BoinxTV Knowledge Base

I don't get an audio signal any more after the upgrade to OSX 10.6.2

After the Mac OS X update to 10.6.2, audio devices with 3rd party drivers don't seem to work any more in OS X at all. Like this BoinxTV doesn't receive the audio as well. These sources still show up in the BoinxTV sources panel as well as in the OS X system preferences. So if you rely on audio devices like these (e.g. Firewire/USB Mixers or audio interfaces) please hold back to upgrade to 10.6.2 until either a fix from Apple or the hardware manufaturer is released. On our systems we were able to get the audio back to normal after a few reboots, but we can't guarantee that this applies to all devices.

How can I get the sound of application XYZ or the entire System into BoinxTV?

To get audio in from the system or another application, please use either Soundflower or Wiretap Anywhere. Sounflower lets you select it (Soundflower 2ch) as an output devive in an application or the entire system and then you can add the same device in BoinxTV to an audio source. Like this, the video is fed through. In Wiretap Anywhere, you can select the application or the entire system inside Wiretap Anywhere and create a virtual device that can also be accessed in BoinxTV.

How can I loop a video in BoinxTV?

To loop a video in BoinxTV, just set the loop flag in Quicktime Player (View > Loop, then save the movie). This will loop the video also in BoinxTV.

How can I incorporate a Keynote presentation into my show without a secondary computer?

To get a presentation into BoinxTV without using a secondary machine, there a two ways.
1) Open the presentation and play it on a secondary screen. Using a Screen capture source makes it possible to get the image in.
2) Get Keynote viewer from http://tom-h.f2s.com/btvgear/ and install it. If you export your slideshow from keynote as a movie, you can use it with this viewer and advance through the slides.

Can I create my own templates?

Creating a template for your show is very easy. Set up a document with the layers you typically need and configure it for the look and feel of your show. Add common media like intro movies and logos.

Once you are done select File > Save As Template... from the menu bar. A dialog will allow you to enter a name, description and preview image for your template. As soon as you hit Save your own template will always appear in the upper part of the New Document window.

Can I share my documents with other BoinxTV users?

Yes, of course. Per default BoinxTV documents are self-contained and contain everything necessary to play back on another computer. In addition, BoinxTV tries to cope with different hardware setups. You should be able to seamlessly cooperate with others on the same document and move it between different computers.

Can I use media files with video and audio muxed?

Muxed media files (e.g. movies with suffix .mpg) currently can not be used in BoinxTV. To work around this convert the movie to a QuickTime Movie in Apple Intermediate Format or to a MPEG-4 file (e.g. using QuickTime Player Pro).

Can I use DRM protected files, e.g. songs and movies purchased on iTunes?

Media files protected by DRM (e.g. protected Audio or Video files bought through iTunes) cannot be used inside BoinxTV. There is no (legal) way around this.

Why is the last line of text cut off below the base line in certain layers?

In certain occasions text gets truncated on the last line in layers, such as the Static Text 3D. This is an issue of the underlying Apple frameworks that will hopefully be fixed soon. As a workaround add an empty line or a few space characters at the end of the text.

I use multiple graphics cards, why do I not have better performance?

With multiple graphics cards we run into the issue that textures need to be copied from one card to another and this has a rather drastic performance impact.
Unfortunately OS X doesn't allow for the graphics cards to communicate directly with each other (SLI, Crossfire) so we can't recommend using two graphics cards at the moment.

Can I run BoinxTV on a MacMini?

Yes you can but with the MacMini being the lower end Mac it doesn't have enough graphics power to handle BoinxTV well. After all, the newer MacMini is better due to the improved graphics card. So it will handle BoinxTV but don't expect too much of it. BoinxTV relies almost entirely on the graphics card and we recommend at least a 15" MacBook Pro.

Can I run BoinxTV on a MacBook?

Yes you can but with the MacBook being the "smallest" Mac laptop it doesn't have enough graphics power to handle BoinxTV well. It will handle BoinxTV but don't expect too much of it. BoinxTV relies almost entirely on the graphics card and we recommend at least a 15" MacBook Pro.

I have a powerful NVIDIA graphics card but the performance could be better. Why?

Due to a driver issue with the NVidia cards, these graphic cards run way slower than the ATI models. With the next operating system we hope that this issue will be worked out.

Safari 4 Pre-Release crashes BoinxTV

Safari 4 Pre-Release versions will rather sooner than later crash BoinxTV. This has been reported to Apple.

How can I send the live video to e.g. a TV?

