Ventuz Editions
Table of Contents
Generally, Ventuz' philosophy is to have one basic tool that includes all features and capabilities. It does not matter if you are creating touchscreen applications, stage events or broadcast graphics - one tool has all the same features, workflows and skill requirements. The Ventuz software suite includes three different products which are used in different stages of a production. With a license you will usually get access to the whole software suite with its three products.
In version 6.7 Ventuz introduced a new editions model that offers an easier entry into the Ventuz world. Each edition enables access to other feature sets and they are all usable in any commercial production. The differentiation between the editions mainly happens on the output side. When purchasing Ventuz, there are multiple options for outputs, such as GPU, SDI or others. These do not change the feature set inside of Ventuz, nor do they affect the compatibility of the toolset. If you build a scene, it will output equally to SDI or a multi-machine clustered video wall (ignoring for a moment issues such as aspect ratio or resolution). In the same manner all Ventuz editions use the same installer.
Editions
Community Edition
The Community Edition is free for any use and contains all important features. It is perfect for small projects with simple requirements and for gaining first experiences with Ventuz. It is mainly limited in the resolution, in the number of Primary Nodes on screen and it has a modest, customizable branding on the output.
Core Edition
The Core Edition is our answer to small budgets and medium-sized, professional projects with extended requirements to the content. The core editions has no nodes limit and no branding on the output.
Enterprise Edition
The Enterprise Edition unlocks the whole Ventuz world for your project. You can tailor it to your exact needs in regards of output options, support and very advanced features.
When exceeding any limit of an edition you will experience a heavy watermark on the output making the presentation unusable for real production settings. Some features are comepletely disabled in lower editions; so if you want to test the full feature set of Ventuz for a more complex setup use the Prototyping & Learning Edition of Ventuz!
All scenes built in any edition can be opened with any other edition (limits still do apply).
Ventuz Products
Ventuz Designer
Ventuz Designer is the authoring tool used for creating Ventuz scenes and content. It is a powerful node-based toolset for working with realtime graphics, data and logic. But if you are reading this documentation, chances are you already know this.
Ventuz Runtime
Ventuz Runtime is the playout engine for Ventuz projects, whether for video walls, broadcast graphics, touchscreen installations or projection mapping events.
Ventuz Director
Ventuz Director is a template-based show control application. Where the Ventuz Designer is an authoring tool used to design visually rich and highly interactive content, Director focuses exclusively on the job of controlling and driving such content as part of a show. It is, unlike Designer, built with a shallow learning curve in mind and is intended for non-specialist operators to learn to drive quickly and easily.
For a detailed product and feature list visit the products pages on www.ventuz.com.
Maintenance
With each purchase of a Ventuz Product you will automatically acquire a 1 year maintenance of that product as well. Meaning you will be able to use all feature updates released in that time. For further updates you will need to refresh the maintenance for a small percentage of the initial price. In case your maintenance has expired your License Manager will look like this:
In this special case Ventuz 6.7.0 is installed. This version has been released after April 1, 2020 and thus is not covered by the maintenance anymore. This means that starting Designer, Runtime or Director will not work and the License Manager will be presented instead.
Output Options
Ventuz offers these output options for all their software packages:
- GPU: This is the default option for Ventuz to output to, using the DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort outputs of your GPU - It is included by default in all Ventuz packages.
You can use multiple outputs from one GPU using the display spanning technologies of AMD or Nvidia, such as Eyefinity(TM) or Mosaic(TM).
Multiple GPUs per machine are not supported.
In addition to the default GPU outputs, Ventuz offers these output options that require additional paid licenses:
- Machine Clusters: Connect multiple machines to a cluster in order to scale your project to virtually any required resolution. Each machine renders a different portion of your presentation and all machines are synchronized through TCP/IP connection over Ethernet and/or SwapSync of the GPUs.
- SDI: Single or Dual channel (Each Ventuz SDI channel consists of two signals/physical connectors, one for Fill and another one for Key), see Supported SD and HD SDI modes and formats.
Dual channel SDI can also be used as a single channel 4k/UHD SDI output. - iVGA/NDI: Single or Dual channel. iVGA is Newtek's legacy technology for transmitting video over computer networking and we keep the option for backward compatibility.
Starting on version 5.01, Ventuz supports the more modern Newtek Digital Interface (NDI) technology. As in SDI option, each iVGA/NDI output channel includes two separate Fill and Key signals, and options for single or dual channel are available.
If Ventuz is configured to output on shared surface(s) only (see MachineConfigurationAV) the output will be watermarked if neither the product Ventuz Director or at least one physical output (SDI) is licensed.
Input Options
- Camera Tracking Input: Ventuz supports receiving Camera tracking data from various camera tracking systems - at the time of writing Trackmen, NCam, Stype and Mo-Sys systems are supported.
In order to enable reception of Camera Tracking data you must have the Tracking option enabled in your license. This option must be purchased separately, for more info please check our website or contact sales@ventuz.com.
For an updated list of the Camera Tracking Systems supported by Ventuz (see MachineConfigurationVendors).
Prototyping & Learning Edition (PLE)
The Ventuz PLE Edition includes all Ventuz products and features, and is intended for educational purposes and evaluation only. To ensure that it is not used for commercial projects, the render output is watermarked.
- Free of charge
- Watermarked
- No time limitation
- Complete product and feature set of Ventuz.
- All supported video boards and output streams are allowed to be tested
- Any scene built in any other Ventuz edition can be opened in the PLE version
- Files saved with Ventuz PLE cannot be loaded into any other Ventuz version
The Prototyping & Learning Edition is offered for evaluation purposes only.
Scenes built in PLE cannot be loaded in any other Ventuz version
even if a full license is bought later on! If you open scenes in Ventuz PLE, you run the risk of them becoming locked to PLE and no longer compatible with your full versions!
Not For Resale (NFR)
Ventuz Partners usually receive a Not For Resale, or NFR for short, version of their licenses. This NFR version features some limitations compared to standard commercial versions, and it is strictly forbidden to use these licenses for any commercial or paid project.
Ventuz NFR licenses show a warning splash screen when opening the software and feature an NFR logo on the interface. As opposed to PLE version, NFR licenses do not feature a watermark on the output, so they can be used for training, demos and the like.
All scenes saved with NFR version will be marked as NFR only and will show the NFR warning screen when used on other Ventuz Commercial versions - be careful not to open standard projects on Ventuz NFR licenses or they will switch to NFR projects!