+1

Using quicktime still, along with being unable to fulfill simple feature requests.. I really have to wonder what's going on at SeratoHQ..

Curious, I clicked the Careers link - it seems all applicants must be legally able to work in New Zealand... Given that living or being eligible to legally work in NZ is likely a fraction of the planet.. I'm left wondering if Serato is unable to hire coders from other parts of the world to handle the work needed to advance their software in any meaningful way..

It just seems to me like their development team is lost (still using quicktime), or simply unable to bring long requested features to the table years and years after users have asked.

The two postings there are for website dev anyway. They probably SHOULD look to hiring someone that can streamline updated graphics API's into the existing software though.

Yeah, and now Serato is basically encouraging us to use their software while our laptops are online, to use Tidal and SoundCloud integration, which doesn't help minimize the threat.

This is a pretty nasty elephant in the room....

Better the one you know, than the one you don't.

I just want to point out that it works perfectly fine if I skip the QuickTime installer and install k-lite codecs. Also, the changelog for 2.0.2 had mentioned switching from QuickTime to native os decoders, but after several updates, qt is still packaged

Yeah, only web development positions now, but I can't see why the requirements would change for anyone working in any other capacity with Serato.


What's also troubling to me is that this exact topic was brought up in the 2.1 beta forum.. Was not ever replied to in any official capacity.. Forum was closed.. and the release version still packaged with quicktime.

Was the topic in the beta forum completely ignored?

Was it not a valid question, or worry about security?

I just don't understand the lack of.. well everything or anything to do with addressing this issue.

get a mac ;)

It's probably why Serato Video hasn't see a legit update in so long. There isn't a road map.

It just speaks of the complacency of the company at large. This is a major security concern that effects not only the unwitting SDJ user who is installing the program, but everyone else on the internet as well. To not only ignore it's existence but to continue to bundle it with your latest releases with not so much as a mention of it's potential for harm if allowed unfettered access to the internet is just staggering behavior for respected company in this day in age. Shameful shit, Serato.

I realize your video plugin requires codecs to operate, but if this is the best you can do then just leave them out and tell potential users they'll need to find them on their own, or sell them a licensed bundle or something. What you're doing now is negligent.

Serato's road map

healthisahabit.files.wordpress.com

"Get a Mac! Get a Mac!"
You trained animals... Maybe if they would stop making over-priced crap that does stuff like this... youtu.be

It maybe if they didn't build products that thermal throttle because their cooling is inadequate.

Maybe if they weren't also hostile to their own AASP's. Maybe if their techs we're actually capable of fixing their computers instead of going straight to costly replacements. Maybe if they gave a rats about their customers. Can we put this snarky "Get a Mac." Response to bed for good? Apple is trash. That's why their stock prices are in freefall.

I ve noticed the program in question Serato DJ works on Macs with minimal tinkering.

I have both Windows and MacOS laptops btw.

You have this ALL WRONG!

Apple does not market computers, laptops, tablets, and phones.

They market APPLIANCES with a common interface, you know, like a toaster.
You push the button (or talk to it), and it's just supposed to magically work.

Regardless the sophistication inside the device, given that, who do you think their target audience is?

My fault. I failed to make my point clear. This thread is not for Apple discussions. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. So long as Serato sells/markets the program as supported on Windows, they need to make sure it is actually fully supported legit on Windows.

Please refrain from cluttering up the thread with off-topic Mac fanboyism and trolling. It is counter-productive to getting the proper response to Windows editions of the software. It is also elitist.

Lastly, keep it to yourself until your MacBook can beat MY laptop's Cinebench score.

you guys do understand that the windows version will have to be forked off into a different build at some point in the future anyway right? Right now the windows version chugs along because it's basically a port of the version written for Mac using some common developer API. What about here in the NEAR future when Apple moves away from using Intel processors? Unless apple figures out a way to run x86 apps NATIVELY on their own silicon, having two code bases is going to be UNAVOIDABLE unless Serato decides to only support Intel based Macs

Serato needs to get in front of this as well. Split the code base, actually OPTIMIZE the windows version (using either Windows specific API, or newer ones)

This has been an issue with Serato from day 1. Yes you can get a PC with much better specs that will blow the mac away with any benchmark test.

