VideoVST - a Video-playing plugin - Bugs and FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Current version: 1.01

1. What is that funny box that pops up when I start my audio program (may not appear on some hosts)?

That's the plugin being instantiated by the application as it loads. The box is loaded and disappears - that's the same box that you see in the actual plugin, when you use it- it's just been drawn up and torn down, real quick.
I could have had the video window brought up by some parameter option - but I realised that was a waste of your time. Live with the black box. It means you and yours no harm.

2. What limitations does VideoVST have that I should know about ?

(1.) Win9x/NT/2k/XP only - I don't own a Mac - or a Linux box, for that matter - and I can't port it - hopefully someone else with a Mac will be volunteer to convert it to a Mac-friendly VST at some point. Or a Linux-friendly one :)
(2.) MPEG1 Video only - As mentioned before, MPEG1 to my knowledge is the only video format (besides FLIC) not protected by patents and therefore the only format I do not have to pay a fee to use. It is of reasonable quality - certainly sufficient for tv/film/video-score work - and it doesn't take much CPU to decode - important when working with software-based audio effects, which tend to use a lot of cpu time... Also, it is probably the only truly cross-platform file format - with the notable exception of MPEG2 and MPEG4 (both copyright and patent-protected).
It would be possible to play AVI files if I had the time or patience to somehow integrate the libavcodec library, and flaunt international copyright laws in the process, but for the moment I choose not to. It has taken far too much time to get even this little plugin into the world, not a process I wish to repeat.
(3.) Only one instance of the plugin per song - this is because of the way SDL and VST both work in hosts - which means that you can't have more than one instantiation of the plugin going, per song. Try, and you get funny bugs-

That's all. Enjoy (like coke).

3. In Reaper/EnergyXT, it doesn't seem to time sync...

In reaper and energyXT you will need to have some audio coming through the plugin in order for time syncing/restarting to occur - other hosts do this automatically, but you have to set it up manually here- either stick it on the master track or on any audio channel - either way, it does nothing to the sound passing through it.

4. Why can't I close the window with the close (X) button?

That's an Orion/Ableton-Live problem - if you enable the Quit button on a child window, they just completely shit themselves. They seem to think you're closing them - rather than just VideoVST - so the whole application closes. So, on all hosts, I disabled the close button. Minimise still works (in future versions it will also work as a quick-bypass - stopping playback when minimised).

5. In Orion/Tracktion 2, VideoVST crashed when skipping around heaps.

6. In Kristal Audio/Ableton Live 5.2.2/Musys, the parameters/window-clicks/resizing/anything doesn't seem to work or change until I hit stop/start.

7. How does the delay param work?

8. Ableton Live, the Delay param doesn't work when in the positive-range.

This is a bug- but I don't know why param works in all hosts except Ableton - might have to talk to Ableton or look into it myself.

9. There appears to be a slight discrepency between audio and video within the MPEG1 video file - is that the MPEG1 video file or VideoVST?

At the moment this is VideoVST - I turned on system-threading for the SM@PEG library (the library which controls MPEG1 playback) and this makes things more stable in certain hosts but may occasionally create slight sync discrepencies between video and mpeg1 audio - this is not a terrible problem - it will most likely get fixed, in a later version (hopefully...).
But for now ignore this.

10. On my machine, when I skip around it takes a very long time for the video playback to "catch up" with the audio host

Although MPEG searching is reasonably computationally expensive, it shouldn't take a long time to "catch up" (or to put it in another way, sync with the hosts's playback position). One issue may be your MPEG file - if your MPEG file was created "on-the-fly" ie. from a source like a digital camera or a digital video camera then it probably doesn't have a System stream- without getting into complicated details,
without a system stream your "catch up" speed will be very slow, compared to a MPEG files with system streams.
To create a video file with a system stream, either use one of the converters listed on the main page (here) to convert an existing AVI file to a MPEG1 file,
or if you don't have your video in any other format than MPEG1, use virtualdub (freeware from virtualdub.org, great piece of software) to convert it to a .avi file, then, again, use one of the converters on the main videovst page to convert the AVI to a .mpg.

11. FLstudio 6 crashes on exit/remove plugin.

If you could please talk to FL team about this I would be very grateful - because I don't own an FLstudio package myself (I only own the demo :)) I can't send bug reports. And this is almost certainly a FLStudio problem, or at the very, very least, an interaction problem between FLStudio and sdl.dll. Either way I can't help solve this without the FLStudio team's help-

12. I thought SDL was open-source - doesn't that mean this project must also be open source?

No - this project is semi-open - anybody is welcome to get their hands dirty, but they'll have to collaborate with me- SDL itself is opensource,
but the license permits it to be used in non-opensource (even commercial!) projects, so long as the library file (dll) remains external and not internally linked.
That's the sdl.dll that gets copied to the windows/system32 folder.
The SM@PEG library is a fork, so the usual rules don't apply but I will be providing the source for that, at some point - when I get around to it. So you see, all perfectly legitimate.

13. In Tracktion, if I have one edit open with VideoVST running then switch to another edit with VideoVST in it, they screw up.

This is a problem to do with the way that Tracktion closes plugins. If a plugin - in Tracktion - is also instantiated in the other song, Tracktion will not fully unload the first instance of that plugin - it'll just lose the parameters - meaning that the plugin - in this case VideoVST - doesn't get any opportunity to close, correctly. Nothing I can do.

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Disclaimer

This plugin is distributed as freeware. It is provided "as is", without any guarantee made as to its suitability or fitness for any particular use. It may contain bugs, and use of this plugin is at your own risk. Author takes no responsibility for any damage of any kind that may manifest with it's use. You are free to distribute the VideoVST files, without expressed consent, in any manner except for the following: via website, paid magazine or paid CD/DVD. Express consent to distribute VideoVST via one or any of these methods must be obtained from Matthew Bentley. You may not charge others for this plugin, or for any package containing it, without express consent from Matthew Bentley.