.

Serato is for profit company that could easily do a better job of their forums design & maintenance. Any support query I've ever had takes 4-7 days for a response, always after I've either solved whatever question I had on my own or with the help of a buddy.

A ridiculous assertation when 4 mouse clicks was all it took to have my computer exceed current Macbook Pro's visual output. I play rooms where there are 20 other DJ's all using Macbook Pro's perform. Management noticed immediately the difference in video quality from my PC over their Mac's. This will likely change once the new Macbook pros are released in June of 2015.

Completely disagree. Scouring through scores of pages of fanboys & flamers do nothing to enhance the experience on these forums. With support as mentioned often taking a week for response, users will turn to these forums for help out of necessity.

The few pages I needed when I originally setup my Toshiba Satellite took me me over an hour to find when I performed a wipe on it last year. As a result I bookmarked these pages on my desktop so in the future so I wouldn't have that much time wasted if I ever needed to go back to square one again.

It's a hyperbola to make a point.


You're getting caught up in the "Windows specs are better than Mac specs" line of thinking. You can't compare hardware. A Mac is greater than the sum of its parts. The OS is designed and optimized to work with specific hardware.


It's great that you've managed to optimize your machine and are getting great results. You are the minority.

The problem here is that there is more than one variable at play. Are they using ME or SV? Where do they get their video files from? Are they using HD or SD files? How are they encoded? What are their settings?

The simple fact remains that given the identical HD mp4 file, ME looks better and is less CPU intensive than SV. How well you have your hardware configured is irrelevant.

As for the forum, once you learn to sift through the nonsense, and figure out which threads (and users) to avoid, I do appreciate the honestly and transparency of a forum without edit buttons or moderators that censor posts.

The Pioneer forums, for example, may remove or edit posts where members criticize Pioneer products or point out superior solutions offered by competitors. On this forum, anything goes and for the most part, I think this results in better information for those coming here for information.

Unfortunately, a post like yours may lead people to expect great performance with an Alienware laptop. The reality is that very few users are successful with anything but OSX, including advanced and experienced PC users. This is why people like Code:E and myself jump onto threads like this - not to ridicule or belittle you, but to make sure that the reality of the situation is explained.

Forgive us if we seem 'snobbish', but after years of people making the same "Mac hardware is so far behind argument", it's easy to get impatient, Eepecially when the test of time has shown that most of these users end up trying a Mac and subsequently retract their comments regarding the success of their windows/alienware/linux/Vic20 machines.

So do we have any trusted users in Winnipeg, Canada where James Falk is from ?

It would be very interesting if we could verify all of James Falk's claims as fact or fiction.

All of these locations have hdmi video matrixes assigned to dozens of hd 1080p tv's/ projectors in immediate proximity. I'll shoot a side by side video over the weekend. It'll be my first side by side comparison & look forward to sharing the results.

Most all use Xtendamix, so we'll eliminate the source material variable immediately. I'll try to track down someone using ME as well. Most locations have some form of a 2x3 & 3x3 tv wall, so all three sources should be clearly visible at the same time on camera. I'll try to throw a link up on Sunday.

Whats the name of the Venue ?

Lots of options. Once completed I'll advise.

Lots of options. Once completed I'll advise.

Wow... I wish all the clubs in my area of Florida were that forward thinking to install matrixes on their tv's, and accepting of video that I would be able to say I had "lots of options"

So an update on my Alienware laptop.....

I purchased the 17"model, as originally mentioned, but it was back ordered. Was given the 15" model, a pimping machine in it's own right. Had zero problems as mentioned earlier.

Future Shop closed & my account was moved to Best Buy, where I waited for nearly a month before I could upgrade due to the company changeover. NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS WITH THE 17" model, none of which had nothing to do with Serato, but apparently with Windows 8.1.

Crashes occurred every night at midnight from what appears to be USB failure. All USB Hubs were unchecked so it had nothing to do with settings. Anytime the clock hit midnight the computer "crashed" with the inability to access my Lacie Stark Bladerunner hard drive. System also would not reboot afterwards unless the drive was removed, which also refused to be ejected, so the power and cabling needed to be physically removed for the laptop to restart. Not a great scenario.

Even changing the clock manually to 11:59pm, would result in a crash a minute later, regardless of what the actual time really was. Doing the obvious & changing the time to revolve around my dj set (noon for arguments sake should allow me to play for 12 hours before a USB drop would occur) did nothing to help, rather now it would crash randomly, generally when loading tracks into either Serato deck. Sometimes minutes into a night, other hours in, sometimes not at all.

Thankfully I'm either working in clubs with their own music system in place, or bring along a physical library when this is not the case. As such from an audio perspective noone would have realized any problem existed, but from a video perspective the NHL playoffs would end up on all the tv's until I recovered. Not the worst problem in hockey mad Winnipeg.

Attempts to resolve the problem with Windows 8.1 by changing some bios settings as recommended failed. I gave up & returned the Alienware 17" yesterday with hopes I could getting my 15" back. Sadly no 15" in stock, resulting in me getting the 2014 Macbook Pro Retina.

Zero problems with the Mac. Worked flawlessly all night, essentially plug & play.

That being said, I echo my earlier comments by saying there remains a substantial difference in video quality. The Alienware's with the NVidea 670M (15") & 680M (17") provided vastly superior visuals while using Serato Video / Serato DJ.

I've got the afternoon to tweek the Macbook Pro Retina, but have yet to find anything pertaining to it on the Serato forums. The menu settings listed in the following links don't pertain to the model I'm using.

support.serato.com

support.serato.com

Any other links I should be looking at?

Yep....


Please elaborate. I have nearly the same mac and I get amazing video quality, high resolution and high FPS.

There isn't really any setting on a mac to change. Oh wait what OSX are you running. If you upgraded to 10.10 remove that shit and go back to 10.9, if it came with 10.10 you might be SOL.
The only setting you really need to change is in the power setting where you turn off automatic graphics switching. You did get the 15 with the dedicated video card right? the cheaper 15inch has no dedicated video card and you will get poor performance with it.

My mac has a 2gb 750m which kicks ass. I run ME at 720p and syphon in via the media bank 3 layers of resolume for content when I don't have a video for a track.

Without having you here to observe, the best example would be to play a .mp4 with Windows Media Player. Videos looks killer. I get that level of quality using the Alienware's. I never used the debug feature, so have no specs to shoot your way.

Visuals with this Mac are similar to what I received using my old Toshiba Sattelite, although the videos are certainly running smoother with regards to frames per second. It's the crispness of the video & the richness of the colours that are noticeable.

Operating system is OS X Yosemite version 10.10.3. I know zero about Mac's & am completely unfamiliar with how to navigate their menu system. Just finding that under "About this Mac" took me 10 minutes. I'm curious what GPU is even running right now. There's no mention of anything but the Intel Iris Pro GPU when looking at Graphics/Displays within the System Information settings.