But the software in question runs better on a Mac. I fought this for years, im a diehard PC guy. The fact of the matter is if you are a professional DJ running Serato, you want it to perform at its finest, unfortunately to make that happen you need a Mac.

The forums arent saying that Macs are better, its saying this program runs better on a Mac, which is true.

People have been complaining about this for almost 10 years. At some point you just want your DJ software to work properly so you can forget about the machine behind it and just DJ.

Probably preaching to the choir here, considering your name. As I see it the problem from day 1 was that the PC market was completely fragmented, with an impossible number of potential hardware configurations that may or may not have been working well together to begin with, before even putting a program like Serato into the equation. With Macs, there were literally only a small handful of different configurations in existence. Especially if you're programs system requirements dictate that only more recent hardware is compatible, which years ago left probably only a couple to a few different macs able to do the job to begin with.

A lot of the early A/V related software was mac only, not so much because macs were inherently better, but because the software designers found it easier to create software when they knew exactly what platform they were working with, exactly what it could or could not handle, and how it handled it. If it worked in their bench tests and their betas, they knew it would work in the field. This held especially true in the earlier days when your average computer wasn't particularly powerful, because asking too much of a particular box would just completely cripple it.

As time progressed and PC's found themselves the defacto home and office standard, (outside of specialized fields which still required or at least preferred macs anyway) making Windows compatible versions became necessary for survival for a lot of companies. For a long time Macs just didn't have the market share for software companies to pay the bills were they to cater to macs only.

As the Windows OS and surrounding market evolved, power became cheaper and found it's way into more and more homes. That made it easier for designers to meet their goals without necessarily requiring the absolute latest and greatest hardware, so that need for hardware spec consistency was lessened quite a bit, but once again that fragmentation comes back to haunt us. If one competent manufacturer made a boo boo, be it hardware or software, or the hardware you selected just doesn't work well together, or if that stupid HP is bogged down with bloatware, it can cause a million potential issues that come seemingly out of nowhere. This is especially true in the laptop market. Most of them are complete and utter garbage, regardless of spec or price (though there are a few which are well put together.)

Now that a couple of decades have passed, each year bringing with it a new Mac, that fragmentation is starting to effect even the closed ecosystem of Apple. They need to change and progress to keep up with the times, so out come the new models, but now we have more Mac variety than ever out there and seems that companies like Serato are somehow just completely unprepared. I mean, where else in this world do you have a company releasing a brand new pro grade product like SDJ, partnering themselves with companies like Rane and Pio with their multi-thousand-dollar setups, then telling end users that their brand new holy shit I spent how much MacBook won't run it properly. Go buy a 5 year old used one instead. I mean, that's some next level complacency there, especially when Macs are supposed to be the defacto standard for this type of thing.

So it's not even like Serato is really doing the mac side of things particularly right or well. I mean, these forums are riddled with people having various issues that are all mac all the time. Not to say that Serato isn't more focused on Mac than Windows, they are, and choosing a known good configuration mac will absolutely increase your chances for a trouble free experience, but the RIGHT Windows box can absolutely do the job with complete stability and functionality... And it doesn't even need to be all that new, if I'm honest. I've got a PC that's been around probably for a decade, dual core Xeon @ 3.0 ghz, and stability wise I'll put it up against pretty much anything you've got. Server CPU, it's stable. More cores would be great when analyzing, but aside from that I probably wouldn't see a difference. Ran it on 4 gigs of ram and onboard video for years without issue, but the optical drive was a major bottleneck. Added an SSD and a cheap Nvdia card, upped the ram, and not only is it still incredibly stable it's also snappy as hell. For me, I'd much rather have this little pc rather than be one of the Mac guys who find themselves having one issue or another. Not that they're necessarily the norm, but my shit just works. I'm quite happy with it.

I'll rock a mini pc over a laptop just about any day of the week too. With a little forethought they can be just as easy to transport, setup, and use as a laptop, if not a bit bulkier. Horizontal mini tower, small hinged lcd, kb/trackball. Best part, it's modular. I like modular.

they freefall and you still can't afford one. that's tuff.

here is yet another example of an elitist comment that contributes nothing to the conversation at hand. Fanboy trolling trying to get a rise out of me. My PC laptop has 8 cores/16 threads, can hold two internal drives and can also game DX12 titles. When you can show me an 8 core apple laptop with SMT. THAT DOESN'T cost $3k, THEN you can talk about "tough." Your $2000+ laptop only puts up 3 digits in Cinebench? That's tough. No dedicated GPU? for THAT MONEY? that's tough. Out of support after 5 years, btw? Not opening up to their flawed keyboard design, well, at least you fit in with the "cool kids." I'm CERTAIN you spent at least $500-1000 more on your laptop than I did, so if that makes you feel superior, more power to you. I'm glad. Just let me know if you want to compare benchmarks.

