Manufacturer	VJO
Website	VJO VisualJockey Gold
Platform	Windows
Price	£
Rating	Average: Select ratingPoorOkayGoodGreatAwesome Your rating: None Average: 4.8 (12 votes)

VisualJockey (VJo) started in the year 2000 as a relativly simple program to generate beat reactive visuals, chain effects, and mix up several streams of video clip.The attempt was not to build a DJ style program with previews of the single layers, but more some kind of visual synth / sampler. Thus if you are looking for a app that gives you live preview of each channel while in the mix you will be dissapointed. If you are looking for a powerful tool that can be used to create visual patches in an easy manner and later be played like an instrument you may enjoy Vjo Gold alot.

The main coders Nema (Josua Hönger) and Nash (Vadim Gorbatenko) used to do such silly things like coding 64K demos and other weird stuff before. Perhabs this is the reason why they have this strange attempt get the max out of any hardware and any byte by using unhandy programming languages like C? Who knows...

Since the beginning of 2006 the original developer team has retired, leaving development to VJ Mavrick (Jean-Luc Addams) now. After a long period of silence since this change there is again movement in development.

Vjo Gold SP1 1.07 has been released, many bugs has been fixed, GUI has been reworked, Alpha channel has been added as well as many other effcts and generators.
Pricing model has also been changed, Vjo Gold is available for around 0 EUR now with all available plugins. Yeah, you hear right, its completly free now.

Vjo is a completly node based, modular software, and its grown now up into a kind of visual programming language over the years. Compared to programs like Eyesweb, VVVV, VSxu or PD its relativly easy to learn and handle.
On the other side: Even after several years of learning you still find new ways to (ab)use it.
In short: You can get addicted to it. ;)

Simply drag&drop effects into chains, merge those effect branches with multilayers, mixers and keyers like Blend, Add, Lighten, Softlight, Hardlight, Overlay, Screen, Lumakeyer, Lumamixers, Chromakeyer, RGB-Mixer and so on. Then route the parameters of the effects and mixer nodes to your midi controller. Its like building your own video mixer in software, but it leaves you the choice what it should do. So even if you use other software to play your clips it may be worth to check out these functions, at least if you have video inputs on your machine. You can build your own effect machines that alter you output just as you wish.

VJo is a realtime software, everything is rendered with highly optimized routines. This doesn`t mean you can`t render to AVI, it just means that even a really big composition in 2x oversampling (that where made to render) will still be written to disk with 5-10 FPS, keeping 25 FPS in fullscreen mode easily without oversampling.

(Perhabs you may see I`m not completly neutral in my review, but hey, would I write it otherwise.)

Vjo is designed for running at minimum latency, so if you trigger a clip or effect, you won't notice the time between your click and the change. Since version 3.5 you can trigger clips once, so Vjo can be used in a way Arkaos works. This is especially interesting for AV sets when you want to integrate live video inputs and prerendered clips into a show with a uniform look.

Murks Quicktime loader supports Audio output with variable speed (scratching is also possible but will lead to distorbed sound). Further loop points from EDL files, dynamic (f.e. sound driven) variables for flash movies, and trigger out on clip-end and clip-start.
(Please note there is an issue with this due to the last Quicktime update!)

Since R3.2 thanks to Pdoom (Peter Kaufmann) a 3DS loader with OpenGL support and other GL 3D effects are available. These can also be used to compose simple (alpha masked) 2D layers into 3D space, for all of you who don`t like to much glossy 3D style.

Giving a complete overview isn't possible, because the range you can do with this program is too big, so I will just give a list of the features. I copied this list from the old vJo page and will paste it behind the review. Alot more information about plugins is available on the Vjo message board. Writing a complete overview about features and plugins would fill a book.

Available Plugins:

- Stable Freeframe Support with unlimited number of variables and freechain support by Pdoom

- Nash Arts pack including Gems like: Anaglyph, a fast Chromkeyer for prerendered Clips (not suitable for live use) and Image-Explorer allowing you to to analyze Brightness and movement of the picture. You can build a realtime live-cam stabilizer with this one.

-Klumsy´s Pack with many high-speed 2D effects making life easier and comfortable. Very usefull ones are: Automask min/max, Difference Blend, RGB funky blend, Constrast MMX, Power Palette and several Color space conversions
This Pack also includes "paramscript2" which allows you use LUA inside of Vjo. (Please note that Klumsy´s pack is not updated anymore.)

-Another way to program easily inside Vjo is a MANGLE, a language that reminds in many aspects to BASIC, beside the speed. Currently it comes in two forms: X-screen which has full access to VJO output and input, full sprite and brush handling, particle system, and access to graphics primitives much the same as the Java language Processing. There are custom commands that allow you direct control over selected areas of the screen apply effects, etc (in effect a mini version of VJO inside VJO). The second version of MANGLE is called Process. This has no graphical output at all and is therefore much better suited to manipulating the input and output variables. MANGLE also has complete access to VJO's sound syste. This means you can directly hook into this for greater effect.

-Mavrick´s pack & Ultra pack with effects like: Moire Studio, Color Cycle, Film FX, Old film, Fourier Scope, Cartoon, Plasma Generator, and UL-Delay to fix bad field shifting with hardware DIVX players on live input (THANKS!).

-Murk`s Time overlay, allowing to display clock and countdown. Great for new years eve. Updated to work with newest Vjo Gold version.

Videolab

In my opinion the best feature: Up to 8 Capture Cards, DV-Inputs Webcams, or any other capture device at the same time! Happy mixdown - perhabs PCI- Xpress can handle this amount of data one time.