Don't judge performance based on any other player than Serato Video (or Mix Emergency) Players like quicktime and WMP are different all together. Its not even like apples and oranges , its like apples and rockets ships.


That will take a little while to get used to


STOP!!!!

Pack that mac up right now. Return it. It is SHIT. its not better than a 13 MBP. No dedicated video card. Thats why it looks like shit. the one witht he video card will cost you an extra $500.

You have this one (store.apple.com) you need this one (store.apple.com)

Best buy will not stock it. you will have to order it in.

Code E is on of the more experienced vjs on this forum. Take his advice.

If you go the Mix Emergency route and buy 3.0.x you can use the Intel graphics chip set pretty well now. What used to be an "only get a MacBook Pro with discreet gfx" doesn't really apply anymore.

^ ME has really cut down the CPU usage in 3.0... it's amazing really.

Yes, the new me has alot of bug fixes and runs great

This is all assuming hes never going to use anything but ME.

He sounds like a techy dude, who would want to step up his setup down the road. Adding on other software like Resolume or modul8, maybe he wants to map in the future. In those cases the dedicated video card would be HUGE benefit.

From Nick at ME (words are not quite exact though sorry): You can use the Intel graphics chip sets with ME 3 now. But mainly for basic video mixing. If you're wanting to go more in-depth with video, a MacBook Pro with dedicated video card is still recommended

Update on my experience so far:

1) Alienware 15" worked awesome for 2 weeks, videos looked great! It was only a loaner until my Alienware 17" came into stock
2) Alienware 17" looked AMAZING, but it appears I was given one with corrupt hubs. Regardless of settings, they would disengage at 12:00am exactly every night.
3) Returned the Alienware but Best Buy had no others in stock. They gave me the latest MacBook Pro with an alleged dedicated graphics card. It was the first Mac I've used. Looked like crap. Turned out it didn't have a dedicated graphics card & I was told this was the reason it looked so bad.
4) Returned the MacBook Pro, was given another one "with a dedicated NVidea Card." While at the sales till I pointed out that the packaging didn't state this. Turns out many members of their "geek squad" are total idiots....no dedicated graphics card with a 2-4 weeks to order one. I had to leave & continue to gig with the MacBook Pro with the Intel card until another Alienware 17" came in.
5) After 2 months of BS I went online & found a 2014 2.3 GHZ I7, 16GB DDR3L SD Ram, 512 flash storage, NVidea 750M with 2G of GDDR5 memory, twin Thunderbolt ports. I got me money back from Best Buy. Speaking directly with Code:E I understanding we now have matching computers.

It still doesn't compare with the Alienware 17". Tried the benchmark tools. Got the following on average while playing Xtendamix release "Five More Hours" by Deorro f/ Chris Brown in HD (1280x720).

1) best - 12FPS
2) high - 20FPS
3) med - 22FPS
4) low - 30FPS
5) poor -30FPS

Although I never benchmarked my Alienware, I'm pretty sure I was matching whatever frame rate Xtendamix records them at (generally 23-30FPS) while also using Serato's "best" setting with no signs whatsoever that the GPU was working hard.

So overall, I'm at this point right now..... I'm either keeping this Macbook Pro & purchasing Mix Emergency, which I'm told will allow me to reach the visual quality I'm expecting or ordering an Alienware 17" direct from Dell & avoiding Best Buy like the plague.

For those reading this post please try the following. Play any of your video library without DJ software via basic media players (Windows Media Player for example). Now play the same file via Serato Video? Do you see a difference? I do.

For those using Mix Emergency is this the same? It's less than a $200 purchase, so I'm not overly concerned, but if the only reason to use a Mac is to use ME, I'd like to be assured the visual quality meets my high expectations.

Videos should look EXACTLY like they are intended to when released. Not with slight blurriness, not with a fraction of the frames per second they were released at, not pixelated, with poor contrast, poor colour resolution, ect. It seems that most posters on these forums are satisfied that "it works" & not interested in picture quality. I'm sure that the transitions, effects & features of Mix Emergency are great & I'm leaning in that direction, but not at the expense of picture quality.

My experience is that a computer with a Nvidea 980M looks WAYYY better than anything with NVidea 750M / 650M. Yes for plug & play, Serato is much easier on a Mac, but again I don't care if it "works".....I want it to work AND look exceptional.

Never noticed it, but I never looked for it. Try before you buy. Free ME demo.

Interesting Best Buy didn't have a 2014 model macbook pro for you. I just bought a Mid 2014 Macbook Pro from Best Buy bout a month ago which they had on display. Top of the line with the best specs possible and it's awesome!

If you're talking about the USB connections dropping, that may be something to do with the Windows Firewall.

If he's going to get the Alienware he won't be able to use ME. Mac only so i'd seriously get a mac if you want pro performance vj'ing.

Sweet! I'll try it when I get home tonight, but not expecting a drastic difference. Spoke with a number of Vjs today and none see a visual difference, but those on lower end macs all notice significant performance boosts.

The polo park location in Winnipeg that I dealt with were all nice people. In store service was tolerable. I had major issues getting their phone to ever pick up or get management to return calls. I had a unique case with the future shop closure, the back order on the 17" Alienware and the disturbing lack of knowledge of dedicated gpu's. Simply googling this location brings up extremely poor customer service reviews.

I don't believe I had the firewall engaged. It's long since been returned so I can't confirm. Geek squad was lost with the problem.

LOL "geek squad" (what a stupid name) is lost with most problems besides searching customer's hard drives for porn.

Anyway there's actually several different Windows 8/8.1 issues that can affect USB ports: power options has a "USB selective suspend" that can be disabled, and I've seen the Windows Firewall turn itself back on and interfere with USB ports.

The visual quality of ME is ridiculously better than that of SV. Even just testing the ME demo you should easily be able to see that, and also view the difference in resource use using the Mac's "Activity Monitor" (similar to the Windows task Manager).

man, i came from this same route, with a dell xps 17 (which was more or less their alienware with the xps logo, they had just acquired them).... it had specs that exceeded or met the current top of the line mac and was over $2800

and at the end of the day, the factors that determined great playback were:
The right driver package for the video card... this would change the cpu by 60% and fps by20+
Operating System.
I ended up keeping oldest system on their, ever new OS seemed to bug everything out.

I really dont miss a damn thing...
ME & Quartz are game changers.
now I have this super slim 2015 i7 SSD and its a beast.

but going forward... Mac better get off the "Pro-sumer" kick and get to PROFESSIONAL models or we will all be going to PC

My Macbook is in on warranty work & I'm using an older Macbook which can't run ME3. Since My ME3 authorization code won't work for ME2, I stuck using Serato video again. I really can't believe people find this video quality acceptable. Forced to run on the medium quality setting so that the frame rate looks "ok" rather than "brutal".

