No doubt you are aware of Apples updated iPod line, with the new flagship iPod Touch bringing the iPhone’s touch screen interface to more affordable waters. However, what I find interesting is that every iPod now supports 640×480 video playback and output, and component video output via the new Universal Dock and AV Cables*.

While compressed video with component cables seem like conflicting ideas**, the iPods support fairly high bitrate h.264 and MP4 video. With the new iPod Classics sporting up to 160GB of storage, thats a serious VJ Clip library in your pocket. Add on something like Karl Klomps Dirty Video Mixer and you have an incredibly porable rig. And with two iPod Nanos you might very well have the worlds smallest VJ Mixing rig?

Karl Klomps Dirty & Cheap Non-Sync Video Mixer. Awesome.

While not the most versatile setup, it seems a rather tempting solution just for novelties sake. What seems more fun, two iPod Nanos and a tiny homebrew glitch video mixer in your pocket or a V4, two laptops and a camera, and maybe a triggering midi device. Hm.. The Component video also gives you access to the RGB (or possibly YUV) color information, allowing for some interesting mixing should you feel the urge to get creative. Speculation aside, Portable Media Players are looking quite intriguing for VJs lately. That iPod Touch is looking awfully tempting, especially with homebrew applications and OpenGL acceleration.

Are any Create Digital Motion readers currently using some sort of Personal Media Player or Video iPod for clip triggering in sets, or other similar creative solutions?

*sans shuffle, but, its never really counted now has it?
** Component video cables output a cleaner signal, while highly compressed video is not pristine. If you have highly compressed video, you probably aren’t worried about quality.

The 2007 way of promoting your VJing: giving away clips. So while we’re on the subject of legal, free clips to use in your next visual set (classic movies were the subject last week), this week:

68 Vintage Fairlight VJ Loops by VJzoo (2007) [Archive.org, from VJzoo.com

Get ready for some grungy, glitchy 80s electro-style analog visuals:

There are NOT for everybody's taste - they are messy, grungy and grainy loops harvested from "Vintage AV Plug n Play" sessions using equipment from the 1980's and 1990's such as Fairlight Computer Video Instruments (CVIs), the Panasonic WJ-AVE7 and feedback from an analogue Panasonic video camera on a Commodore monitor. The Fairlight CVI was developed in Australia in 1984 and was used by early live-AV artists such as Severed Heads.

That's right, Fairlight -- better known for their high-end sampler/workstation, the Fairlight CMI, credited by some as the first commercial sampler -- also made video equipment. And if there's one thing we love at CDM, it's talented Australians.

The footage raises an interesting question: whether tis nobler to use actual glitchy footage in your set, or build your own. Our friend Anton Marini (vade) has done some beautiful work making his own glitch patches in Max/MSP/Jitter. (More similar glitchy stuff elsewhere on his site, too.) This is entirely synthetic. Even if you're not into glitch, it's a fascinating learning experience to deconstruct the look of it and figure out how it's put together.

Updated: Yes, speaking of glitch, this is not actually synthetic -- see comments from vade. He has done some really beautiful -- and uniquely digital -- glitching in other projects, though. More on that soon.

Also in the free loops category: Holly Daggers' free loops on wetcircuit.com, including some beautiful footage she shot of steam coming out of smokestacks near her new Queens studio.

This gets me thinking, though: anyone else got access to a Fairlight CVI or other vintage equipment? We'd love to hear about. Heck, I'd love to come to your studio and visit it personally.

More on the Fairlight CVI:
Fairlight Computer Video Instrument [Retro Thing]
Fairlight CVI @ audiovisualizers.com

Circuit bender Gijs Gieskes does work that can be seen as beautiful kinetic sculptures as much as instruments and synthesizers. That’s certainly the case with his Sega MegaDrive2: watch as he reroutes patch cords via magnetic connections in a lovely tangle of wires, or listen to the mechanical sounds of the device in operation. (This bend isn’t intended as a musical instrument as some of his previous work has been, but the incidental noise of it running sounds great, anyway.) He’s designed the whole thing to pack into a small, wooden suitcase for on-the-go visuals.

And, while we’ve seen distorted and broken video output from game consoles, here the patches create a rhythm of glitchy images. That, and there’s something strangely satisfying about watching Yogi Bear run through a dystopian snowstorm of analog static.

GIESKES.NL/CIRCUITBENDING/SEGAMEGADRIVE2 [Artist site; photos and description]
Bent Sega MegaDrive2 in action [QT Video]

[tags]circuit-bending, hacks, gaming, glitch, synthesis, oddities[/tags]