It seems that live streaming gigs have really taken off recently. Either that or we’re just paying more attention since the fantastic NetLag show. Either way, there’s a bevvy of live streaming performances ready to entertain you this weekend.

Taking the stage tonight at 11:30PM EST (check the time) from the USA is 6-piece AV trance outfit SWiY, or Someone Who isn’t You. Who they are is 2 visualists, 4 musicians, and a load of gear, UV tubes, and fingerless white gloves.

Our setup consists of Plexiglas mounted trays and racks on a Pearl Drum rack, at like a 30 degree angle facing the crowd. As far as specific configurations and software settings, thats kind of our secret. But we do use Ableton Live to run our vsts and other various AV software tools. Although we use Live, we do have several other hardware devices capable of running the setup if our computers fail. Using MIDI we can control anything from anything. For example a keyboardist could use a foot pedal to cross fade a cdj via a kaoss pad. The same MIDI also would trigger a visual parameter within the TWO vj setups. The four guys on floor are musicians and run at least a 50-50 split of live and preprogrammed sequences. The other two guys raised up are vjs.

SWiY are streaming using Mogulus - the platform we tried out for NetLag.
http://www.mogulus.com/swiy1 - Main Camera Channel
http://www.mogulus.com/swiy2 - Visual Channel

Trance is one of those musical forms which has both fanatical adherents and vehement detractors, so I’m not going to editorialize on the content of the show. However if you’re interested in the style or not, this looks like something worth checking out… For science.

On a more serious note: VJForums readers may already be aware of this event, as SWiY were caught out astroturfing on a variety of sites. I almost didn’t post this when I found out that they had been spamming forums, but I think the performance is interesting enough on its own merits. Pretending to be a 3rd party and posting the same thing indiscriminately is not a good thing. However, I’d like to be clear that SWiY did follow the right path in telling us about their project: Our contact form. We love getting unsolicited mail from people doing interesting things, but like most intelligent humans, we have reasonably fine BS detectors. If you have something great happening, you don’t need to pretend that you’re someone else to talk about it. Come out and say it.

shift v.2, audiovisual installation at Museet for Samtidskunst from hc gilje on Vimeo.

HC Gilje sends along Shift, an “audiovisual landscape that combines multichannel sequencing, audio generated by video, and mapping/masking projection onto physical objects.” In short, big blocks become a sonic, visual sequencer through digital audio and projection. It’s really evocative to me, and part of what we’re talking about as we talk about the potential of mapped projections. (I hope that, for you as for me, it starts to make you think of other possibilities with these kind of media.)

HC’s research is “conversation with spaces,” and that’s fitting — after being caught doing visuals without real sound, or stuck in a “flatland” of our own making that’s in two-dimensional projection, visualists can now enter space.

From his research blog (which has lots of other interesting philosophical reflections, as well):

I decided to give my current series of relief projections a name, shift: moving from one place to another, changing the emphasis, direction or focus of something. It also has a loose relation to the idea of shapeshifting. As mentioned in my previous posts about my relief projection projects, shift combines multichannel sequencing, audio generated from video, with masking/mapping a projection to fit physical objects. This creates a dynamic audiovisual landscape, a spatial light painting. The software to create the installation has developed over almost two years and some workshops, and I have shown documentation of the development, but never exhibited it as a final work. It is only this autumn that I have found the right opportunity to show it in an exhibition. I was invited to participate in the Total Aktion exhibition at Museet for Samtidskunst in Roskilde, Denmark. I had the opportunity to exhibit there in 2005 as part of Get Real, a exhibition with real-time art as the focus (which was also shown at Kiasma in Helsinki, Finland). It also resulted in the book where I wrote the essay “Within the space of a moment”.

Shift became a sort of drone installation, with slow light/colour changes of volume, sometimes cut off by sharp white planes. The video documentation is a cut version showing some of the different scenes. Here is a slide show of still images.

shift v2: relief projection installation

Keep sending this stuff in — your own work or others’ — as we hope to have a round-up soon.

The Projection Tool

So, you’ve got a shiny new MacBook / MacBook Pro — or any number of newer PC notebooks — and suddenly you realize you have no analog video output. Sure, you might be happy to output to VGA/DVI or even HDMI when you can, but for those Special Moments when that isn’t possible and you need to go a bit oldschool, you need a solution. Short of a pricey scan converter (see extended discussion on our last post on this topic), what to do?

There’s been plenty of discussion about these questions over on the Apple support forums:

Mini DisplayPort to Composite/ S-Video??