Another year gone by & the best Apple has done is upgrade their graphics to a AMD Radeon R9 M370X which benches at 1919.

I realize "sleek & slim" is eye catching, but not at the expense of performance. Wouldn't it be nice to see a GeForce GTX 980M in a Mac? The only stopping this is size. Do people actually care about carrying an extra few ounces with them or an 1/8 of an inch extra size?

Did you email Nick @ Inklen about the license thing? Just how old is your MacBook? If it can't run ME it's going to be old enough it doesn't even pass current SDJ spec requirements.

Yes I spoke directly with Nick. Macbook under warranty is one of the latest models. All info listed above.

Mac I've borrowed has Mac has OS X Version 10.6.8.

Nick provided immediate support. It took awhile to figure out initially that the problem was this loaner had ME2 on it, but once we did he provided me with a 30 day authorization code for the older version of ME.

I've been gigging non stop & don't want to test it out while gigging, so I've yet to see how ME2 will work with the version of Serato installed, version 1.6.3, the last that works with OS X 10.6.8.

Thanks for your interest!

Goodmorning everyone.

I'm about to buy a macbook pro in mid 2012, with 8 GB of RAM, 256GB SSD and integrated video card 1.2GB.

I wanted to ask if this macbook pro is suitable for use with the plug-in Serato DJ VIDEO.
I had experience with portable win where the video is blocked or laggavano respect to audio.

can not spend too much € for a new mac, I found this offer and ask you if votro opinion is a machine that can run quietly music video smoothly or problems.

thank you all

What size is the screen? 15"?

The unit you mention will look horrible.You should have a dedicated video card to run Serato Video on a Macbook.

Even then the results aren't that good when using a Macbook Pro from 2015 or earlier. These models top out with a NVidea 750M dedicated graphics card (benches at 1287).

I have a 2014 Macbook Pro & it looked VERY bad. I ended up purchasing Mix Emergency which offered far superior graphics.

I now have the latest Macbook Pro 2016. The graphics card has been updated with an AMD Radeon R9 M370X (benches at 1878). Looks far superior & I can use Serato Video without feeling embarrassed by the end result and have it approach the quality you'd get using Mix Emergency.

A new 2016 15" Macbook Pro will cost you $3500.00 however.

In speaking directly with the Serato Video's support team they are in agreement that Serato Video is best used with a PC. The best results I ever had were with an Alienware 17. That unit had a GeForce GTX 980M inside (benches at 5596) & offered stunning videos & costs less than a 15" Macbook Pro. I had to return mine due to issues unrelated to graphics & all Best Buy had in at the time were MacBook Pro's. Knowing these units were essentially plug & play & went that route, but has mentioned had to purchase Mix Emergency so that visuals looked professional.

Whatever computer you end up using will need a dedicated graphics card. This is priority #1.

No reason to spend $3500 on a new MBP if your just doing video mixing.

Look for a used 2012 15" MBP md103lla or md104lla are suitable. $600-$800 depending on condition. New for $1100-$1200 if you can find em

In all honesty Culprit, that's bad advice. Macbook Pro's have been a horrible choice for using Serato Video until the latest model came out with Radeon R9 M370X this year.

If the plan is to use Mix Emergency, then he'll be fine, but that's not what he asked.

Older model Macbook Pro's can at best be set to the medium output quality otherwise frame rate is atrocious. I guess it all depends on what what you think qualifies as acceptable.

Call or write Serato directly. They will tell you this product is best used with a PC & wasn't designed with a Mac in mind.

That being said, any user will be able to get Serato Video to work basically out of the box with any Macbook Pro that has a dedicated video card. It'll be very stable, but will not look great.

Spending the same amount of money on a PC with a dedicated card will more than likely offer better quality, but until tweeted you could have stability issues.

As a rule a Macbook is fantastic for Serato DJ & very poor with Serato Video to the point most Mac users have abandoned using Serato Video for Mix Emergency.

I don't know "too many" Mac users who aren't video greenhorns even attempting to use SV on a Mac.
Most have got the word about Mix Emergency.

I would love to hear this from Serato themselves because yes SV will run on a PC it works a million times better on a Mac!! Lmao!!

Just get the 2012 as Culprit said and you'll be fine with SV but Mix Emergency is the way to good.

If you do get a PC just use VDJ because it shits on SDJ......

^^^ that. But we all mac with ME is the best you can buy.

Hey Falk,

I was an original beta tester for video scratch live, now Serato Video.

Among the few who have spoken above this post, now including myself, you have no idea what your talking about.

Show us some proof please. Screen shots or something from someone ar Serato since you wanna go this route.

I have never purposefully given anyone advice on these forums when it comes to getting up and running with mixing videos.

Also, the MacBook Pro models I listed have dedicated video cards. Serato Video runs more than efficiently on them, never on windows machines up until recently.

Anyone bad advice*

Culprit,

I've spoken on several occasions with Serato support. Everyone I've spoken with concurs with my statement. Serato Video works best on a PC with specifications capable of running Serato video at it's optimal settings. Call them yourself.

Macbook Pro's made prior to 2016 all have at best a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M. These cards can't begin to play beyond the medium output setting or approach recording at 1080P. Most often they can't record video whatsoever & if it does work, choppy at best describes the end result.

Mac's are known for their stability. They have been workhorses for DJ's playing audio files & are the clear cut choice.

Video is an entirely different matter. Does Serato Video work on these machines? Yes. Does it look good? No.

I'm not sure what you're plugging into when playing videos, but I'm sending my signal to Kramer 8x8 matrixes that send to hundreds of HD TV's. I've even found myself in theatres sending signal to DLP Cinema projectors & Solaria 4230 4K projectors. On my home monitors I see the difference, let alone on Cinema sized screens.

There is a MASSIVE difference between NVIDIA's GeForce GT 750M & the GeForce GTX 980M. Apple would love to put a better video card in their machines, but space inside their slimly designed 15" shell is limited. The recent addition of the Radeon R9 M370X in to their 2016 machines was a long time coming & while there is significant improvement to the end results when using Serato Video, Mix Emergency is still better.

I don't like pushing another product on the Serato boards. It doesn't help the common poster solve their issues.

The OP that is in discussion here is if he can run Serato Video with a 2012 Macbook Pro & an integrated video card. I SAID "NO", added that if going the Mac route he should buy one with a dedicated card & elaborated that if he planned to purchase a new Macbook solely for the purpose of using Serato Video, that money would be better spent on a PC.

You may have been a Beta-Tester, but you surely were not on the design team. Even if you doubt the supports staff's assertion that it was designed with a PC in mind ask yourself why anyone would design their video software around a Macbook with a crappy video card & then created settings that the Macbook couldn't use.

