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2010/11/04

Capturing the screen as a DV signal over Firewire


"I have found a way to transfer a live video screen capture from one Mac to another Mac using DV over Firewire.
This might be useful for VJs who want to mix video from two computers without using a capture card – the 5$ in the title of this post is for buying a Firewire cable.
Have a look at this video tutorial or read on for a text version – sorry about the less than optimal video and audio quality – this is my first attempt at doing a tutorial:


Capturing the screen as a DV signal over Firewire from Udart (Vibeke Bertelsen) on Vimeo.
First of all you need to download a couple of components which I have collected in a handy zip file: DV screen capture components
Here are the links for the original sources of the components in the zip file:
Please be aware that as I have not created the software I have no way of making changes or helping out if this hack does not work for you.
1. Connect the two Macs with a Firewire cable.
2. Download the software and start up the VirtualDV app on both computers. This is to fool the computers into believing there is a hardware DV device connected
tutorial 1
Step 2
3. Unpack the v002ScreenCapture.plugin.zip file and install the plugin into /Library/Graphics/Quartz Composer Plug-Ins
4. Start up QuartzComposerLiveDV on the computer that you want to capture video from.
5. Click apple+o and open one of the files inside the ’screen sizes’ folder – select a file that matches the area of the screen you want to capture.
tutorial 2
Step 5
6. Now if you see a live screen capture in the window inside QuartzComposerLiveDV you’re up and running.
tutorial 3
Step 6
7. Check that it works by going to the receiving computer and open Quicktime Player. Open the Recording tab in the Preferences pane of Quicktime to check that a new video source has been created.
tutorial 4
Step 7
Things to note:
- I have only tested this on Leopard. Let me know if get it working on other versions of Mac OS.
- There is a visible delay as with other DV sources. This is because DV is a compressed format and so it also takes some CPU resources on both machines
- No sound is transmitted although sound is a part of the DV codec. I think this i because there is no sound included in the QuartzComposerLiveDV app.
- It’s only possible to capture the primary screen due to the way that v002ScreenCapture works.
- Keep the QuartzComposerLiveDV app visible – if you go apple+H the DV signal stops.
Other uses:
- You could also connect a DV camera and record the screen cast if that is of any use to you…
- Or you could load up any other Quartz Composer file in QuartzComposerLiveDV and send that instead. (I tried this and not all QC comps work. I am not sure why…)"
(udart)

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