London-based, French-born VJ and artist Pikilipita doesn’t touch laptops. He shows up at live visual gigs toting game systems. Having built mobile projects for the Game Boy Advanced and Linux-based GamePark GP2X, he’s now got a new machine: a Barbie-pink PlayStation 2.
Novelty this may be, but don’t think that PS24VJ can’t hack it as a real VJ app, allowing you to leave the laptop at home:
- Plays footages compressed with the Kouky video codec v16
- Supports two video layers
- Supports alpha channel
- Special effects and filters
- PAL video out signal
And because it supports up to two PlayStation controller inputs, two people can play at once. (One of the big problems with computers, I think, is that they’re entirely restricted to single-user metaphors.) Each VJ controls one video layer at a time.
Pikilipita is happy to share his creation with you, too, for a donation of whatever you think is appropriate. PS2 games don’t even require hacked systems, either, unlike DS or PSP homebrew software (which has proven a major pain for the homebrew music scene).
Pikilipita points CDM to the PSD2DEV network for more on how to develop for the system. I’m surprised at how well-documented this is:
PS2DEV PS2 Page (loaders, development toolchain, tutorials, sample code, demos)
What do you need to run them? He writes:
My systems works on any regular playstation 2, you don’t need a modified one. All you need is a special DVD called “swap magic 3.6″ (http://www.swapmagic3.com) to force booting on the USB port and that’s it!
On the USB port of the console, you insert a memory stick containing the software and the footages you want to use.
Movies of the PS24VJ in action are available on his site:
http://pikilipita.com/vj/flv-player.php?mov=18
http://pikilipita.com/vj/flv-player.php?mov=17
Overview sheet:
http://www.pikilipita.com/vj/ps24vj/PS24VJ-sheet-1.01.pdf
User’s manual:
http://www.pikilipita.com/vj/ps24vj/PS24VJ-manual-1.00.pdf
If you’re near London, you can catch PS4VJ live at the AV Social. I’m super jealous:
British Film Institute AV Social
Peter Kirn
Jaymis Loveday
Matt Ganucheau
toby
joshue ott
michaeluna
vade
dan-winckler
Momo The Monster
songcarver
dj-rndm
nathanal-lcaud
christian.ryan
craig-dorety
Surya Buchwald
Kyle McDonald
Annapurna Kumar
Sofy Yuditskaya
i've done gigs with this guy…he's super talented and incredibly creative…bring on future releases Pikilipita!!
crapppp…his contact page is down
The contact page link is now fixed!
[...] Novelty perhaps, but who wouldn’t want to VJ using a pink PS2? Read the full post here [...]
hehe…this is what happens when someone is creative and uses his time well…we get cool stuff like this!
and you're right, it is well documented.