Manufacturer	Livid Instruments
Website	Livid Instruments LIVID Union
Platform	Windows
Price	$299
Rating	Average: Select ratingPoorOkayGoodGreatAwesome Your rating: None

UPDATE:Livid Union 1.5:
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Livid has updated it's RT video software Union to version 1.5 including lots of new features and improvements that i want to bring into this review as an update. The Livid team has concentrated on performance and workflow, fixed bugs of the previous versions and made additions to the fx arsenal of Union. Within the next months we'll also see further additions i.e. plugins for Union. New features include the following:

- Larger clip grid with 6x6 cells

- Trigger and edit modes: Directly above the Clip Bank there are two buttons labeled T and E , for Trigger and Edit modes. When Trigger mode is selected, clicking on a thumbnail in the Clip Bank will play the clip in the currently selected source. Selecting Edit mode will allow to arrange clips within the Bank.

- Buttons to sequence the clips in the grid, i.e. timeline functionality. Clip banks can be sequenced on channels A and B. Pressing one of the sequence buttons starts the sequence on that channel. This begins at the top left cell of the clip bank, plays the clip and then moves onto the next clip in the bank.

- 4 effects layers per channel: multiple parameters for each effect in an individual layer, assigning a new effect entirely will replace the current effect. The FX off button turns off all effects in the currently selected source. Individual layers may be turned off by clicking on the layer labels in the central Mix window. Unfortunatly it is still not possible to switch off single fx layers with a trigger OR let the fx triggers enable the effect on the 1st hit and disable it on the 2nd. it's only possible to klick on the fx layer label in the mix window with the mouse OR disable ALL effects for the current bus.

- lots of new effects as "3d sheet" or "Helios" plus over 20 new effects parameters. the fx bank of the older Union versions have already been quite impressive, and now we get even more.

- FX triggers to fire up favorite fx settings: activate assigned effect parameters for instant effects. Each trigger turns on (but not off when already activated) an effect parameter set by the slider above. Triggers can bet set to a MIDI note or a keyboard key using the controller options.

- FX triggering with velocity: Midi velocity can also be used to control the amount of the effect applied by the fx trigger.

- easy to use LFOs: pressing the "~" button next to a knob assigns an LFO to it, easy to use.

- Midi learn buttons: automatically mapping of a MIDI controller to a Union knob or slider when a MIDI value is sent, comes in very handy.

- built in MIDI templates for popular devices, even more templates will be available in the support section of Livid's website.

- MIDI mapping for multiple controllers and channels

- Advanced sound triggering: sound in is divided into 3 bands (bass, snare, hihat) which can trigger random film clips on Source A or B, change random frames in a clip on A or B, change the clip bank presets (pages), and change the brightness, hue and saturation of the clips.

- Motion Masking: QuickTime movies or images with an alpha channel can be used in both source A and B to create motion and still masks. loop mode, speed and scrub the mask is also possible.

Summary:
the Livid team has put a lot of work into this new version and been successfull in bringing the app to a new level. Most of the bugs from previous version seem to be fixed. The new features come in very handy and have improved the overall workflow. Still some points will need further improvement to make live work easier. Performance has become better and in some situations frame rates have been doubled in comparison to earlier versions. Testing on my old TiBook with shadowkiller enabled, Union is doing fine running 2 busses and 1 fx layer enabled. In this combination also using LFOs and audio trigger doesn't bring down fps. Using more than 1 fx layer (with mixing and all the other things running) brings fps down to 15-17 fps. On the Dual MDD no performance problems at all, so running Union on one of the new Powerbooks or even an iMac G5 should be just great.

ORIGINAL REVIEW
Livid Union 1.0
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Livid Instruments, the crew around video artist Jay Smith, just has its outcome a few weeks ago and brought us a new all in one solution for realtime video. The idea of building specialized hardware controllers for existing realtime video apps is not that new, but with LividInstrument's Tactic we have it here and now a highly integrated hard/software combination, that allows us to put the computer aside and just play a video instrument live.

Livid Instrument's software Union is just the more common version of Tactic's software component Tactic Live and supports any MIDI controller. Union is a MAX/MSP/Jitter based app for the Mac (Windows version to come in 2005) and it's bunch of features make it a quite complete software for RT video.

User Interface:
The UI cannot deny where it comes from, but it looks very good for a Jitter app. The main window contains all controls devided into sections – everything at a glance, except for the „Modules section where you can map different control groups into. Additional windows can be opened for Effects lists (A&B bus) and the LFOs.