BoinxTV can display the current output video fullscreen on a secondary screen. So all that is neccessary is to connect e.g. a DVI to composite adaptor (that can be found on the Equipment page) and connect it to the secondary output of your graphics card.
On the top right of the output video the fullscreen can be toggled using the left button (the one with two arows). Now select the secondary screen and the desired output resolution.
By connecting your TV/projector/broadcast system/etc. to either the DVI output or the adaptor you will see the live output on your ouput device.

How can I put the BoinxTV output on an external TV (or other composite/S-Video device)?

For this purpose BoinxTV has the fullscreen mode (the small button with two arrows on the top right). Before you toggle fullscreen output, make sure that mirroring is switched off in system preferences and that you can see anything (the desktop background) on the secondary screen. If this doesnt work, the problem is in your setup. Then in BoinxTV hold the option key while clicking the double arrow button. Sow select the secondary screen and a resolution of 640x480. Now you should be able to see the BoinxTV output on the TV. On the hardware side, all you need is a DVI to S-Video/Composite adapter (you get e.g. from Apple) that needs to be connected to the secondary DVI output of your Mac.

How can I improve the performance and reliability of the audio engine?

Use "Audio MIDI Setup" found in Applications > Utilities to unify the format of all devices you use. Most important is the sampling frequency. Depending on availability use "44100,0 Hz" or "48000,0 Hz". When working with DV cameras: those typically can be switched between 48 kHz and 32 kHz from the camera's menu. Use 48 kHz (48000,0 Hz) if possible and then adjust all other devices to this setting.

Why does the video sometimes stutter during slow pans?

BoinxTV processs the video in progressive mode only (no interlaced frames) like this you "only" get 25 or 30 full frames per second from your camera. This is perfectly enough as 24 frames are enough to make a fluid image. Then there is another technical fact that then can cause stuttering sometimes. To explain this, we need to explain how BoinxTV handles cameras: Other than other solutions we don't wait until a camera delivers a video frame but just let the camera "pour" its frames into a "framebucket" and we just pick a frame out of that bucket the moment we need it. This technique enables BoinxTV to mix different types of cameras without even thinking about framerates and timecode-sync. It might now happen that a camera needs a little longer for a frame and BoinxTV grabs the last frame out of the bucket, but in fact it is the same frame as before, then the next frame is in sync again. Like this we received one double frame and missed one. Like this is might stutter a bit from time to time. This is indeed inevitable as we had to make the choice of either mixing all sorts of cameras or frame accuracy. If you want to make this better, you can increase the framerate inside of BoinxTV

Can I record HD video with BoinxTV?

Technically yes, absolutely. BoinxTV currently limits the maximum allowed resolution to Full HD (1920x1200 square pixels). However, rendering HD graphics and video requires lots of processing power. Most Macs, including current standard models, will not be able to deliver decent results at such a resolution. Future hardware and operating system software will allow a reasonable HD workflow with BoinxTV.

What is Apple Intermediate Codec and why do I need it?

Short answer: It is a piece of software that for a number of reasons is required by BoinxTV for recording videos. If you care about good recording quality with the least possible CPU usage you should install the Apple Intermediate Codec.

To install it, grab the Installer disk that came with your Mac and follow the instructions to install iLife. You need iLife '05 or later, but Macs that came with earlier versions are most likely to not meet the system requirements of BoinxTV anyway.

Longer explanation: When recording a show with BoinxTV a huge amount of data needs to be written to disk. Unless you have a very fast hard disk like a RAID system or a SSD, that data needs to be compressed before it can be stored on disk. We found that the Apple Intermediate Codec requires the least resources while providing fairly good image quality. Unfortunately this piece of software (that extends QuickTime) does not come with QuickTime by default. It will be installed automatically by a number of Apple products, including iLife '05 or later, which comes with every Mac.

Note: Even though you may be able to find a download of Apple Intermediate Codec on the Apple web site, we found that this version is very outdated and don't recommend installing it.

Why does Audio drop or stop when I launch an application while recording?

Launching certain Audio Software (e.g. Apple GarageBand) causes strange things to happen in Core Audio. BoinxTV (and other apps) can not handle this well and may drop or even stop audio output. As a workaround never launch any of those applications while recording in BoinxTV.

At what frame rate does BoinxTV record movies?

Each document in BoinxTV can have it's own frame rate for recording. All templates are set to record at 24 FPS per default. Unless you change that value you will most probably record 24 frames per second.

To change the recording frame rate select Show > Recording Frame Rate from the main menu and choose your desired frame rate from the submenu. If you now save the your document or save the document as a template, all future recording based on that document/template will use the new frame rate.

Video and audio is out of sync when opening a recording in Final Cut Pro

Due to the nature of the underlying technologies the recording frame rate in BoinxTV is not 100% accurate, it slightly varies around the frame rate you have chosen. This is not a big deal unless you want to use Final Cut Pro for additional post-processing. Final Cut Pro requires movies that have an absolutely fixed frame rate.

