Meet the new 5D Mark II Magic Lantern Unified from Andrew Reid on Vimeo.

here is out only wanted feature:

* more work on HDMI output for the 5DMKII so it is fully usable with the Atomos Ninja

You can support the development by sending them a small donation: http://goo.gl/gvD8Q. Here is the original sendout from the magic lantern user group:

Following the small, but positive feedback from this thread [ http://bit.ly/ml-unified-5D2 ], I'm glad to announce the next long-term direction of Magic Lantern: merging the AJ 5.x firmware with the unified one currently running on smaller cameras.
I need your help. As explained in the previous post, a good port (one suitable for paid jobs) requires me having a camera for testing. On 550D/60D ports, crashes are almost non-existent, audio meters are calibrated, HDMI monitors are fully usable and so on. So, if you like this idea, you may help me buy a 5D2 by:

- a small donation (you don't need a PayPal account for this): http://goo.gl/gvD8Q
- or by spreading the word, since right now there are not many users familiar with both ML versions

Feature-wise: I'd like to ask the users who have tried both AJ and Unified ML (especially those using both versions in a regular fashion) to comment on this. Main question: what's the best of both worlds? What do you like better in AJ 5.x and what do you like better in Unified? Big thanks to all ML community for making it possible!
Alex

With Mac OSX Lion 10.7.0, a message was repeatedly showing up in the Console.app, so the logfiles would grow in size - sometimes around 100 MB per minute. This is especially bad for SSD owners. While the issue was reported over 6 Months ago, and Flash Player 11 solved the amount of errors in the console, still the message appears and slows down OSX 10.7 systems.

At least the release of Adobe's Flash Player 11 solved the system freezes - but the Log message still is filling the kernel.log, so any debugging or search for errors is quite hard with that amount of data to read through.

If you are experiencing the same issues, please write your concerns to the Adobe Forums in the existing thread and alternatively also in the Apple Discussion Thread.

Nanofunk reported about this issue in july 2011, and we got over 60.000 unique visits to this post - so this is not a rare case, this is a serious bug with Adobe Flash and Adobe Air. We will post any updates to the situation to this blog, make sure to bookmark our feed.

See also:
* macrumors forum about kernel: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
* nanofunk: Mac OSX Lion 10.7 System Freezes: kernel: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero (console message)

[Update] I posted to the Adobe Bugbase with a bug description. Hope they will respond now.

To reproduce the issue:
1) click on "Clear Display" in Console.app
2) go to http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ and the error will show up in the console.

The error must be Flash related. Sometimes, the whole System is unresponsive, freezing everything but the mouse. There is no official response from Adobe or from Apple, so we can only hope and wait. Please check your Console.app for this error and respond to any of the existing discussions.

[Update] the error message also seems to have surfaced in 10.6.4 already, as visible in the Apple Discussion Forums

[Update] installing the Adobe Flash Player 11.0 from Adobe Labs seems to at least minimize the freezes, but still the console messages appear.

[Update] i posted a poll on insanelymac to see which browsers and systems are affected. please also post your results there!

[Update] the new Beta 2 11.0.d1.98 of the flash player is out (thanks JP Hansen)

[Update] The Flash Player 11 is officially released. It seems though, that not all issues are resolved with Mac OSX Lion compatibility.

[Update 23.12.2011] more than 6 months after the issue was reported, (and we have Apple Mac OS X 10.7.2 and 10.7.3 in beta) there is still no update on this issue from Adobe. Please write your concerns to the Adobe Forums in the existing thread to have them fix the issues! Especially for SSD owners this is unacceptable!

Existing Discussions:

* Nanofunk.net discussion thread in the Adobe Flash Player Forums
* Thread in the Apple Support Communities Forum
* Thread on MacRumors Forums regarding Lion Freezes with kernel: IOSurface

[Update] I posted to the Adobe Bugbase with a bug description. Hope they will respond now.

"lion is booting with some old xpc version" ~ Netkas

Some people are claiming to boot the recent Mac OSX 10.7 Lion with the XPC Bootloader project. More and more voices are popping up, so I am just pointing in the right direction, since "Any and all information about downloading and installing Lion, as well as any details are under Non-Disclosure Agreement from Apple.". You probably find updates on Netkas' Blog as well.

UPDATE: see a posting/ short guide on a popular board as well: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion [Beta/HowTo]

Instruments, Audio Effects, Midi Effects - but of course, this is not all of the cake. Imagine you can create user-interface elements however you please and also assign MIDI to that interface parts. This brings Ableton Live huge steps forward: the possibility to extend ableton to include a full featured audiovisual prototyping environment and to interface with the world: be it sensors, webservices or other Ableton Live installations.

