I'm thinking about buying VDMX- as of now I have been building directly into Quartz Composer. A friend of mine suggested that I try using stripped down versions of my QC patches inside VDMX for a better experience.
I have, in previous projects, used but a webcam and an old, borrowed panasonic camera as live video, which I've mixed with live video: You can see some examples of stuff here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drAq_lu--Mw
This clip starts out with a video feedback/tracing program which is slow but still kind of fun. I plan on building a more efficient version of it.
What I would like to know is what, specifically, people are using as live input. I've been poking through, and found out a lot of stuff is theoretically possible with various usb dongles/capture cards, but I'm wondering what people are actually using.
Here's what I am interested in:
1) does the video input stream HD or progressive video?
2) are you running it on a laptop or an iMac?
3) if you are using a camcorder, can it stream video AND record at the same time?
4) how good is your zoom?
If the above questions weren't leading enough already, what I'd like to do, ideally, would be to buy an HD camcorder which would simultaneously record its input as well as send (preferably) an HD stream, which I could then send into VDMX for processing.
Not only am I interested in a source for feedback, but also in being able to project close-ups of performers on a screen over their heads (for example).