Benchmarks dont mean much when talking about one specific program that is known to run better on mac.

PCs with high end graphics card still have stuttering waveforms/choppiness compared to a mac.

I agree with you that the macs are overpriced crappy hardware compared to most PC laptops. They do blow PC hardware out of the water when it comes to case design though, but as a professional DJ making money from DJing you want the hardware that works best for the application you are running.

In this case thats proven to be a Mac. You also dont need a $3000 macbook pro, you can spend 1200 and get a machine thats fine for DJing audio.

The problem is, I don't buy my laptop just to use Serato DJ. In fact, the only reason I use Serato DJ is because vdjs integration with my controller is not quite as tight, and rekordbox doesn't work well on windows at all for video. I also use my laptop for Adobe premiere, indesign, and illustrator. And sometimes I do occasionally game on it. I'm not spending $1,200 for a Serato DJ appliance when I can spend $1,400 for a beast laptop that will do my other tasks far better..

The thing that I never seem to get, is the blame culture surrounding apple users. If you buy a Tesla, and there's a problem with the braking system, you go demand Tesla fix it. However, an Apple user can have a problem with an apple product, and immediately blame THEMSELVES instead of apple. This happens ALL the time. In the same vain, here is a piece of software that doesn't work correctly on a specific platform, where as Windows users look at the DEVELOPER and say, "fix it please." The Mac users instead blame the non-Mac platform. Because apple can do no wrong.

Guys, please, we don't subscribe to that school of logic. We want the developer to fix their product. If you went to Tesla and said, "There's a problem with my braking system." And then I say to you, "You should have bought a Chrysler, their brakes work just fine." I'm guessing you would not be amused. Please spare us the snarky and non-helpful "suggestions" to buy a Mac. I don't ever want a Mac, EVER.

Let's just clarify that Serato DJ is built for, and tested equally on Mac and Windows. If you are having issues with lagging and poor performance etc then it's most likely because of the computer itself or a setting that needs to be optimised.

I have an issue with it being insecure. The devs need to fix that problem

Your best bet is to get in touch with the support team so they can help diagnose the issue. Without comprehensive information about the issue, we cannot fix anything.

Comprehensive information about the issue: QuickTime is out of support and has known security exploits for almost 3 years. Solution: Stop using QuickTime, stop distributing with SeratoDJ Pro for windows, use different media decoders. My system is irrelevant. ALL windows users are affected. Maybe you should have read the original post before trying to offer your "assistance."

Hey man, I misunderstood what you were saying. As far as the Quicktime vulnerability, the dev team is aware of it and is working toward a solution long-term.

I was trying to address the age-old Mac vs PC argument.

it contributes to the conversation because if you had a mac you wouldn't be posting this. Secondly, all those cores and you still can't use parts of Serato embarrassing. Just save up and by your mac.

The answer to your proposal is NO

it's not a proposal because i would not propose to help a hard-headed individual like you.good luck with all your windows exploits and no dev support on your os and your useless cores you're not benefitting from.

You perfectly made my point for me.



The fact that Serato is officially offered as a Windows product, as in officially, by the company, Serato, means the devs should officially support it, or alternatively, NOT offer it officially as a Windows product.

For the record, Serato DJ Pro works VERY well on my 8-core laptop and RX580, although it doesn't benefit from up to date graphics API's resulting in less smooth frames on waveform/UI redraws etc. The part I can't seem to get through to your "charming" personality, is the fact that this is the fault of the developer, not the operating system. They haven't gone to the trouble of optimizing the windows version to perform it's best, (probably using DX12). That's all fine, why should they? Just about every Apple Fanboy like yourself will INSTANTLY attack any Windows user who demands differently, insulting their intelligence like, "what an unfortunate dumbass expecting to not be locked into a very singular and specific hardware platform. Who do they think they are, expecting that they can have free choice to buy the hardware they want instead of the hardware we expect them to buy. It's their own fault for not falling in line with the CULT of the Apple sheeple." Maybe if I was just programmed like you are, I wouldn't need to expect the developer of a product for which I've spent money on, to correct fundamental flaws like using a fundamentally insecure video decoder, for THREE YEARS with in their software. Yep, it's my own fault for not following the mindless herd that the application installer suggests I expose myself to publicly known security threats. What the hell am I thinking, expecting for software that I invested money in to work as advertised.

