This thread is specifically related to people who do find this a problem, for professional reasons. But, you know, thanks for your contribution!
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AV Artists Complain Monterey 'Orange Dot' Security Feature Makes Macs Unsuitable for Live Performances
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This thread is specifically related to people who do find this a problem, for professional reasons. But, you know, thanks for your contribution!
If you are an artist choosing equipment for your performance, you need to control every aspect of the output. This is a big deal.
What’s escaping me is how many people does this affect? 20?
The way the problem is described by the person seems to quite overstate it. This isn’t an issue for people who output video from their mac, it’s people who are using their mac to record and output that content live.
What kind of professional is using their mac laptop camera as their professional camera?
Should we have a default mac setting to turn off this security feature for those people?
What percentage of people will be like “yes totally I’m a professional video artist and I can turn this off because my intentions are entirely wholesome. Pinky promise, cross my heart hope to die”
Is it always in the top right of external displays? Could you make a fake output resolution where the dot ends up outside the real frame of the projected output?
No, you just don't get it because it doesn't impact your profession/work. It's a big issue and there's no reason for it. Limiting the dot to the main display would be a perfectly sufficient way to notify the operator that audio was (potentially) being captured. It doesn't need to be on the external display. At the very least there should definitely be a way to disable it—like a "presentation mode", or something like that.
Besides that, it doesn't actually work properly anyway... As an experiment I just disabled audio input in Logic's preferences and the dot still shows—so even though I've removed Logic's ability to route audio input anywhere at the driver level, the dot still displays... So it's a bad idea with a broken and/or bogus implementation. If I was a video artist who just bought a new MBP I'd be super pissed. It would be like Apple putting a periodic "beep" in the audio output, just to let the user know video input was being used... stupid and short-sighted.
Then equally losing content display real estate? A workaround that doesn’t work maybe half of the time?
In a theatre yes, but smaller churches use ProPresenter to drive a projector and many are using it for live streaming. While ProPresenter does support the BMD devices for video output, not all churches would consider it reasonable to spend $$$$ to remove a yellow dot from their output when it was working perfectly fine in every other way.
Some churches actually feed multiple outputs beyond just the projector and live stream out of ProPresenter - there are stage displays and even lobby/foyer displays in some cases - so you would need quite a few of these interfaces to cover all of them. The dot might be acceptable on a stage display, but not on a foyer display or the main projector screen. Some may have multiple projectors displaying different content to the congregation (but granted those will typically be the larger churches that could likely afford the pro output hardware).
ProPresenter was one example. Other software is used for similar purposes and not all of it supports that kind of hardware. Many professional presentation tools still require the use of the OS-provided video outputs and will be impacted by this issue.
Thousands of churches are live streaming. Many of them use software-based solutions such as the one I am discussing above - if not ProPresenter, they might be using other presentation software (some even use PowerPoint - yuck) and separate live streaming software such as OBS Studio - but they would still be impacted by this.
You don't seem to realize that the Mac treats external pro audio interfaces and external cameras the same as the internal mic and camera - so it is not the "laptop camera" (or iMac camera for that matter) that is impacted, but ANY audio or video input being fed into the Mac using the standard interfaces, including a professional camera pointed at a stage.
The article does not specify, but past Mac OS versions treat external professional cameras the same as the internal camera.
I see no reason to assume they’d change their stance on that.
This presumably applies to all cameras, even external ones.
It's not just the laptop camera or microphone that trigger the indicator. It's any external video input which could be a capture card, and any audio input which could be an XLR audio interface. This comment clearly explains a use case that's very common right now in churches. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...e-for-live-performances.2328607/post-30720488
These users know their mac app is doing this, they don't need the OS to display that information on an external display to their entire audience. This isn't about disabling the feature entirely, it's about removing it from an external display that doesn't have a menu bar showing. It's unnecessary in that context, as you would still have it showing on the main display.
Edit: ProPropresenter can also be used to put said professional camera onto their projection screen for image magnification purposes, the second they do that they'd get a green dot on the projection output.
What's the betting the real reason they want the dot removed is because they do not want people to know that they are using Apple devices/hardware for their live performance because once full screened, those viewing have no idea where the video is coming from but have the dot in the corner many viewers would kow instantly what is going on.
To be fair, the actual problem is buried 5-6 paragraphs deep in both the MR and the CDM article. Initially all you get is "everything works as it should, but we don't like it." While I'm not keen to constantly cater to today's short attention span, a clear explanation of the actual issue should appear before so much prose.
It's not their job to beta test Apple software.
This is an embarrassing screw up for Apple. Macs are quite popular with professional artists, and Apple directly advertises their Pro machines as being creative tools for performers.
Is every MacRumours thread this daft? The amount of people who are all "I don't get why this is a problem because it doesn't affect me, or I haven't personally experienced it" (and people still saying things along those lines after the reasons have been explained several times) is both comically sad and frustrating.
Oh wait. I've just described the entire internet.
Oh wait. I've just described the entire internet.
A huge ass orange dot in the corner glowing like a dead pixel takes plenty of attention
I am baffled that we have 5 pages consisting of comments from people that don't understand that this is a real problem for other peple.
Talk about narrow minded. No wonder we don't have peace on earth.
Talk about narrow minded. No wonder we don't have peace on earth.
Giving artists an option to disable this impacts your security not one single bit.
Agreed! I have a colleague at work who, when he wants to go off on one, starts with "...in my humble opinion...".
Urrrrgh! People roll their eyes when he does that.
Since god is always listening, he probably deserves the dot.
I just came across this workaround on Reddit....
lowtechguys.com
YellowDot - Hide the macOS yellow recording dot
Hide the macOS yellow recording dot in the corner of your screen
This would be an easy fix, allow the dot to be disabled on an external display. Those who want it keep it, those who don't can hide it
There seem to be a lot of people here who would be happy to see a massive orange dot in the background visuals at a gig/art show etc.
Also the This isn't a problem for me, so it can't possibly be a problem for someone else brigade are out in force today.
Also the This isn't a problem for me, so it can't possibly be a problem for someone else brigade are out in force today.
Customer: I want absolute security.... Not like that. What an asinine complaint. Go ahead and bite the hand that feeds you.