The answer is they didn't. If anything they'd have used an desktop Mac Pro with dual FirePro graphic processors. Those bench at 10,000+, the cards in Macbook Pro's bench between 1,000-1,800.

That being said, I've yet to see anyone lugging around a desktop Mac to gigs & I'm certain the design team knew this.

So if it wasn't designed around a Mac Pro AND since there are many basic settings that simply can't be used by existing MacBooks, I wonder what they may have used? Hmmm.....

Code:E was very helpful when I began getting serious playing music videos & wanted to upgrade. I tired multiple high end PC's & had the most success with an Alienware 15." I was so happy I decided to return in for the Alienware 17". Were it not for an ill timed operating system update, I would still be using these machines. I had a major gig & at the time all Best Buy had to offer to replace my Alienware were cheaper PC's or a Macbook Pro. Heeding Code:E's advice that a Mac with ME would solve my immediate problem, I went that route & haven't looked back.

I more recently purchased the latest Macbook Pro & once I released an upgraded video card was inside I tried using Serato Video for the first time in two years & was very impressed by the results on the new machine.

I think it is important to note that Serato recently upgraded their video software, so there is that variable that should be kept in mind. To keep this scientific I tried using Serato Video on my old 2014 Macbook & did not notice the same improvement, so the 2016 Macbook is the reason, not the software upgrade for improved performance.

I just wanna see some screen shots of your alleged conversations with Serato support stating this. That's all I'm asking for. I didn't ask for a book of information stating your points and experience. My experience in the video field can be searched right here on this forum, since 2008

I spoke with them on the phone.

Using solely one product & calling this "as experienced" in the video field doesn't entitle you to begin denigrating another product that you likely haven't used since 2008.

Perhaps that's a harsh comment, but I'm really not about to begin reading through your forum history to decipher what your experience entails. The condescending tone within the handful of paragraphs of yours I've read already isn't encouraging.

I've used PC's & Mac's. I've used Serato Video & Mix Emergency.

As opposed to arguing with me about the Serato designers how about we work together to acknowledge what is acceptable video quality?

Play a .mp4 you own from the file folder itself. On your Mac it'll likely open in Quicktime.

Now play the same file with Serato Video. Does it look the same to you?

It's night and day, the former being far superior. I expect my videos to look like that & you're never going to get that quality with a Macbook Pro running Serato Video, but you can with a PC.

If you can't sped a half second to double click on a file & then tell me what you see, I have no interest in continue this conversation.

SV is garbage on any system......

Lets forget quality for the moment and think about the features....... That pretty much leaves SV outta this equation.

If your gonna run video on a Mac, you use ME

If your gonna run video on a PC, you use VDJ and yeah SV can run on a PC but its a long shot due to drivers and codecs.

Haha. Ryte.

You're the very first person on this forum stating that Serato Video runs better on a PC than on a mac - in general. There are not so many configurations where SV and PC runs at all, and you're claiming that this is by far the superior solution? And that even the support tells you that?

That's more than odd. The forum is full with problems of users trying to get SV running properly on their PCs.

Hello,

I have a MacBook Pro i5 13" 2011 - 8GB - HD Graphics 3000 512MB - 320GB storage.

If I upgrade to a SSD and upgrade to 16GB ram (eventhough Apple says that 8gb is the max, but I've read that it does recognize the 16GB). Will I have a better chance of running Serato Video flawlessly?

Currently it plays Serato Video withough any noticeable issues, but laptop gets hot, after downloading FanControl, I have it running at 6000+rpm and the temperature doesn't go below 89C - 192F.
Thanks!

If you're running ok with SV any upgrades can't hurt. The only way to really drop heat is to try something like Mix Emergency if you want to plunk down the $$$.

But if it ain't broke.... don't try to fix it :)

This Mac doesn't have an a dedicated graphics card which will struggle esp with Serato video. Integrated graphics are not good enough you would need an NVIDEA card for graphics switching when video mixing. However mix emergency does support integrated graphics and will run Serato video more smoothly.

I think you missed the fact he said his rig was running, fine.. don't jinx the poor dude. It just runs hot and ME is about the only suggestion to offload/make the video playback dedicated.. and it's NVIDIA :D

Well that's the part that I don't understand. It never said anywhere and it still doesn't say on the Serato Dj website 'needed specs' that Serato Video 'must' have a 'dedicated graphics' card. I bought SV many months ago (with the discount TG), but I've just come around and try using it just now. Yes, and I do understand that ME is better, etc ... but just wanted to see if I can work with what I have and/or prevent any 'future' audio issues when using serato video by upgrading my current unit in other areas such as the ram and hd to ssd. Anybody knows what is a 'bad' temperature level --- when would the laptop turn off for example when it reaches a certain temperature degree? past 100C? Thanks --- I've never been really into VJ but I wanted to give it a try, I wish I would have know about ME before.

Was not aware the 13" models had NVIDEA cards🤔 From my understanding they are all integrated. The 15"'s on the other hand do. Did not miss the fact his rig is running well...I'm sure it is but barely on not as smooth as a dedicated card👌🏼

And not*

My 2012 15" w/ dedicated video used to push 180F and only with SMC cranked up high did I get it down to like 140-150F during gigs and that was using Mix Emergency 2.7.. I think 3.x and it's optimizations knocked another 15F. So still hot as shit if you had in on your lap, but ok on a stand and it's always been stable no matter how hot it's gotten.

I even had it in the Genius Bar a few times over the years, they ran all the tests and said yeah it runs hot but it's ok!

What resolution output you running?

I have the same laptop with an ssd drive and 16gb of ram. I also have serato video and mix emergency and serato video runs better for me. For those that will ask, yes i have the latest version of mix emergency and no it doesn't work well. Mix emergency worked better for me when I used it with scratch live. After using serato dj and a controller (the pioneer ddj sx) I found the combo of serato dj and serato video works better. With that being said, I'm in looking into getting a newer laptop because I feel it's time. As far as temperature goes my stays around 87 degrees Celsius with smc fan at 6200 rpm

That is quite interesting to me as I've heard mix emergency uses less CPU than Serato video. Are you also recording with Serato video? I will say recording video with ME is a hell of a lot better and less buggy. Whatever works I guess👍🏼

Very cool, I have the DDJSX2. Well your temp it's about the same of what I get. A serato rep. just told me last night that my unit is not powerful enough to handle Serato Video and that I need an upgrade (meaning a different laptop). It's totally ridiculous that I have to go through a blog and not the main website specs, to find out how important is a 'dedicated' graphic card and that you need the 15" laptop to VJ with serato video.