After recording a show that needs to be processed in Final Cut Pro, select the Transcode to QuickTime Format option in the export dialog and select Final Cut Pro 29.97FPS or Final Cut Pro 25FPS as format, depending whether your destination is NTSC or PAL. Select a suitable File Destination and hit Start to begin the export.

If you want to prepare recordings for Final Cut Pro that you already have recorded previously, select File > Export Recording from the main menu. Click the Choose button in the dialog that appears and select the recording file to prepare. As described above choose your settings and export the recording.

How can I incorporate a Keynote or Powerpoint presentation into my show?

There are several ways of doing this:

1. Use a screen source to capture Keynote, etc.
2. Use a secondary machine that plays the presentation. Using e.g. an Epiphan VGA2USB to capture the video output of this machine brings the presentation into BoinxTV as a camera source.
3. Use the special Keynote Viewer layer from BTVGear at http://tom-h.f2s.com/btvgear/layers.htm

I have a flash memory based camcroder with a USB connection, can I use it in BoinxTV?

Flash based camcorders do not provide live output of their video stream, so unfortunately there is no possibility to grab their signal and get it into BoinxTV.

I connected multiple Firewire cameras to my computer but I can only use one. Why?

Normally one Firewire bus can only hold one camera (at least from the same vendor). Cameras from the same vendor tend to have the same firewire ID baked into the system and it can't be changed. Like this the two cameras collide on the same bus and only one can be used. So in most of the cases you will need a dedicated bus for each camera. This is also why e.g. Firewire hubs don't work. On a MacBookPro you can add a firewire expresscard to get a second bus and on a MacPro this can be done with multiple PCI-Express cards to gain multiple additional busses. Both cards can be found at http://www.boinx.com/boinxtv/equipment

Why is the mouse cursor not recorded when using a screen source?

At the moment this impossible with the technology used. Using e.g. Mouseposé can at least help highlight the area where the cursor is supposed to be. We are very aware of this and continue trying to find a soluition.

How to connect more FireWire cameras?

As a rule of thumb you can use at least one camera per FireWire port you have on your Mac. If you have a MacBook Pro with both a FireWire 400 and a FireWire 800 connector you should be able to work with two cameras, one by using a FireWire 400-to-800 adaptor, see the Studio Equipment page for details.

There are a couple of options to extend the number of FireWire ports on your Mac. See the Studio Equipment page for examples.

• MacBook Pros can be extended using Express cards.
• Mac Pros can be extended using PCI cards.
• The use of FireWire hubs is not encouraged as a hub only increases the number of connectors but not the throughput of the port. Depending on make and model you may be able to use two DV cameras on a single FireWire port connected through a FireWire hub.

I plugged in an additional camera, why does it not show up?

An important concept to understand is the difference between a device and a source. In BoinxTV, devices are physical objects like cameras, microphones, sound inputs, ... whereas sources are virtual entities that provide images or sound.

Devices are application wide and automatically appear in the device preferences as they become available, sources have to be created manually and separately for each document. One of the reasons is that a source can combine video and audio from two different devices. This enables you to use a dedicated microphone in combination with the video output of a FireWire camera to record a person.

After you have plugged in a camera, select Source > Add Camera Source from the main menu. A new source, per default named "Camera 2" appears in the Source Library at the bottom of the document window. In the Preview & Settings area on the right select the video and/or sound device that source should use. You can also rename the source to match it's use, like the name of the person being filmed. Now you are ready to use that source in any number of layers.

Are HDV cameras supported?

Mostly yes. The short answer is that you probably want to switch a HDV camera into DV mode. A lot of cameras provide that and then act as common DV cameras that can be de-interlaced and work nicely with BoinxTV.

The complete answer depends on a number of factors:

• First of all, you probably do not want to use HDV through FireWire. Due to it's nature, HDV over FireWire has a delay of at least two seconds before the video is decoded inside the Mac and can be used by applications like BoinxTV. For most use cases this renders the camera useless.
• In addition, Final Cut Pro needs to be installed for HDV capture to work. Components required to decode the HDV signal come only with Final Cut Studio (or Logic Studio).
• A good alternative that solves the two problems above is to connect a HDV camera though an HDMI connection to a grabber card like the Intensity (Pro) from Blackmagic. This of course requires a Mac Pro, but you should use a Mac Pro anyway if you plan to work in HD resulutions.
• De-interlacing of video from HDV cameras does not work. This is a limitation of QuickTime and we hope that a future version will provide de-interlacing. Please check if your HDV camera has a progressive mode - at least some Canon models are able to do progressive HDV and work fine with BoinxTV.