1. Installation and Setup

Ableton Live Suite 8.1 (1.4GB download size!) and max/msp 5.1. are out in final versions as of today. As a happy Ableton and max/msp owner, the crossgrade was only 79€ for me (including VAT).

Right after Live starts up it has to be authorized, so all the extensions would be usable. After everything is set up, the following popup should be visible:

2. Overview

There are 3 different ways to include Max for Live patches into Ableton.

a) Instruments
Instruments would be a Synthesizer, a Sampler, etc.
Input: MIDI, Output: Audio

b) Audio Effects
Imagine any Audio Effect you can build here - let's say a Reverb for now.
Input: Audio, Output: Audio

c) MIDI Effects
Controlling and modifying the MIDI flow - like arpeggiators, mathematical functions, midi-sequencers, whatever.
Input: MIDI (or controller values), Output: MIDI

Of course, the whole bandwidth of max/msp is much more than only that. With Max for Live, now it is possible to use sensoric interfaces directly with Ableton Live: such as the i-cube, the arduino microcontroller board and so much else (for example the wireless MIDI Glove).

Interfacing to the "outside world" is also quite easy with max/msp: the netsend and netreceive objects let you connect via socket to e.g. a webservice, RSS-feed, whatever.
See also: Max for Live and twitter integration, the shoutcast~ and netsend~ objects for sending your audio stream around.

3. First Steps

In the screenshot above you see where the "Max Instrument" can be found in Ableton Live. In the right corner you can also see the first Instrument example I built: a sine wave oscillator.

a) Example: Sine Wave Oscillator Instrument with Signal Oscilloscope [download the patch]

This is a very basic patch: notein gets the MIDI note played, ddg.mono simplifies monosynth creation by dealing with last-note priority and note-on/note-off pairing, mtof (MIDI to frequency) translates the MIDI note to a frequency which is pushed to the cycle~ object (sine wave generator). The cycle~ then sends its audio-output to plugout~ which gets routed back to Ableton Live. Play the Sine Wave Oscillator as you would play any other instrument in Ableton Live: either via keyboard or via MIDI tracks.

b) Example: Simple Delay [download the patch]

This is also a rather simple patch. The incoming signal is delayed for a specific amount of time using the tapin~ and tapout~ objects. The tapin~ object is a continually updated buffer that stores the most recent signal it has received, and tapout~ accesses that buffer at one or more specific points in the past. The sound is mixed with its delayed version to create a sort of reflection.

What you can see in the screenshot below is how to implement images in patches that get loaded also to Ableton (using the fpic object) and which part is actually displayed in Live: everything below the black line is "invisible".
Test out the patch with the presets and also try to change the tapin~ and tapout~ values (use it as an audio effect on any soundfile. percussion or drums may be the best to hear the difference).

c) Example: 8-Step-MIDI-Repeat [download the patch]

The patch is also really simple: a line object counts from 1 to 9, resetting itself to 1 when it reaches 9 (=8 step), the select object checks for values between 1 and 8 and sends the according bang messages to the lights on top. the lights also trigger the int object, that saves values and outputs them on demand. this int objects are used to save the state of the checkboxes.
everytime an int object outputs a 1 (checkbox=checked), the select object on the right side sends the last notein event to a noteout object, causing the last note to be played again.

The difference between the two above screenshots is: hidden objects. Objects that you don't want to be visible in your Ableton Live surface you can hide with Object -> Hide on Lock (Apple+K).

Patch No.3 repeats your last played note in a step-sequencer style: however you checked your checkboxes, every time the light is active over a checked box, the last note will be played again. Test the 3 different presets and also the freestyle option (entering numbers on your own). Be careful with too low and negative numbers.

3. Conclusion

Max for Live is not only a very huge extension to Ableton Live (as stated above, a lot is possible now, from interfacing with hardware to webservices) but also finally a step in the right direction for the said to be lazy "ableton users": while the mainstream of ableton users use similar effects and instruments, this will change from now on. Instrument-directories such as on maxforlive.com feature lots of already available patches.
Another positive point is since max/msp is there much longer than Ableton Live and there is lots of educational content, tutorials etc. around. This could bring more people to look and learn about DSP and sound engineering als well as the physics behind audio.

Max for Live has still a few bugs - but what is there already is really something! Maybe one has to see it like this: in the end max/msp got a really cool sequencer ;)

4. Ressources

* ableton.com maxforlive product page
* cycling74 product page for max/msp
* maxforlive.com
* cycling74: the edit button has been pressed
* max 5 help and documentation

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