I don't even think you can begin to understand how ridiculous you sound

Serato works absolutely fine on my £300 Windows machine, played a gig on Saturday with it.

Mac fanboys are just tedious wankers.

It's all about $$$$'s. While the gap between Mac's and PC's has narrowed over the years, PC's still account for 90% of the market - far, far more than Mac's. No software company - not even one like Serato that causes many "head scratching moments" - will abandon that.

You are 100% correct - fix the Quicktime issue - but they're probably scrambling right now after shooting themselves in the foot with 2.1

The first official response, and it's responding to a PC vs MAC debate while missing the whole point of the topic to begin with.. Classic!

Good to know the dev team knows about it.. The public would have no clue they are even aware based on the facts presented in this thread, subsequent bundling of problematic software, lack of response in beta forum, or here.. until now..

The Dev team was aware of it, how could they release 2.1 with a QT bundle in good conscience?

EXACTLY

Because PC users would be in here crying about not having access to 2.1's other features and fixes. Damned if you, damned if you don't.

PC users have been finding their own codecs for decades. We'd be just fine.

Personally, I couldn't care less about video anyway. Glad it's there for those who want or need it, but perhaps it should have been a separately bundled download altogether. Or a separate product altogether. Serato VJ Pro, perhaps.

You mean instead of the separate plugin it is now? Serato Video? The one that costs $99 US? The one being sold as a seperate product/expansion here? serato.com.

The system requirements kinda show how un-optimized Serato DJ Pro really is though. Processor 1.07GHz intel core but no mention of QuickSync or whether or not SDJ can take advantage of that. (Quick Sync was first made available on Sandy Bridge architecture.) Does SDJ leverage QuickSync on Apple? probably if it's using Quicktime X... on Windows? I doubt it's using directshow or WMF by default unless you are a savvy user and install your own media decoders... (such as k-lite) and tweak them. Could this make a BIG difference to video stability under windows? Well, instead of throwing raw processing power at decoding videos, it could take advantage of the dedicated video processing core, so I would venture yes. I have read elsewhere that Serato is aware of this though, so maybe one day (especially with Apple moving away from intel), we will see this.

I also wish they would switch API's from OpenGL to Vulkan with regard to the rendering of the GUI. I mean, unlike Metal, which is apple specific, or DX12 which is windows specific.... Vulkan works on everything... and look at this list of supported hardware: en.wikipedia.org(API)#Compatibility
It would allow true cross-compatibility, even with iOS devices (and possibly other non-intel based Macs) via MoltenVK. This would do a LOT to improve the consistency between apple and windows versions of SDJ. If you guys are looking for a more UNIFIED code base, Vulkan is the way to go.

Yeah, as in instead of a plugin, instead of bundling quicktime as their decoder of choice with every install regardless of whether the end user ever plans on mixing video, leave it all out unless the user actually wants it. Otherwise it's all nothing but bloat, even on it's best day. But regardless, distributing quicktime at this point in time is just asinine, regardless of motivation.

i have always had a mac pro and two pc's.... my pc laptops work fine and both do video very well other than the centering video issue when using direct-show. older videos are normally the ones that don't center. at the end of the day serato should be able to do video just like virtual dj or even mixvibes they both record and play all types of video. if you need to record your set i suggest you use this... obsproject.com

Just reading through the posts here and it seems like if you aren't using serato video you no longer need quicktime. Or am I misunderstanding this.

I don't use video, but had quicktime installed to use AAC files. Is this no longer required? Is there now a built in AAC codec that works?

If i can get rid of quicktime i'll be a little bit happier.

You do not need Quicktime to decode AAC under Windows. DirectShow can do it, or install k-lite if you want more control

Thanks man, that's good to hear. Gonna go uninstall quicktime now.