On the top of the main window you find the sections for:
- Monitor selection: support for 2nd Desktop and Mirror Desktop, Screen settings. Main Output is routed to 2nd Desktop by default at startup.
- Recording section: defining format and destination of recording, realtime and rendered recording supported.
- MIDI/querty mappings
- Digitizer input section
- FPS info display

In the middle area you have a:
- file browser: built into the Jitter environment, which is great as you can browse your whole disk without having to pop up a file dialog and stopping the output.
- mixer section: previews on the selected source media for both busses and a preview for the processed output of one (!) bus – means you cannot see your mixed output at the screen at all if your main output is on the 2nd desktop. If you leave fullscreen mode, this preview acts as output window and shows the full mix. All previews can be switched between Snapshot/Limited/Full rate to help save CPU. On each bus there is an effect indicator that displays the currently selected effects on that bus. And of course a slider to mix between busses.
- Modules section: you can select the desired content for that section, which is:?movie control, title generator, chroma/luma keying, tempo sync, automation, 2nd digitizer input, masks, audio analysis.

The bottom part contains sections for:
- clip presets: 127 presets containing 36 clips each, which makes a total of more than 4500 clips under control! Imagine all your clips managed within one file, immediate triggering. The presets are organized in a grid of 6x6 cells. Each cell displays a preview image for that clip. The filename of the clip is displayed for the currently selected clip. The presets can be labeled and switched via next/prev or jumped to via dropdown selection. To fill your presets you have drag single files or folders from the files browser above. If a folder is selected, files that don't fit into the current preset go into the next preset.
- routing controls: with union you have the choice of either opening effects windows for both busses and tweaking effects controls with the mouse, or to use the effects section with the main window (or a combination of both). If you use the effects section (via mouse or MIDI) you have to select the bus where the action should take place (A, B or A&B) via „control to buttons. Similar, you also have to select which layer your effects go (L1 or L2). Each bus has 2 effect layers and an aditional 3D effect layer, which means you can have a maximum of 2 effects + 1 3D effect per channel.
- Effects section: looks like a MIDI controller with x knobs, where x has to be defined in the MIDI settings. Similar to the clips preset, effects are organized as labeled presets so that you can switch between up to 128 effect banks via next/prev or dropdown selection.

Performance & Stability:
Union didn't crash once during 1 weeks of heavy use – nothing else to say ...
Performance observations are based on an install on my TiBook 1GHz with 1GB RAM and clips running from the internal drive. I've tested with the 2nd desktop set to 640x480 (recommended) and 800x600, where i coudn't see FPS really going down with the higher resolution.
The responsiveness of the user interface is great all the time, no matter what's going on and how heavy you push the app – very comfortable. With no effects running both busses running clips i got 50fps displaying only 1 bus and 45 fps displaying a 50/50 mix. Even automated clip changing to beats plus enabling audio analysis to jump frames at audio events doesn't bring down FPS below 35.
Using effects is another story: using 2 effects on bus A bring FPS down to 25, using 2 effects per bus and making a 50/50 mix gives 15 FPS – depends on the effect of course.

Quality of output:
I used my 320x240 PhotoJPEG 75% clips as usual. Union's processing resolution is 320x240. For the final output's resolution Union makes use of OpenGL interpolation, which gives a smooth output.

Inputs:
- MIDI: MIDI control is working without a glitch. Popping up the MIDI mapping dialog shows a MIDI inspector which displays MIDI values of incoming controller data and notes – makes it easy to assign the appropriate values.?MIDI controllers: crossfader, movie volume, movie speed, movie scrub, brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, fade to black and all effect parameters. ?MIDI notes: first clip note (lowest used), prev. clip preset, next clip preset, prev. effect preset, next effect preset, controls to source A/B/A&B, all effects off.?- Audio: Union doesn't provide full audio analysis, but creates events based on audio tresholds, named „SoundTrg . What you get is trigger events for bass, snare and hihat which can be linked to change clip A or B and to change frame of clip A or B. So that's not all one could expect as it's not possible to link effect parameters to EQ bands, but it works very accurate and is great fun to use. For the next version of Union Livid will focus on the audio part.?- Digitizers: tested with a camcorder hooked up via firewire – works as expected, DV latency was quite low, performed good even with effects running on the live input. Didn't test a 2nd firewire input. Video in is only possible on the A bus.?
Outputs:
- 2nd Desktop: main output can be directed to any of the attached desktops (one at a time), selection of the supported monitor modes and basic color correction. Dual screen and mirror mode supported.?- Firewire: you can output DV encoded files (in fact even all codecs/resolutions) at full resolution via firewire. Only 1 bus with no effects, but full movie control available.?- Render: render to disk can be done in realtime (with frames dropping eventually) or in render mode, which takes longer then the actual performance, but doesn't drop frames and renders full quality.