On the Serato option, I have 'high' and I think I have it on 1280x720

I do use mix emergency to record videos though. For some reason I've never had any problems while recording the videos ( for a client that shows the mixes on a bus). It maybe because when I make the recordings I don't hook the computer up to a tv. I only spin videos once a week and it's more to help with the ambiance than it is the main focus of the room.

sounds interesting ill try to test my old 13 inch..let's see if i get the same problems with u guys...will try the SDJ 1.9.2 and ME 3.1 :)

I've avoided looking or responding to the nonsense some people post for months now. Finally looking at your ancient post.

If you really want verification of my posts looks at the dates with which Serato & Serato Video were first released. It didn't even exist originally for a Mac. Does that answer you?

Keep posting & encouraging misinformation.

I use both. The latest Macbook runs Seraro Video & performs on par with ME.

I havent used ME since I purchased my new book. Specs should be listed earlier in this thread.

I can well understand that users pre 2016 had better experiences with ME. From an asthetics standpoint concentrating solely on visual quality these two pieces of software are currently indistinguishable from each other on 2016 Macbooks.

By the way if anyone has a better thread with which to continue this conversation please suggest.

The 13" Macbook thread shouldn't be the thread with which much of this topic is addressed.

Anyways, my next step in my video mixing is being able to record my sets. As of last summer I had never been able to record my video sets using Serato Video.

As my post from earlier today states, I've spent the last few months using SV more than ME, but when recording am prompted that "less than 2% of the frames are being recorded."

I've yet to take the time to call/write Serato regarding this & in all honesty have been much too lazy to record a set with ME.

As a Mac Newbie I only recently realized that advanced featues need to be accessed by downzsing your main screen & viewing the menu in the upper left corner of your main window, much opposite how a PC would work.

Amyways being that lazy & being impressed with how my new Macbook works with SV I just purchased a 4TB Thunderbolt WD Passport Pro. My understanding is that I should be able to flawlessly record my sets with this faster Thunderbolt drive being used.

Not sure yet how this will be done. Serato suggest that your library always be played from an exteral, but also suggest that any recording you do take place from a different drive tan you are playing from. This far my attempts have been recording to my local drive while playing from a Lacie 4TB 3.0 external.

My next attempt will be playing from this 3.0 drive but rather than recording to my internal drive, choosing the Thunderbolt drive instead.

Should that not meet expectations I'll be placing the contents of my 3.0 drives to this new Thunderbolt drive & trying again to record locally.

Failing that I plan to place a select numbers of video files onto my local drive & then record to Thunderbolt.

One way or the other I need no begin recording my video sets to share.

If anyone has advice or a decent thread to link to that would be appreciated. My new Thunderbolt drive should be arriving by the middle of next week.

See my earlier post. Serato & Serato Video didn't even exist for a Mac originally. It was designed solely with a PC in mind & if you care to debate this you'll simply lose by looking at the history of Serato. Mac was an afterthough. You arrived at the ball late.

That's all good. Many MANY users have had problems with Serato & PC's for some time.

Further Mac users found that their computers were pieces of crap when using SV & turned to ME which is only available for use on a Mac.

If you've never used an ultra high end PC you really have nothing to offer this conversation. Walk away. Your opinion means nothing.

Sadly I can't offer anything further meaninful dialogue to my pro PC rant. As stated earlier, OS nonsence than coincided with the Windows 8 release 2 years ago had me turn to a Macbook & ME. After my 2015 Macbook was damaged I purchased the 2016 model. Since then I've found that ME & SV look the same. Frame rate & pixel quality are the same when using SV "best" settings. Further pro's are not having a secondary window cutting into the Serato screen. Really not much of a problem, but I utilize several fields of info in my meta tags & find myself constantly moving this window around.

In addition many of the recent SV upgrades mirror what ME offers so I've chosen to not open ME. I'm more familiar with SV anyways, so perhaps this plays a role. Ultimately my customers appreciate the significant visual upgraded thatvhave occured since purchasing my new Macbook. At the same point none of commented that the "visual mixing" aspect of my shows are suffering. My attention is more focussed on what is going on audibly when gigging.

Perhaps once I begin recording my sets I put more effirt into my visual fades.

To be clear, all my post to date have "visual quality" as the sole point of concentration. I simpy want the videos I play to be at least equal to what the typical user expiences when viewing via youtube. That shouldn't be too much to ask.

Lastly it would be great to be able to edit ones posts on these forums.


Drunken 2am posts when proofreading afterwards and seeing multiple spelling mistakes present are very frustrating.

Yep, very frustrating for the reader to read so many factually incorrect posts in a row.

Just two points:

Since the initial public release Serato Video SL has been available for both platforms.

ME vs SV's quality. There was a very impressive comparison on the forum between ME and SV, clearly showing that SV "garbled" the image. Nothing more to add.

At the end, you shall believe in what you want to believe. Whatever works for you, is good. I have different requirements and goals that you do.

This dude going in post after post on his own smhlol 😂

People respoding in this thread continue to pick on PC's in general, which has never been the point of a single post I've made. I've been VERY particular with my comments regarding the make & model of the PC that I had my results with.

As opposed to knocking something you've never tried, perhaps take the time to try an Alienware 15 or 17 & see the results that having a real graphics card offers.

I've yet to read a response from anyone who even tried to do what I asked...simple play one of their video's via a conventional method & then state if ME or SV looks as good when opening the same file with no dj software, just simply with Quicktime on it's own.

If you have, I'd encourage you to respond & tell me what you see.

Once you do perhaps you'll be on board to try to get your vj software to begin looking as good visually as what they do when casual users play videos on Vimeo or Youtube.

I can understand some people not being able to hear the difference between a 320kps .mp3 files & uncompressed wave & .flac files.

I honestly can't imagine how you can compare your videos via via the method I suggested & not immediately notice the difference in pixel quality, frame rate & colour saturation.

Why on earth would you set the bar so low?
The bitrates for these files are insanely low, and never mind the random frame rates that some people upload. Flash frames, ghosting, 1080p videos Rendered at 4000kb?
(Which is why pro editors look at YouTube rip edits with such a sneer. A 1080p file should NOT be 68 MB)

As someone who regularly works both sides of the computer camp I can consign that in many cases my xps has a more appealing playback of a high resolution file in a player like vlc, QuickTime.
But I feel like part of that has to do with my high gloss Hd screen and that the unit was designed for impressive playback/gameplay.
Obviously watching that same file on my Matte screen in my Mac is vastly different.
But my 2015 Mac is pretty dam close, if not the same.

But at the end of the day, straight default player video playback is not something that concerns me. From both an editing standpoint and dj/performance standpoint.
It's like telling me my MP3 sound better via a player then a DVS.
What's the point... your buffering 1 stream in realtime with nothing else going on, it's the pencil dive of the difficulty matrix.
Here's what does matter to me; Having used both ME And SV on both platforms both for my own personal workload and for testing for different companies. The final "on screen product" on a Mac via ME far superior, smoother at higher resolutions (ave 50+ constant frame), much lower on CPU and memory utilization.
VDJ is a close second, arguabably a tad cleaner on the Mac.
SV isn't bad but you can often catch some tearing on some transitions and the (actual correct bitrate)) 1080p files can be extremely taxing, even more so with certain transitions to the point of -20/30 fps and freezing on decent computers.