One possible solution on Amazon with some nice reviews behind it that some folks there are trying:
VideoSecu PC to TV Presentation Converter VGA2TV 1L7

Apple forum poster Lougle has posted an extensive hands-on review of the PC to Video EZ product here. Lougle gave us permission to republish here. (Warning: if you’re offended by graphic imagery of various dongles, adapters, and additional cables protruding from the pristine aluminum industrial design of Apple’s stylish new laptop, you may want to shield your eyes.)

I, and many others, have been looking for a way to output video (composite and s-video) from the NEW Macbooks and MacBook Pro’s sporting the Mini DisplayPort since Apple as yet to release such adapter. I use my computer to output video (s-video) for digital slide shows and presentations. If our new aluminum MacBook could not meet this requirement back to the store it would go.

While searching the web for a adapter, converter or whatever could help get video out of the new MacBook I quickly learned ($10 later) that a simple VGA to s-video cable would not work.

NO GOOD!

I soon came across the PC to Video EZ. It is sold at several online retailers but I finaly decided to buy it from NewEgg.com (links at bottom of post). NewEgg is retailer I knew I could trust and get fast shipping from. I ordered the converter box on Friday and it arrived today (Monday) with standard shipping!

Bottom line, the PC to Video EZ from GrandTec outputs video (both composite and s-video) at equal quality to Apple’s own video adapters used on previous (pre-DisplayPort) computers. I, owning a MacBook Pro with DVI to video adapter, could not tell the difference.

The device itself is small. It is nothing you would complain about carrying around and it gets the job done.

PC to Video EZ from GrandTec

Robotspeak video window (Director’s Cut) from Donald Bell on Vimeo.

Take on Make Controller Kit, one copy of Max/MSP/Jitter, one ultrasonic sensor (deliciously superior to infrared sensors in my opinion), a projector, and a storefront window on Lower Haight in San Francisco, add in some music tech shop geeks, and you get some good fun.

Andrew Cavette shot the video. With all the flashy, sexy documentation videos claiming to be the Future of Everything, it’s nice to see a warts-and-all rockumentary of geeks mucking about with tech. The spot has a special place in my heart, too — it’s San Francisco’s truly awesome music geek boutique, Robotspeak.

And yes, simple interactive installations can be a lot of fun. So if you’ve been putting off installation ideas because you’ve been getting overly complex, don’t overlook the basics - it’s always the best place to start. (Incidentally, you can use an ultrasonic sensor with the much-cheaper Arduino. Total cost easily under US$50.) Enjoy!

It’s long been accepted tradition at VJ events: the lingua franca of video interconnects is good, old-fashioned analog S-Video and composite. Add an Edirol V-4 mixer, or seven, and you’re quickly mixing signal.

Now, before you start talking about how you always run in 1080p over DVI anyway, let’s stop and reflect on this for a moment. Analog video, like simply single-channel analog audio, is immensely flexible. You can route it into absurd DIY video mixers and effects. You can use vintage, gorgeous TV tubes instead of throwing them away and destroying the Earth. You can create routings that simply aren’t possible with digital signals. There are certainly ways of working around the problem, of course, but part of the reason it’s worth mentioning those is that progress alone, or tech snobbery shouldn’t be a reason to ignore the merits of stuff from the past. On the sound side, we threw out “inferior” analog synths, digital synths, 8-bit synths … hey, you know how that story ends. (Namely, you getting outbit on eBay on vintage equipment.)

It’s not always ideal to use relatively low-quality analog signals, but it’s great to have an option. And option has been what this has been about. On a lot of recent PCs, you have a dedicated VGA and S-Video jack. Some even have had triple-threat VGA plus VGA plus S-Video, and frankly, in reality that doesn’t actually take up much space on the chassis. The MacBook and MacBook Pro have traditionally been well served by their small army of dongles for each situation; Mac visualists are known to buy these the way some people buy Kleenex or lightbulbs, packing them in every bag and corner of their home.

But now, all of this is changing. The analog TV out is going the way of the gas lantern.

I’m just wrapping my head around how huge this is, but MTV has posted a massive archive of music videos on their site. That can mean only one thing: it’s time to assemble CDMotion’s list of the ultimate music videos ever. Now, we don’t want the music videos everyone else likes — we want the really inspirational music videos that every aspiring visualist should go watch. After all, it was MTV that co-opted the term “VJ” and all kinds of avant-garde live visual and experimental cinema techniques at its inception, then somehow managed to systematically destroy before eliminating the “music” and “vision” from their name, leaving only reality “tele.” (Sorry, MTV.)

But yes, we want Fairlight CVIs.

We want great directors and effects.

