skeji

I'm looking into having Max send discrete control messages (i.e. not audio or video- just messages) from Max on a mac to TD on a PC.

Presumably, OSC is the best way to go, but this is a new area for me so I thought I'd seek a little guidance:

- Is OSC best here? I guess MIDI is an alternative. Maybe something else?

- Would an ad hoc network be fastest? Any general estimates on latency?

- Any preferences over a wireless vs wired (if this is possible?) ad hoc network?

- Bonus Question: if I did ever want to share/stream audio or textures, what would be a good approach (or perhaps this is a waaaay too big question to paste at the end)?

Presumably, OSC is the best way to go, but this is a new area for me so I thought I'd seek a little guidance:
- Is OSC best here?  I guess MIDI is an alternative.  Maybe something else?
- Would an ad hoc network be fastest?  Any general estimates on latency?
- Any preferences over a wireless vs wired (if this is possible?) ad hoc network?
- Any caveats?
- Bonus Question: if I did ever want to share/stream audio or textures, what would be a good approach (or perhaps this is a waaaay too big question to paste at the end)?

osc-connection-between-max-on-a-mac-and-td-on-a-pc

OSC is pretty good, I've been using it for years, between iPad, Macbook Pro, Arduino, in both directions. I've always used it wireless. The latency is minimal, because of the lack of error checking and stateless nature of UDP. It is also allowed to miss a few packets, so don't use it if you want to be sure every command sent from A is read by B. A beautiful feature of wireless OSC is that you can have multiple clients listening to the same port.

Caveat? Lots of people start out with the CNMAT objects for OSC in Max and get frustrated about those. But you can just as easily do it all with native Mac object. [udpsend] is your friend.

OSC Connection between Max (on a mac) and TD (on a PC)