And pioneer/rekordbox video at the moment is pretty horrid. But I expect in a year or two it will be a competitors

And obviously doesn't even touch on features
Which ME is by far and away superior

James - funny how you say the mac guys pick on pc guys. actually, it's the pc guys that ask for help and suggestions. the experienced guys (especially the converts) say mac. the pro pc guys get offended. the experienced guys are just trying to help and explain why but the pro pc guys just can't handle being open minded.

you're a recent convert as stated earlier. what made you switch? finally caved in to what the experienced people have been saying? that serato (and especially video with serato) will run better on mac?

and yes, again, all the experienced guys will tell you ME is FAR superior than SV.

as for your current situation on recording video, why don't you try ME? i'm willing to bet if you search the threads here, ME will reign supreme. again, the experienced people will say so. SV can do it now because of one of its recent updates, but the method in which is utilized is not as good as ME. SV records and encodes in real time. sdj takes up resources and so does SV (more than ME does), and on top of that you want to record to the hd in real time? ME just takes notes on which videos are being played, fx used, transitions, and when they are being used. after your session is done, you have a choice of encoding options. THEN it goes back, replays your session (fairly quickly), renders and encodes it. guess which is less taxing on your system, especially during your mix?

but hey, if you want to take the long way to discover things on your own....

Why bring up obsure youtube clips uploaded by "some people" when clearly I'm referring to videos placed on these platforms by the labels & the artists? If I care that much about video quality I have asserted, do you think my comparisons are based on viewing youtube clips of cats uploaded from someones Blackberry 7 Torch?

It is nice to finally get someone to concede that their "xps has a more appealing playback of a high resolution file in a player like vlc, QuickTime."

So now that we've agreed on that, all I've ever stated is that both my Alienware 15" & 17" machine's presented QUALITY THAT MATCHED THAT WHILE USING SERATO VJ, but rather than accept that a machine with the best mobile video card (GeForce GTX 980M=5634) on the planet that benches nearly 5x that of a 2015 Macbook (GeForce GT 750M=1286) people have instead said it was lies.

I've stated from the get-go that as a rule a Macbook offers stabilty & are plug & play machines with Serato & have agreed that they should not be judged based solely on their specs. If specs mattered that much, no one would use a Mac when they could buy significant better computer at a fraction of the price.

I've simply said that a specific make & model PC looked wonderful, but was told arrogantly for the better of of two years that this was not possible, that Serato was created for a Mac when it truth upon it's release date in 2004 didn't even exist on that platform, let alone being created on it & that calling long distance to New Zealand for support & my experience speaking live with their team was a figment of my imagination.

Reading this thread in it'd entirety would answer that question, but I'll spare you that.

I purchased a 15" Alienware the first few months of 2015. Loved it. Worked flawlessly. Decided I'd upgrade to their 17" model a few months later & was given a computer that always crashed at exactly midnight. Returned it for another model. Same problem. In retrospect there were issues with these computers & the introduction of Windows 10 in early 2015 that have since been resolved.

I couldn't wait. All the local Best Buy had in stock as replacements were MacBook Pro's none of which had a dedicated graphics card. Ended up purchasing a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) online. Initially hated it as video quality was subpar with SV. Purchased ME & was happy.

Was in the market for a new computer this past summer. I'd hoped that someone somewhere had had the same positive experience I'd had with my Alienware 15, but no one came forth. Not wanting to chance further problems I purchased a new MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015) this past summer. Vastly better graphics card & SV looks as good as ME.

At some point I wish to return to using a PC as I'm much more adept with these machines & had hoped someone had my same initial positive experience. Sadly still waiting

Falk,

Some of us have been doing the whole video thing for some time now. So we speak from experience. Anyways, I'm not ganna read the paragraphs above. If you want to get video working on PC, use the lav filters and play with the decoding settings. I have gotten the output pretty crystal clear that way. I prefer the osx software because it works right out the box with no major configuration.

Oh, no not at all.
Not in the least.
We are talking official videos from labels and artists... and even from producers and directors.
The streaming media platform conversion is made for one thing. Streaming.
No one is uploading uncompressed video files
"Hardly" anyone is uploding properly rendered (for
Performance and playback)
As I mentioned before.
The canvas, or AR they are uploading in might be 16/9 at 1080p
But the bitrate is that of a 480p file.
(That's why at the default viewer view it looks the best)

But in the end the proof is in the pudding.
Go grab a 1080p brand new video from a label/artist site.
Then compare it to the 1080p video from a reputable site like Smashvision.
In size, quality, frame rate and most often over looked keyframe-distance.

That's because the same file that came from the label was given to smash in its uncompressed format for editing... and in turn they give us a file with a balance of parmeters that guarantee quality and smooth playback.
Where as the file was rendered out for streaming, and then again convervted by YouTube via upload is the final product on YouTube.

It's basically, for lack of better comparison
Like taking a 128kb MP3 file and rendering out as a flac.
If you don't START with high quality uncompressed you can not expect to end with anything greater than the original bitrate/quality

positive experiences with video on pc will be hard to find. especially really good positive experiences with high quality results. it's much easier to replicate good results on the mac platform.....and with ME.

just ask joshua carl. in the beginning, he was the hardcore pc guy running vsl (sv-video). and he's caved in and admits what works well. but i believe he still uses pc for editing and such.

I've just written Serato the following:

I own 2 Macbook Pro's Retina's. Each has a dedicated video card.

The first is a 15" late 2013 model with a NVIDEA GeoForce 750M dedicated card.

My second is a very recent purchase, a mid 2015 model with a AMD Radeon R9 M370X, currently the best dedicated card that exists inside a Macbook Pro.

Both computers have OS X El Capitan version 10.11.6 installed. Neither computer has anything on the drives other than Serato software. They are exclusively for DJ'ing. All music is played from external drives as recommended on your website.

I have my video library located on an external USB 3.0 WD My Book which is formatted as a Mac OS Extended drive. I have several of these drives & have gigged flawlessly with these setups for years

That being said, I've never been able to record with either computer. I have diligently followed the direction listed on the Serato website. I always choose the local drive to record to, so that I am reading from my external drive, but recording to my local drive as directed so that files are being "read from the external drive & being written to my local drive. For audio mixes this works flawlessly.

To date I have yet to successfully record even a fraction of a second of a video.

I've just purchased (like an hour ago) a 2TB WD Passport Pro which is the one of the faster external drives on the market. It has a Thunderbolt connection & I've now attempted to record to this drive, rather than write to the local drive on either computer.