Hint: Even if it wasn`t ment to do such Vjo can handle simple "virtual studio" tasks. Pdooms Colortracker can be also be used to track a static point inside a handycam live input, displacing the picture you use to chromakey in behind the DJ.......

Summary:

Vjo has a bunch of plugins to position, distort and enhance clips and live inputs. It also has the ability to create visuals without any other tool, so it can be used to create beatmatched visuals as AVI for later use in other programs. Listing all plugins here would be to much, if you are interested in a full description, look on Vjo page, the forum or just download the full versionand start playing around with it. Guess this is the best way to see whats possible. All settings can be mapped dynamically to any input-device, such as mouse, joystick, keyboard.

MIDI driver pack allows to control any variable per MIDI. VideoLab Framesrate are stable at 25 FPS at full PAL / NTSC resolution.

Last but not least I really got to say something about good support: Developers can be contacted over the forum, they answer instantly and competent. Even if you annoy them with a endless stream of weird ideas like some users tend to. :rolleyes:

Flaws:

-Learning curve?

- Needs prepared shows

-Composition resets when a new file is loaded.

Clue:

Vjo is good if you have alot time to prepare your shows, if you exactly know what you want to play at night. It is very well programmed, trimmed on speed like Ferrari and has so many functions that I would call it a visual swiss-army-knife.
It allows you to mix clips and add effects @ 640 until your eyes bleed. I have never seen anything performing that good speedwise that does not rely on GPU.

The drawback lays in the GUI that is not really suitable for live usage (=building new compositions while running a show). This does not mean you can`t play live, you can do so very good, it just means its not ment to patch around while in fullscreen. You would not do so with your hardware either I guess? Plugging around while live on screen? You would? I did not say its not possible.. just that you have to live with the consequences.

A good idea is to prepare some good compositions and use other apps as live input which can be controlled in an easy manner for clip selection.

New features highlights in SP1 1.09 beta

-Advanced Particle System "Particle Soup" Alpha support and different sized particles, rendering speed improved

-Alpha support for Texture Generator

Feature List from old Vjo site:

New in Version: 3.50.46.09
* minor improvements and bugfixes in several plugins

Since Version 3.5.42.09:

Multimonitor support
DirectX Presentation mode: windowed & fullscreen
FXC & DFX Browser (find dialog)
Bypass dyn. variable for all single-input DFXs
IA Controller: keyboard added
Modified keymapper is now a part of the standard distributive
All resolutions supported by GFX-card now available!
8 virtual mice in IA Controller
Beat: sin/2 & cos/2
"Empty Cache" as playlist-command
New options for dynamic playlist-bool-variables
New dynamic playlist float-variables
Beat Controller & Beat Teacher
Improved beat tracking
Possibility to split DFX/FXC/Transitions/Resource Browsers
New browser styles (vJo native/I.E./N.C)
New "Preferences" dialog
Resizable preview
Wizard for export/import
GUI improvements:
- "Back" & "Forward" for navigation inside browsers
- Removeable captions for browsers (allow to save space)
- Panel for installed device (in status bar)
Parameters:
- BOOL, "Transition" ("TRUE" during transition)
- BOOL, "Rendering On"
- BOOL, "Change Overlay" ("TRUE" when overlay changed)
- BOOL, "Overlay On" ("TRUE" while overlay enabled)
- Float, "Value(1-8)" generated by playlist
- BOOL, "Switch(1-8)" generated by playlist
Dialog: "Property" for items
New Toolbar for playlist actions
Customizable accelarator key
Performance info for every FXC-node
New driver: "Comparator"
Dyn.variable usage for every FXC & node
Customizable cache for autopilot
Multithreaded environment: GUI & Renderer run within separated threads
New Splash-screen

Modifications:

Wider beat-tracking range
"RelayFX" saves connection during editing
Export dir for resources: new naming convention.
DirectX version checking(must be>=7.00!)
AVIMaker:
- High-precision FPS definition
- Saves recent wav/avi files as default
- Saves "Compression" flag
- 80x60 resolution
Visualight-Plugins:
- The most used support realtime-updating in the settings-dialog
- Optimisations in AVI-loader and smooth
- Internal AVI-manager for all AVI-loaders

General Functions:

Editor:

- Easy composition tree based editing
- Complete control due to node preview feature
- Detachable and reattachable floating
toolbars allow customized workspace
- Adjustable parameters for every effect
- Fast fullscreen output
- Overlay and overlay list
- Programmable playlist
- Cut/copy branches of composition tree
- Cut/copy of effect combinations (FXC)
- Multi clipboard
- Drag and drop support
- Save FXCs in customized folders within the editor
- Export whole shows to one file with all resources for easy portability or archiving
- Output AVIs with any codec installed
- Relay: link any input node to any output node creating i.e. feedback

Interactivity:

- Dynamic variables
- Parameters mappable to any installed device
- Mouse buttons, mouse wheel, joystick may be used

Plugins and Extensions:

- Resource Loaders: BMP, PNG, JPG, TIF, AVI (any installed codec)
- Adjustable start/end frame
- Custom frame rate
- Play forward and loop
- Play backward and loop
- Bounce mode
- Change play direction (back/forward) synced to music
- Adjustable forward/backward speed ratio
- Interactive (mousebutton, joystick etc.)
- Fade-in beginning of video when reaching the end
- Jump to random frame (synced to music)
- Picture manager (changing pictures during the show)

Sound System Synchronization

- Professional and reliable sound analyzing engine
- Synchronize effects or transitions to the music inputs: line-in (from the DJ-desk), CD, MP3, etc...

Software Architecture

- Full screen DirectX output
- Fast render engine
- Free plugin and add-on SDK