Supported Media:
Anything supported by Quicktime, including QuickTime movies, DV movies, mpeg2, mp4s, gif, jpeg, bmp, pict, png, flash and shockwave, and audio formats such as mp3, aiff, wav, and sd2.

Effects:
Union has about 25 main effects with over 300 parameters to control via MIDI. There is an effects configuration option where you can „blend out effects from the user interface so that you only see those effects you really want to use. All of the effects are good quality and produce very interesting results – to like or not like an effect is a matter of taste, but i have to say that Unions effects library convinced me from the start. I can't describe them all here, but to name a few:?- Cutup: produces kind of geometric puzzle and changes pieces at controllable rate?- Delay: video mixed with it's own delay?- Feedback: highly controllable video feedback – just great, my favorite together with?- Feedback Blur: puts blurring on feedback to generate e.g. kind of vectorized image with soft, moving edges and much more – fantastic!?- Meta Image: devides image into x*y units, which display full image theirselves, overlayed with original image?- Noise: in many variants?- Resize: displays image 2 or more times aside each other in different sizes?- Streaky: kind of directional blurring/pixel wiping?- Windows: combines original picture with multiple squares containing zooms of the original picture

Another advantage of unions effects handling is the possibility of saving snashots of effect settings into presets – yes, finally! You can have up to 8 presets for every main effect. I ended up disabling effects i woudn't use, save presets for the rest, building effect banks with 16 knobs into the main window (just define how many controllers and starting controller# in MIDI config) and using pairs of controllers: one knob to select between effect presets and the hardware slider below to control one special parameter (the most significant for that effect) of the selected preset – that way you get instant access to your favorite effect settings without noodling around. Of course you can build an effects bank with a preset selctor and controllers for all parameters of one effect as well, or any combination you like – for instance one special effect preset for each clip preset.

When you have activated an effect and touch a slider/knob that is defined to control another effect, the 1st effect will be replaced with the 2nd one by default. Not so if you switch to another effects layer (L1/L2) – i have to mention here that it has been forgotten to implement a MIDI control for switching effect layers, annoying. As an alternative you also can define the layer where the effect is to be applied within the effect knob itself – that way you you don't need to change effect layers and can concentrate on tweaking knobs and sliders – fun! At this time there is a bug in effects routing where effects can be routed to the wrong bus sometimes - that is being adressed by LividInstruments already.

3D effects:
3D effects are nice but not my cup of tea in general. Interesting the ability to map video onto and manipulate .obj files in real-time. Didn't test because no .obj at hands right now.

Titles:
Also not my thing, so i didn't much testing here – selectable font/color, anti aliased and position controls via MIDI.

LFOs:
select a type (saw, triangle, ...) and an interval (1/4, 1/2) from Union's current BPM and an effect parameter this LFO has to be applied to – as soon as you use that effect you'll see the effect paramter changing to the beat – awesome. Like the other „banks of Union you have 128 presets containing 12 LFOs each, should be enough.

Automator (auto pilot):
The automating feature of Union is great. Everything is hooked up to the „central Union tempo and the options include changes of the following to the beat: change clip, clip preset, clip speed and frame, effect, effect paramters, effects preset and crossfade. I've tested with a Korg MicroKontrol, tapping the tempo on the keyboard and nothing else to do ;) you can also tap tempo within Union in the time module.

Movie control:
This module lets you change loop mode, movie speed and select a portion of the clip for looping. You also find a scrub area to position the mouse or pen and start scratching – works really well. Controls for QTVR and DV output. It's also possible to sync clips to BPM, where not movie speed but the clip selection (range) is changed to match the selected beat cycle.

Mixing:
Besides the slide i'd like to see triggerable buttons to jump directly to a bus without blinding – i'll try to manage that with the MicroKontrol pads, programmed to send controller data of 0 and 127 instead of MIDI notes, should work. In the effects list you find a bunch of transfer modes for the mix and a Chroma key in the modules section. Chroma keying works fine and can be switched to work as Luma key as well.

If you've got some hours left just download the demo and try yourself. It took me some time to see the full potential of this software, but in the end i can't think of a feature i'd miss here – very complete. I would position Union as a competitor to VDMX. Just imagine VMDX with 128 little GRIDs built into it, and random access to all of your clips, well organized into usefull patches ...