Finally I have it working but:
-if choosing 1080p I can record 8 seconds of video
-if choosing 720p can record 30 seconds of video
-if choosing 480p I can record 25 minutes of video

I haven't bothered trying the final option 360p. The quality of 480p is bad enough.

I'm unsure if I am doing something wrong & am writing to open up a dialogue to discuss. Have any Serato Video users been able to record successfully using a MacBook Pro Retina?

I've yet to find anyone being able to so on your forums & am beginning to wonder if this is even possible. Every forum I've read have users stating to abandon Serato Video & instead choose Mix Emergency.

I do own Mix Emergency, but that isn't my point. I would hope that Serato Video is able to record, otherwise I'm not sure why ithis feature is offered for Mac users.

I will say that two years ago I owned an Alienware 17" model which has one of the best graphics cards on the market. I was able to record flawlessly with this computer, but it did have the best mobile video card in the world inside that had specs & benched 5x-10x of that of the best Macbook Pro Retina (both of which are the models I'm using here.

Sadly I returned the Alienware 17 due to a stability issue that had this model crashes at exactly midnight daily. . When working, it was a thing of beauty, but no DJ/VJ's are interested in crashes. I wrote for support from your team & even spoke on the phone with them, but in the end returned this unit as the problem couldn't be solved in a time frame that matched my next gig date

I'm now 2.5 years into my Macbook experience with zero crashes. I gig daily, spinning in total about 6,000 hours with zero crashes to report, I am pretty happy with how things are with one exception...the inability to record my video sets.

Please advise.

As a final note I'll mention that the options listed below this are out of date. The most recent operating system listed for Mac's is 10.10.3. I chose this option as the OS X El Capitan version 10.11.6 wasn't listed & the structure of your support page requires that this field not be empty.

Aye good luck, you'll have better luck with OBS and Mix Emergency than the dreaded recording bug in SV.

Solutions syphon recorder, OBS, Mix Emergency. If you haven't already try resetting pram on mac then retry the SV recording option. I haven't recorded with SV in awhile. Maybe I'll give it a go and see if I can get at least a 20-30 minute recording.

Incorrect, but at this point who's counting? LOL.

For shits and giggles.

Put 7-8 videos on your desktop.
Don't plug in an external (as video djs 90% of us use externals, so this might not be a finite solution but at least narrow the sights)

Do a set using those videos and have it write right to your desktop.
This will rule out the 2-way data stream issue
(Although usb3 should be able read/write, we are talking about a bit of a heavy load)
//
Sadly, SeRato video is not without its short comings. Recording is a relatively new option for that program in the scheme of things.
It's not completely neglected by the 🥝
But it's also not a massive priority it would seem

And when there was a massive Coup d'état when they broke functionality with mix
Emergency I think is was a silent consent that if you want to more then just play videos than ME is your best option despite introducing new features in SV.

Pardon me? Pretty rude, discourteous, unhelpful, outlandish and utterly wrong statement.

Thanks for dropping in and offerring your two cents, which is about all it's worth.

Macbook has had relatively few dedicated cards even in their machines.

If you own a mid 2015 machine with a Model Identifier of MacBookPro11,5 or higher, then a AMD Radeon R9 M370X is certainly what's inside.

It's also is a significant improvement on the NVIDEA GeoForce 750M that had been the standard for years.

I've been reading on it. Yes, the amd card is a better card but apple ran into power issues so they had to throttle back the card so your seeing a slight boost in performance, but nothing us video mixers will notice so I'm essence there is no major difference between the two cards. They are fixing or fixed the power issues in the mid 2016 model MacBook pros so those are the only laptops utilizing the card to its full potential.

Tried it "for shits & giggles"
-placed 8 HD videos from Xtendamix in a folder on my desktop.
-opened up Serato & SV
-loaded these 8 videos into a empty Serato directory
-changed record location to the local drive (used downloads)
-chose 720p in the menu
-pressed play and recorded

I was able to record for 5 minutes before recording ceased.
I went back to view this recorded session. Although all the audio mixed, only the initial video appeared which was present through a 7 song video mix.
As the mix progressed the audio quality began to suffer as well

I'm not sure why you suggested this. From my understanding the Serato 101 basics are:
-all audio / video files should be on an external drive
-recordings should be be mapped to a drive different from which one is playing

Still waiting on a reply from Serato. My past experience with their support team has first contact from them occurring 3-7 days after initial contact. Once a support ticket is generated things move along a better pace.

Having 2 Mac with different dedicated cards allows me to do a side by side comparison.

The 15" late 2013 model with a NVIDEA GeoForce 750M looks best with setting set to medium. I wouldn't advise using "high" or "best" settings. As such I always used ME when using this computer.

The 15" mid 2015 model with a AMD Radeon R9 M370X that I purchased in allows the "high" & "best" settings to be used & to my eyes on a 35 ft.by 26 ft. screen matches the same quality as ME.

My interest in this thread was renewed after the purchase of the latest Macbook back in early October & I noticed that SV with this new Mac allowed the premium settings to be used without any visual sacrifice.

Well, from seconds to minutes is a huge increase.
But as I mentioned it was more to rule out a few things. (Don't write to the same folder; but same drive; or even just record/write to your desktop)

Your not alone though
A quick search shows plenty of people with the same exact problems and no definitive solution
Example
serato.com And there's plenty more


As far as what SeRato "suggests"
They also suggest to shut off wifi & Bluetooth
Some suggestions should be taken as law; some are just that: suggestions

A few of us actually tested and beta'd their video software since its inception.
So many of the ideas aren't theoretical, their real world working class Joe experiences and solutions

Not if the minutes of recording arent what one intended to record.

As mentioned only the first video played and then as new tracks were mixed in the same initial video remained playing despite new audio files being played & recorded.

As a rule I spin with wifi off, but there have been many cases while gigging where I've turned it on, went online, downloaded videos from xtendamix or made itunes purchases without anyone being the wiser.

The only difference is when minimizing Serato to view whatever web page I'm on results in a very minor downsizing (like a fraction of a fraction of screen size) of whatever is being broadcast to your main screens. Definately visible, but hardly a real issue.

That being said VJ's that don't have decent computer will likely notice immediate problems when going on line & should certainly avoid doing so

As for Bluetooth, since Macbooks only have two USB 3.0 ports, with one being used by ones controller & the other being used to control a USB 3.0 hard drive, it leaves no place to plug in a wired mouse. Personally I can't stand using a track pad, so I use a Magic Mouse which is connected via Bluetooth. Never an issue in 6000+ hours.

Now that I've purchased a Thunderbolt drive I'll likely go back to using a wired mouse as I have a open port.

Still don't have doing anything on my MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012). This includes mixing 1080p videos, using Mix Emergency and streaming sets over wifi to Chew.tv.

SV isn't worth the effort when Mix Emergency is on the market. Maybe once Pioneer catches up with Rekordbox's video plug in....

props to everyone for keeping this conversation mature.

Yeah the multiple windows that ME generates is the only downside to me. I know I can minimise the windows but I Iike having the Preset Bank open and the preview windows too.

I will like the ability to park the extra windows on a third screen something like this

www.packedpixels.com

Mix Emergency only recognises two screens ie the main monitor and your external projector/screen.

Ordinarily I would buy the aforementioned and test it but the way my bank account is set up now...

Just try it with the trial version man.

With symphon, anything is possible.
Send it to arena or something similar

also, if you want to increase the size of your music folder, in OSX, you can move it to an external drive or a drive in the secondary bay.

thomashunter.name

If your going to go this route I highly recommend you backup your system first. I have never done this nor ever needed to since I run completely off Serato instead of itunes. I have heard of some success stories but from people who have more knowledge on hacking their systems.

Does this hold true for a MacBook Pro 13 2015 with the 6100 inter grated graphics card? I just purchased this computer and the cpu runs at 40%. Does this sound normal?

Yep, that is a -better- integrated card, but still not going to be as good as a dedicated one.

I got a chance to put it through the paces today. It works well for me. I spin videos once a week, nothing special but helps with the ambience in the bar I work at. Mix Emergency 3.1 isn't taxing on the cpu as past versions. This works for me. If I were primarily a video jock I'd be more likely to purchase a MacBook Pro with a dedicated graphics card but that isn't the case. The cpu isn't running at 40% it's more like 30% ( 20% user 10% system)

Sounds like a good set up then! Enjoy and glad to see you've embraced Mix Emergency, it certainly makes life easier.

In a situation like ke that you could arguably bring the quality slider down to 80% and barely notice

huh

You can reduce the output quality to save some % on your CPU overhead if needed. 80% is still great with ME and as Joshual Carl mentioned, you'd be hard pressed to notice it in a bar/club setting.

I do in fact own a mid-2015 MBP with those exact specs.

The reason for my admittedly snarky post was that you seem to be unaware of the newer "late-2016" MacBook Pro's that have still more powerful GPU's available.

What I really don't understand is why you've wasted so many years ignoring solid advice.

Mix Emergency works great on my mid-2015 MBP (as it has on every other MacBook Pro I've owned in the last 7-8 years), with it and Scratch Live running the total CPU consumption is something like 8 percent. Since ME's recording feature isn't trying to encode and write out a video file the whole time, that process works a hell of a lot better regardless of CPU/GPU horsepower and the drive(s) you're using.

I really don't understand why any working video DJ who is on a Mac would use SV over ME. The price of ME is stupidly low considering how much better it is.

I have and use ME. I'm not troubleshooting ME. I'm troubleshooting Serato Video.

I use ME when gigging with my 15" late 2013 model Macbook. ME on this machine outperforms SV & yes...I can record with ME.

I use SV when gigging with my 15" mid 2015 model Macbook. I notice zero visual difference between these pieces of software on this model. SV may even look a smidge better. More importantly, I'm more familiar with SV & I really find the multiple windows of ME rather annoying as I'm constantly dragging them around. The entire reason I bought a blue tooth magic mouse was moving these windows via a trackpad was slowly driving me insane.

The bottom line is this is a Serato Video troubleshooting forum. Perhaps solutions would be easier to come by if these forums weren't being polluted with 10 ME plugs every time anyone asks an SV question.

Serato even plugs ME!!

It's a no brainier!! Serato doesn't even support they're own software!!

Come on bro, let it go already........

|||||BRICK WALL|||||(HEAD)<<<bang, bang, bang...

You can keep doing that, or you can look to solutions that actually work. Super simple.

serato.com

If you're truly using MixEmergency then it's a no brainer to stick with that ... Asking for bug fixes in Serato Video is like beating a dead horse, It's not going to do you any good ... You mentioned that you have to use an external mouse to move the ME overlay panels around while DJing which is ridiculous to me honestly because unlike Serato Video where it gives you a single layout which takes up your library view you can "break apart" ME and position the preview windows wherever you like that will not obstruct views of any elements of the SDJ GUI especially on higher screen resolution machines like the Retina MBP's ... Also if you're not noticing a visual difference between SV & ME then you must not be outputting to a 1080p screen via HDMI or even a 720p screen via HDMI for that matter ... I have recently spun video along side somebody with your exact machine while they used Serato Video and mine being a 2012 MBP using ME and there was still a noticeable difference because we were in fact outputting at 1080p to the house system ... Also this is not a Serato Video trouble shooting forum this is for General Discussion for Serato Video which in all honesty means that is a General Discussion for those who use Serato and spin Video especially when you note the lack of updates and bug fixes for Serato Video and the endorsement of MixEmergency On Serato's very own website (see initial link I posted) ... The reason why so many people are "polluting" this forum with MixEmergency suggestions is because most of us are Video DJs who have been doing this for many years now in professional capacities and have seen what has been the best option as far as quality, features, & stability are concerned ... As Joshua Carl stated as well "A few of us actually tested and beta'd their video software since its inception.
So many of the ideas aren't theoretical, their real world working class Joe experiences and solutions" ... Now I wasn't part of that beta team however I have been spinning video since Video SL was released (The main reason I bought a 57) and even after MixEmergency was release I still didn't make the jump to it immediately because I was hopeful that Serato would start to show more love for their product ... Once I did make the jump over to MixEmergency it's been game over and I honestly cannot see anyone coming close to the capabilities of what Nick has been able to however with each new beta and update I do test Serato Video out here at home in my studio on both my MBP & iMac and always come back to the same conclusion that nothing has been fixed and SV is far inferior to ME ... I will also note that I have tested out Rekorbox video and that too is sub par


Sorry for the long post fellas but I've been following this post for a while and felt it was time to speak up

The amount of time it took for serato to incorporate text overlays and then recording on top of that. Don't hold your breath for a solution to your sv problem. We are all here to help you attain your goal quickly (recording a video set). But if you want to keep wasting your time, then that's up to you.

Serato always say they are working on it but don't ask them when it's coming. Issues like this are always on their list but they are the ones that set the priorities and work on their own pace. It'll be ready when it's ready. And that's pretty much all they'll say.

sv not record well? use me. done. on to the next.

Thank you both. We went from the original thread topic to debating SV vs ME with a ton of bad un-needed "knowledge" vs real world knowledge. Use want you want. Done. If you're having problems or think you want/need more help than what's been given to you ...... Serato Support is where you need to be. Not here anymore. Dragging this new topic on and on is starting to get annoying IMO. Let's move on finally

👍🏿👍🏿

+1