We’re planning an in-depth test of the new visual vinyl plug-in for Serato’s Scratch LIVE, VIDEO-SL, but in the meantime, one beta tester has already got his hands on it. DJ Steel puts together a pretty clear demonstration of what VIDEO-SL does and what makes it special, particularly in regards to comparing something like Virtual DJ (another DJ product with control vinyl support for video). The demo video isn’t perfect — he calls the product “SLV” instead of its correct name, VIDEO-SL, misses out on effects, and says “H.264 files are less CPU intensive to decode than “ordinary .MP4″ files.” (For the record, that’s basically the same format; MPEG-4 video generally refers to MPEG-4 Part 10, the video compression standard.) But he does give a good overview of some of VIDEO-SL’s capabilities, why the integration with the Rane mixer makes sense, and how this might be used in a “DVJ” (hybrid DJ-VJ) setup.

VIDEO-SL I think is very important, and could yield different VJ styles, for those who like working with vinyl. Stay tuned for our closer look soon. And if you’ve got one on test yourself, let us know your impressions!

Previously:

Serato Video Scratch Software, Now in Beta; Break Out the Turntable!