We want techniques that inspire live visuals, putting the music video onstage and at the rave where it belongs.

Nominees are now open. Call in sick to work (especially since the weather everywhere seems terrible today) and take the day to watch old videos if you have to. And yes, if you can include links to the new MTV, that’d be great. Obviously, Viacom needs more money. (Actually, wait, some of you work for Viacom, so I’m sure the ad money will come back to us in the form of a round of beer or something.)

MTV.com

Alan from FoundLight writes in:

I have been using a korg entrancer for the last 4 years as a most essential part of my set up. I was providing the visuals on Saturday night for Dubfire when some clutz spilt his pint all over it… it’s buggered! Do you know of any other more recent device that can do the same job or better (with a sharper output image) that is on the market other than the kaptivator?

Korg’s sadly-discontinued Kaoss Pad Entrancer adds effects, sampling and “scratching” to live video and visuals. It’s a beautifully compact piece of kit, and it looks great in your rig as well, with its colour-changing LED XY pad.

Entrancer: Glowy glowy

Is there anything out there now (or on the way) which replicates these functions? Software is getting closer with high resolution effecting of live inputs, but latency is still not quite there for most setups. Of course, software has the big advantage of not locking you into a particular set of effects: The Entrancer has some fantastic modes, but I only use about a dozen of the 100 presets, the rest being either useless or actively terrible.

So, can anyone help Alan out? Is there still a source out there for cheap Entrancers? Anyone making a small form factor PC-based effects box?

Conventional projection hasn’t come very far since the magic lantern days of a century or so ago. Projector + flat, rectangular surface = image. But naturally, with computers, it’s possible to do far more.

The idea is to contextualize a projection in its surroundings, and give the illusion that instead of being simply a rectangular surface (not that there’s anything wrong with that), the image interacts with the reality of a space, objects, and surroundings the way we’d expect. Our own Jaymis Loveday asked last week about the possibilities of mapping — check out the discussion that ensues. I know he’s working away on some projects, but I have to point to the magical, evocative video above of some experiments. ggml writes:

hello. here is a clip with some mapping scenes i have done in recent months using vvvv. they are contextual approaces to improvisation sets, made on the fly, rather than pre-mesured setups. lines are drawn with a 2d drawing-patch, using a mouse pointer, observing the projected image in real space rather than the screen image. other objects are put into proper perspective using the homography node (something like PSP’s distort).

And several of you pointed out that vvvv, the Windows-only, 3D and visualist-savvy generative modular tool (free for non-commercial use) has an edge in this stuff. The reason: the ever-vigilant vvvv community was nice enough to put together an extensive tutorial.

How To Project On Complex Geometry [vvvv wiki]

It’s listed as a work in progress, but like other corners of the rich and wondrous vvvv wiki, there’s quite useful stuff there, made friendly even if you’re new to the topic. Now, the actual topics covered so far are just the basic first steps, but they should get you going. For fancier techniques, I hope this is an area we’ll revisit over the coming months. If you’ve got more resources, send them our way and perhaps we can put together a wiki page of our own.

And yes, I’m now back from my European Road Trip which means you can again look forward to daily posts on the CDMs.

I’ve recently had another shipment arrive from previously mentioned purveyors of cheap gadgetry, DealExtreme (disclosure: Affiliate links used, if you buy stuff I get a (tiny) cut). Last time I write about the site, I noted that super-useful VJ things such as preview monitors weren’t available.

They are now.

As you can definitely tell from a larger shot, this 3″ (seems to be around 390×260 pixels) monitor isn’t going to win any awards for image quality or resolution. The manufacturers have also managed to label the AV and Line In ports around the wrong way. However, if there was an award for “super cheap, light, and tiny” monitors, this one would win hands down.

It supports both NTSC and PAL, but it doesn’t come with a 12V power adapter, so you’re going to have to find a separate source of electrons. Fortunately DealExtreme comes to the rescue here too, with an array of power adapters joining their lineup (I’ve found the smaller, cheaper ones are able to power this monitor just fine).

Since I last talked about VJ-specific monitoring solutions (back in 2007), things don’t seem to have changed much. Numark’s triple-screen VM03 has been discontinued Numark are still selling the VM03 MKII, and the cheaper, knockoff version is still costing several hundred dollars per screen. As the volume of cameras mounts up, I think it’s quite likely that several more of these are going to make it into my rig.

Alongside this monitor (and it’s slightly smaller, cheaper, 2.5″ sister), some new visualist-friendly stuff has hit the catalogue since I last wasted an evening trawling through it. Here’s an updated list of things which may be useful to pixelmongers: