We’ve been watching tablets for some time now, looking for the perfect, mobile visualist performance tool. For the first time, those results begin to look genuinely promising. But here’s a surprise: it’s the Android-powered Motorola Xoom, not the Apple iPad 2, that shines in an early test. Well, sort of, anyway – it’s also evident that video output, while prominent in specs and ads, seems to be a bit of an afterthought in practice. (Also, “I want my HDMI mixer” may be the new “I want my flying car” for VJs.)

Richard Lawler, an experienced commercial iOS developer, has been spending a lot of time evaluating Android tablets. I prodded him to give the video output on the Android Honeycomb Moto XOOM a go, and he kindly shares his results.

Some of the highlights: you get native, 720p output in actual 16:9, and a dedicated HDMI port. Mirroring can work in any app. (Richard hasn’t tried this yet, but I’ve been reading documentation on allowing visual apps to separately address the tablet display and the output – something that could be very nice indeed for live performance.)

The iPad 2 has similar capabilities, but without the dedicated port and running a 1024×768 default output – not 16:9 – even when using HDMI. (I remain intrigued to see if developers can manually work around that and force the widescreen aspect ratio. Obviously, mirroring the native resolution absolutely makes sense for the default on each of these, but it does raise questions about what else is possible.)

The hardest part of all of this, bizarrely, is just finding the cable. The XOOM has a dedicated port, which gives it a subtle but meaningful edge over the iPad 2, even with Apple’s special dongle. But while micro HDMI is not proprietary to Motorola, good luck finding a cable at point of sale. After seeing an absurdly-expensive Radio Shack option, Richard wisely headed to Amazon and spent just a few bucks.

Richard’s impressions, in detail:

I got my micro HDMI cable, and it works fine with the Xoom. You just plug the Xoom via the micro HDMI cable into an HDTV and it mirrors the display. Audio is also sent out via HDMI.

The Xoom has a 16:10 format 1280×800 display. When connected to a 16:9 HDTV the Xoom is forced into landscape mode (if permitted in the software). The bottom 80 pixels are chopped off yielding 1280×720 – 720p. The bottom 80 pixels of the screen almost always holds the System Bar on Honeycomb. (The Honeycomb System Bar is where the permanent navigation buttons are located, notifications are posted and the notification menu is accessed.)

If the current app does not support landscape (e.g. Scene Player) then the screen remains in portrait mode but displayed sideways (90-degrees CCW) on the HDTV. In portrait orientation the Xoom’s left-most 80 pixels are chopped off the bottom of the HDTV display.

The HDMI mirroring supports digital audio out. I don’t know what the latency is for the digital audio, but audio seemed to be synced with video sources.

It is difficult to break-out the digital audio signal from an HDMI signal without a special black box. Although many HDTVs like my Samsung model split out a digital audio signal from an HDMI input.

Apparently the Xoom HDMI output is limited to 720p as is the Xoom’s video camera recording.

There is currently no HDCP on the Xoom’s HDMI signal, but Motorola says it is coming. (Honeycomb supports a new DRM plugin architecture that should allow OEMs to provide DRM services to apps like Netflix and Amazon for HD movies.)

I am happy with the Xoom’s HDMI. It’s simple and works pretty much as you would expect. The digital audio output seems promising too.

I’m wondering about the practicality of using HDMI for audio output on other Android devices like the EVO, Droid X and others. I briefly experiment with my EVO with my new cable. With the micro HDMI cable plugged in it outputs any video AND audio via HDMI, but it doesn’t mirror the display. For example PdTest’s audio output worked fine out the HDMI.

A friend who got an iPad 2 was excited by its new HDMI capabilities too. It apparently also just mirrors everything out the HDMI. The special HDMI dongle Apple designed also provides a USB power input since the dongle hogs up the iPad’s dock. (The Xoom uses a separate dedicated power jack.)

I also got a USB gender changer, but I have had no luck with it. Xoom/Honeycomb sees neither the QWERTY keyboard nor mouse I have tried to attach.

As I mentioned before, the MicroSD card slot is not yet functional on the Xoom/Honeycomb. In fact the slot holds a dummy plastic card that says “Replace with MicroSD only after Android system update”.

This is only a casual hands-on test to get the discussion rolling, literally copied out of an email thread with Richard, so your mileage may vary, but it’s nice to hear these impressions as a start.

You can read Engadget’s disappointment with iPad 2′s HDMI output, but I’ll be curious to hear from developers on that front.

All in all, with either Apple or Android, it’s early days, but I’m liking what I’m seeing on both sides. Ironically, I think the bigger challenge on the XOOM may be working out a VGA output rig from the HDMI for dealing with projectors that still want VGA and 4:3.

Expect more detailed information to come, particularly if I manage to pick up a XOOM to test with Processing, OpenFrameworks, and native development alongside my (first-gen) iPad. But I did want to provoke the beginnings of that discussion now. The NVIDIA graphics in the XOOM – and the graphics chipset in the iPad 2, as well – are nothing to sneeze at. While laptops easily trump tablets for power and flexibility, there is some potential for the tablet in your digital visual arsenal, too. I look forward to seeing more.

Discuss.

Visualists entering the world of 3D face a major hurdle: making 3D models. Google SketchUp is one of our heroes. Its interface is stunningly intuitive, making navigation of 3D geometry surprisingly simple by streamlining the tasks used to create models to produce understandable concepts. And the basic version is free. I’ve used SketchUp to create geometry for use in Processing and elsewhere, and I hope we’ll cover more 3D technique in the near future.

SketchUp is not only a great tool, but has quite a bit of news coming out of Google-land. Version 7 adds easier line crossing (huge deal to anyone who’s already used it), interactive objects, component option editing, easy scaling, new collaborative tools, lovely layout features and image export workflows, and lots more:

What’s new in SketchUp 7

From my inbox this week, Google is using their SketchUp and Google Earth tech to help teachers show off ancient Rome. (As a history geek and sometimes-teacher, can’t help but share this – educational grants, visualists?)

SketchUp isn’t your only option, but with its unique versatility, it’s worth a look – and it’s ideal for beginners.To kick things off, I turn things over to CD(Music) writer Eoin Rossney. The basic models he’s done of controllers should appeal to anyone designing DIY controllers for your live visual sets. And even if that’s not your interest, they make a great starting point for getting through some of the basic SketchUp concepts. (For more, be sure to check out Google’s own wonderful tutorials.)

Let us know what you think, and you’ve done work in SketchUp yourself. (At the other end of the pool, I see the open source Blender is getting some treatment here at New York’s Harvestworks, so more on that soon, as well – its live 3D engine ought to generate some interest.)

Previously, we saw Microsoft’s own rival: the Windows-only but very powerful and now completely free (no “pro” version required") Caligari TrueSpace 7.

Here’s Eoin:

I’m always harping on to anyone who’ll listen about SketchUp, the free Windows/OSX 3D drawing tool from Google.  I’ve submitted models both on CDM and Kore @ CDM for anyone who might be interested.  I’m enthusiastic about it because I believe this is a great tool for bringing 3D design (actually, you can even remove the ’3D’) to new audiences – with very training required it’s possible to get a sense of what it feels like to create virtual environments and models, and even basic 3D ‘narratives’.

I’d like to do a really quick run-through of how I used SketchUp to model my Kore 1 hardware.  The approach here is to make a rough outline of the profile of the item to be modeled, and then extrude that into 3D – the idea being that it’s much easier to make a change to the framework before you go into 3D rather than after.  I assume that SketchUp is installed on your system and you’re modeling a real-world item of some description.

I should note that SketchUp has an alternative way of doing this, which is to simply draw a 3D rectangle and map a photo onto that (called Photo Matching).  This can be really effective, but the technique requires a bit of practice (check out the tutorials on YouTube) and patience.  I tried this out with the Kore controller and found that its off-axis angles weren’t really suited to this method – also since Kore is a fairly integral part of my setup, I wanted it to look as natural as possible in my 3D studio mockup, hence going the fully-modeled route.

First a couple of quick keyboard shortcuts:

Shift+Z | Zoom Extents – makes the contents of your sketch fit the window (very handy if you get lost)
O | Orbit Tool – you’ll get to know this pretty quickly, but there are a couple of extra things you can do.  With any tool selected, you can Orbit by clicking and holding the middle mouse button – releasing brings you back to the original tool.  This also works on the Mac by pressing Ctrl+Cmd and left-clicking.
Another major hint with the Orbit tool is that holding Shift puts you temporarily in Pan mode.  This, in combination with scrolling your mouse wheel to zoom in/out, makes Orbit almost all you need for navigation.

Attack of the Clones:

1. Get the dimensions of the outer bounds of the item, i.e. find the highest and deepest points on your item and with the Rectangle (R) tool, make a rectangle that describes the space between the two:

2. Start ‘cutting out’ the profile of the item to be copied with the Line (L) tool, taking exact measurements from your real-life item with a tape/ruler etc.

3.  You’re encouraged here to make heavy use of the Tape Measure (T), Dimension (no default shortcut) and Line (L) tools – try as much as possible to put guide measurement lines into your sketch for own aid.   You’ll find that as well as serving as a constant reminder of distances, they’ll actually give you an increase sense of perspective and dimension as you work.

When you’re done tracing the outline, you can user the Eraser (E) tool to discard the ‘waste’ parts of the outline.

4.  Once you’ve made the outline as accurate as you can, it’s time to extrude that in 3D.  Press (P) for the Push-Pull tool, and click-drag.  While dragging with your mouse, simply enter the length in numbers with your other hand to get an exact fix on how far to extrude.

5.  The Offset (F) tool can be really handy for things like outlines and indented parts.  Simply click the edge you’d like to create the outline on and drag the cursor towards the centre.  Again, type in your dimensions (2mm here) and hit Return to complete your offset.  (Hint: You may find you’ll first have to ‘trace’ around some of the lines of the offset with the Line (L) tool in order to complete some connections, especially in fid
dly corners like the top right corner above):

6.  Again, use the Push-Pull (P) tool to extrude the centre part of your offset inwards a little. 

 
7.  From there you can start adding knobs, buttons and the rest of the little details.  For knobs you can just draw a simple circle and Push-Pull up a centimeter or so. 

8.  To make the tapered knobs like the ones on the Kore model, create the simple cone-shaped knob using a circle/push-pull.  Then create an offset of one or two millimetres and select the outer rim.  Using the Move tool, drag this down to the bottom of the knob and snap into place – much better!

Making a tapered control in Sketchup from Eoin Rossney on Vimeo.

n.b. creating the hybrid transparent/plastic knobs was simply a matter of creating one segment first (and applying a slightly wider offset), then creating another on top of that and going back and coloring the first.

9. Once you’ve got everything how you like, you can fill in textures using Tools\Paint Bucket, and import images using File\Import (the Kore logo was simply a matter of taking NI’s logo from their press kit and introducing a little alpha with GIMP).  You can also visit the 3D Warehouse for components if you’re not too keen on reproducing an exact replica of a MIDI jack from scratch, for example. 

Hopefully this exercise in modeling has got you acquainted enough with the SketchUp tools to get you comfortable in the application.  Where things get really fun is when you start getting creative and coming up with completely original designs – how about your own take on a MIDI/VJ controller, or your ultimate studio/instrument/aircraft carrier?

Eoin Rossney:

Eoin Rossney is a reformed stenographer, evening/weekend musician & tech freak.

Eoin’s instrument of choice is keyboards, and he has studied classical & jazz piano. When not working his nine-to-five in IT, he plays ‘immersive composition’ games, obsessively tends his Kore database, and DJs. He’s looking forward to learning object-oriented programming through Processing.org, and finding a concrete process for songwriting.

“I got into writing articles through a desire to learn. I find the best way for me to learn a particular technique is to document it in my own words – so far it’s been a very rewarding process.”

CDM’s Jaymis has just gotten his Vixid VJX16-4 mixer, but we continue getting other hands-on reports from VJs. This one comes from Tiago Pereira, who’s posted a video of him having some healthy play time. Thanks, Tiago — looks like you’re having a blast. Keep them coming, with this or your other favorite gear.

As digital musicians have realized for some time, working with computers is all about physical control. It’s the difference between feeling like you’re operating software and playing an instrument. So it’s no accident that Jay Smith is quick to call the Ohm, a new hardware controller for visuals and music, an “instrument.” I got to hang out at the Hoboken, New Jersey office of Livid and play with the Ohm a bit. Hands-on experience is everything: as you can see, you’ve got a nicely-crafted wooden crossfader piece, for starters. Here are some first impressions.

The Ohm isn’t just a controller for visualists; the moment music people saw it, at least some thought DJ/music controller. Jay confirmed that customers were split between music and visuals. But at least in Livid’s original conception, the Ohm is set up to be especially useful to VJs and live visualists — and, in particular, Livid’s Union software, which comes bundled with the device.

You get a basic, semi-symmetrical layout of controls:

• Four knobs on each side (they’re not continuous encoders, which is likely to please some and disappoint others, based on your taste)
• Four faders on each side
• Four toggle buttons on each side, which could easily be used to enable/disable channels
• A loose, DJ-style crossfader for “battle-mode” mixing, plus buttons on each side which you could use for instant fades or other functions
• A six-by-six grid of pads, which most people will use for clip triggering
• Various macro buttons, which come pre-assigned for Union but send standard MIDI messages

The unit includes MIDI out plus USB, as well. The result is solid and heavy, but I was surprised to find that in person it feels pretty comfortable to hold and shouldn’t be too tough to port around, especially compared to some other gear.

So, how would you assign those controls?

I had seen Jay perform before, so I assumed he’d use the four sets of faders as mix buses, to control different layers. In fact, his preferred assignment is to use them for effects parameters, as seen above. With the knobs controlling, well, “knobby” settings, and the faders doing things that feel right on faders, that’s eight settings per A or B bus, and Jay used the buttons and additional knobs for more control. There are two knobs on the right side that could impact some sort of master parameter, like the fade to black feature on an Edirol V4.

That’s just one assignment, though. I could see this mixer-style layout being used in other ways, as well.

Union has some nice MIDI assignment features, seriously beefed up for the Ohm in the most recent release, as we saw earlier this week. One nice function is the ability to use a MIDI trigger as a “shift” key, so you can combine, say, one of the Ohm’s buttons with a pad and have it perform a different function. I don’t think this will work with most other packages, but any app that allows you to use MIDI to select buses will work nicely with the Ohm, and since it’s sending all standard MIDI messages on channel 1, assigning to your tool of choice should be no problem if you prefer Resolume, VDMX, or another app over the bundled copy of Union.

That said, a couple of quick notes on Union are in order. A reader complained about the QuickTime-based media support on Windows, but I can at least say Jay confirmed Union screams on his Core Duo Dell laptop under Windows XP. A lot of Union is based on Max/MSP/Jitter, and I’ve found that Max is, for the most part, as happy on Windows as it is on Mac OS. Also interesting in terms of the Max support is the fact that you can use Union’s open API to build your own modules for Union.

There are lots of choices for visualists today — some of them diverging from Union’s relatively conventional mixer / layer / effects model. But if you are looking for an out-of-the-box VJ experience, Union should at least be on your list to consider.

The important news is that the hardware feels fantastic. The build quality here is really professional, and gives the impression of using a high-end, boutique device. I loved Jay’s previous Viditar and Tactic controllers, but they definitely felt more like DIY projects. This feels like a finished piece of gear.

The pads in the center are similar in dimensions and design to the Monome, though I prefer the Monome’s tighter feel (especially on the recent Monome revisions) to the gummier, more conventional pads on the Ohm. For video triggering, though, this is about perfect, and I can’t think of another controller that combines the essentials you’d want for visuals in just one package in this way — A and B bus controls, crossfader, and pads — at least, not without chaining M-Audio Trigger Fingers or something. (It’s mystifying that there aren’t more devices with a similar setup out there, but then, that’s what drove the Livid gang to make one for their own use!)

Most importantly, the crossfader feels really wonderful. It’s a work of art, and I wouldn’t be surprised if wooden crossfader bars show up elsewhere.

I expect some people will balk at the Ohm’s US$790 price — at least, if they’re not interested in the fact that the full version of the Union VJ software is included. But the Ohm really is made by the Livid crew in Austin, Texas. Boards and pads arrive pre-assembled, but things like the woodworking and assembly are literally done by hand, with some help from an on-site C&C machine. (Photos courtesy Livid Instruments.)

Livid Ohm Real-Time Performance Instrument [Livid Instruments Product Page]

All in all, the Ohm is an impressive and versatile device. Some DJs may like it, though I think it is likely to disappoint other music users — the pads aren’t velocity responsive, and there aren’t enough knob for more than a couple of general effects returns and one filter sweep per channel. But for visuals, it’s a really ideal layout and configuration for a lot of applications. And it’s nice to see, finally, software-hardware integration that makes sense, on an application serious VJs actually use — as opposed to the intriguing but flawed efforts by Numark on NuVJ and Roland on the Edirol motion dive .tokyo performance pack.

For my own use, I think I’m staying loyal to my own evolving controller rig — but I’m equally inspired by the effort from the Livid guys. It’ll be interesting to see them develop the concept, and I hope more visual-focused control is in our future in the visual community in general.

And if you don’t much like the Livid product, or think you could do better, they’ve got some good news for you — you can put your money where your mouth is. (Or, at least, put your knobs where you want them.) The brain of the Ohm will be released as the MIDI DIY, a board that can be used to make sophisticated custom MIDI hardware — especially as it can support 128 note on / note off contacts and 32 control change contacts, something no other generally-available DIY solution presently does. More on that as it becomes available. It’s probably not the right choice for your first-ever custom MIDI hardware, but if you’ve got some experience under your belt, it could be interesting.

What’s your favorite hardware? Any chance you’ll be c
onsidering this? We’d love to hear from you.

As digital musicians have realized for some time, working with computers is all about physical control. It’s the difference between feeling like you’re operating software and playing an instrument. So it’s no accident that Jay Smith is quick to call the Ohm, a new hardware controller for visuals and music, an “instrument.” I got to hang out at the Hoboken, New Jersey office of Livid and play with the Ohm a bit. Hands-on experience is everything: as you can see, you’ve got a nicely-crafted wooden crossfader piece, for starters. Here are some first impressions.

The Ohm isn’t just a controller for visualists; the moment music people saw it, at least some thought DJ/music controller. Jay confirmed that customers were split between music and visuals. But at least in Livid’s original conception, the Ohm is set up to be especially useful to VJs and live visualists — and, in particular, Livid’s Union software, which comes bundled with the device.

You get a basic, semi-symmetrical layout of controls:

• Four knobs on each side (they’re not continuous encoders, which is likely to please some and disappoint others, based on your taste)
• Four faders on each side
• Four toggle buttons on each side, which could easily be used to enable/disable channels
• A loose, DJ-style crossfader for “battle-mode” mixing, plus buttons on each side which you could use for instant fades or other functions
• A six-by-six grid of pads, which most people will use for clip triggering
• Various macro buttons, which come pre-assigned for Union but send standard MIDI messages

The unit includes MIDI out plus USB, as well. The result is solid and heavy, but I was surprised to find that in person it feels pretty comfortable to hold and shouldn’t be too tough to port around, especially compared to some other gear.

So, how would you assign those controls?

I had seen Jay perform before, so I assumed he’d use the four sets of faders as mix buses, to control different layers. In fact, his preferred assignment is to use them for effects parameters, as seen above. With the knobs controlling, well, “knobby” settings, and the faders doing things that feel right on faders, that’s eight settings per A or B bus, and Jay used the buttons and additional knobs for more control. There are two knobs on the right side that could impact some sort of master parameter, like the fade to black feature on an Edirol V4.

That’s just one assignment, though. I could see this mixer-style layout being used in other ways, as well.

Union has some nice MIDI assignment features, seriously beefed up for the Ohm in the most recent release, as we saw earlier this week. One nice function is the ability to use a MIDI trigger as a “shift” key, so you can combine, say, one of the Ohm’s buttons with a pad and have it perform a different function. I don’t think this will work with most other packages, but any app that allows you to use MIDI to select buses will work nicely with the Ohm, and since it’s sending all standard MIDI messages on channel 1, assigning to your tool of choice should be no problem if you prefer Resolume, VDMX, or another app over the bundled copy of Union.

That said, a couple of quick notes on Union are in order. A reader complained about the QuickTime-based media support on Windows, but I can at least say Jay confirmed Union screams on his Core Duo Dell laptop under Windows XP. A lot of Union is based on Max/MSP/Jitter, and I’ve found that Max is, for the most part, as happy on Windows as it is on Mac OS. Also interesting in terms of the Max support is the fact that you can use Union’s open API to build your own modules for Union.

There are lots of choices for visualists today — some of them diverging from Union’s relatively conventional mixer / layer / effects model. But if you are looking for an out-of-the-box VJ experience, Union should at least be on your list to consider.

The important news is that the hardware feels fantastic. The build quality here is really professional, and gives the impression of using a high-end, boutique device. I loved Jay’s previous Viditar and Tactic controllers, but they definitely felt more like DIY projects. This feels like a finished piece of gear.

The pads in the center are similar in dimensions and design to the Monome, though I prefer the Monome’s tighter feel (especially on the recent Monome revisions) to the gummier, more conventional pads on the Ohm. For video triggering, though, this is about perfect, and I can’t think of another controller that combines the essentials you’d want for visuals in just one package in this way — A and B bus controls, crossfader, and pads — at least, not without chaining M-Audio Trigger Fingers or something. (It’s mystifying that there aren’t more devices with a similar setup out there, but then, that’s what drove the Livid gang to make one for their own use!)

Most importantly, the crossfader feels really wonderful. It’s a work of art, and I wouldn’t be surprised if wooden crossfader bars show up elsewhere.

I expect some people will balk at the Ohm’s US$790 price — at least, if they’re not interested in the fact that the full version of the Union VJ software is included. But the Ohm really is made by the Livid crew in Austin, Texas. Boards and pads arrive pre-assembled, but things like the woodworking and assembly are literally done by hand, with some help from an on-site C&C machine. (Photos courtesy Livid Instruments.)

Livid Ohm Real-Time Performance Instrument [Livid Instruments Product Page]

All in all, the Ohm is an impressive and versatile device. Some DJs may like it, though I think it is likely to disappoint other music users — the pads aren’t velocity responsive, and there aren’t enough knob for more than a couple of general effects returns and one filter sweep per channel. But for visuals, it’s a really ideal layout and configuration for a lot of applications. And it’s nice to see, finally, software-hardware integration that makes sense, on an application serious VJs actually use — as opposed to the intriguing but flawed efforts by Numark on NuVJ and Roland on the Edirol motion dive .tokyo performance pack.

For my own use, I think I’m staying loyal to my own evolving controller rig — but I’m equally inspired by the effort from the Livid guys. It’ll be interesting to see them develop the concept, and I hope more visual-focused control is in our future in the visual community in general.

And if you don’t much like the Livid product, or think you could do better, they’ve got some good news for you — you can put your money where your mouth is. (Or, at least, put your knobs where you want them.) The brain of the Ohm will be released as the MIDI DIY, a board that can be used to make sophisticated custom MIDI hardware — especially as it can support 128 note on / note off contacts and 32 control change contacts, something no other generally-available DIY solution presently does. More on that as it becomes available. It’s probably not the right choice for your first-ever custom MIDI hardware, but if you’ve got some experience under your belt, it could be interesting.

What’s your favorite hardware? Any chance you’ll be
considering this? We’d love to hear from you.

It’s not the lumens that count; it’s how you use them. But it’s easy to forget that when your projections just got blown out by lights, which someone used because they can move and your projection can’t. And it’s easy to get frustrated with the limitations of projection when you’re again looking at a static 4:3 rectangle on another flat wall.

Unfortunately, the art of using mirrors and other techniques to make projection more dynamic aren’t nearly as well known as they could be. Alternative projection techniques have also tended not to be productized. One significant exception is VMS or VideoMovingSystem. It’s the rare case of a hardware product made specifically for creative, live, performative projection. VMS is similar to the iCue moving mirror and some other tools, but it takes the kind of tools previously customized for lighting and specially adapts them to projection. You can actually buy a VMS unit with a projector already attached, or buy a unit that will fit a standard projector, making these more effective and easier to mount and use than lighting-specific instruments. It’s not a cheap solution for an independent VJ, but it is cheaper than competing custom lighting solutions. And if you read this site, you should already know that digital, computer-powered projection can do all kinds of things boring motorized lights can’t.

artificialeyes’ Michael Parenti and Todd Thille have taken a unique role in both championing the VMS tool and developing custom applications for it, as well as rocking Istanbul with the results. Michael said repeatedly that it saved the whole act of VJing for him. We got to talk to Michael and Todd about VMS and why it’s important — and, better yet, we got to play with these units, remote-controlled by artificialeyes’ 3L software and Michael’s iPhone. Even if you don’t plan on picking up VMS yourself (or I should say, convincing a club to buy them for you), you can tell from the interview how much of a difference changing a projection technique can make — not lumens, and not content, the two things we often get hung up on.

Jaymis: I have plenty more video from the ae guys waiting to be edited, both long-form looks into Thrill, and quick tips as well. That said, video is a bit of a new step for CDMo. This past year we’ve been talking about being a visualist mostly through the written word, so it would be great to get some feedback. Do you find video reviews and articles useful? Like the editing style? Think Peter should do voiceovers for software training videos? Hit the comments.

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!

With the last batch of slow-mo clips I had some requests to further slow down the motion in post-processing. I don’t currently have any 3rd party retiming plugins, but it turns out that the 200FPS (240 for NTSC regions) is shot interlaced, so my previous tests were only displaying 100FPS progressive. To get the full motion from 200FPS on a progressive monitor I needed to slow the footage to 50% speed and de-interlace, a trivial task in any editor.

Butterfly Slow-Motion 200FPS

Even this low-tech retiming gives you an idea of how powerful 200FPS can be. I actually had an ND filter in place to keep the shutter speed relatively low and keep a bit of a dreamy look for this shoot (the minimum allowed, of course, being faster than 1/200). With full sunlight you’d have no trouble getting up past 1/1000, which would result in very little motion blur and allow very accurate motion tracking, and some exciting retiming opportunities.

Keep in mind that this isn’t being captured at anything near HD resolution. The clips look fantastic scaled down to 400-500px wide, but at full size 1920px (or 1440×1.33 pixel aspect ratio, for the pedants) it shows very obvious artifacts from upscaling. It would be nice to have an option not to do this upscaling in camera and instead write the buffered pixels 1:1 in a cropped section of the video, but that could probably get confusing for end-users. I’ve attached some 1:1 crops to the end of this post, and uploaded some full resolution frames to flickr (1, 2, 3) for anyone who’s keen to look a little closer. Next step is to spend some time with a resolution chart to test the effective resolution in this mode.

More frustrating than the decreased resolution, and less forgivable: For some reason there is a pause at the end of every Smooth Slow Record clip written to tape. The motion pauses and the last 15ish frames are frozen. I’m sure there’s some technical reason for this, but it’s extremely annoying for editing, and mars an otherwise very enjoyable shooting experience.

More slowness to come. I don’t see the novelty of this wearing off too soon.

I am also using a hacked I-cue with projection and am quite happy with it -

for folks interested in DMX you might also look into the LANbox products – depending on what product you get you can send it DMX, MIDI, USB, ethernet as well as digital and analog sensor data – it’s pretty sweet – it also comes with a piece of free (download-able) software which functions as a light desk on your laptop…

It also has preprogrammed objects for connecting directly to both the Max/MSP/Jitter world (which I am using) and to Isadora (which I have used and would recommend highly – the learning cure is no where near as steep as with jitter…)

my main issue with the I-cue has to do with the difference between the x and y range and the transation between the ‘Cartesian’ world of my 2d desktop and the quasi 3d/polar world of the I-cue – I am finding moving video in a straight line to be quite a pain in the back side…

but between the I-cue and the Lanbox there has been no issues at all…

Sounds like someone needs to build a patch that translates to the iCue … maybe even via joystick input.

Two particular pieces of gear involved re-purposing lighting equipment for projection use. At the suggestion of video advisor Maya Ciarrocchi, we used Rosco iCue “intelligent mirrors” for positioning the projections. And because we had easy access to the equipment, we used color scrollers in place of dowsers for darkening projectors.

Now having spent some time with each piece of gear, and having gotten some mixed results, I’m happy to share my experience.

iCue “Intelligent Mirror”

The iCue is a curious piece of hardware that receives DMX data (i.e., control data from a light board), and positions a mirror via a set of stepper motors. Using multiple DMX channels, you can send high-resolution DMX data, allowing for some fairly precise positioning. I say it’s a “curious” device in that it’s almost never actually used by lighting people, from what I could tell. Ot’s sort of a poor man’s movable light, and from a lighting perspective, if you can afford to just get a light that moves, that makes a lot more sense than using a somewhat temperamental moving mirror.

The iCue is used regularly by people doing projection, though, because it allows you to move projection images around freely. And I did find some elements of the design useful. The ability to move around an image opens up some very interesting possibilities, certainly. The round mirror on the iCue creates a naturally circular image that looks very nice. (More on that in a moment.) And the gear isn’t expensive; renting two for over two and a half weeks cost just over US$300. I expect you could find a deal on an unwanted iCue or two and throw it into a road case.

That’s the good news. We did immediately run into some issues with the iCue, however. First, the fact that you have to transmit DMX turns out to be a real pain. As a visualist, you ideally want control over everything you’re doing; you have enough problem working with a lighting designer just to keep your projections visible, without having to worry about using their light board to control gear you need. There are various MIDI-to-DMX converters out there, which could be a reasonable solution, but even then, I’d prefer to use MIDI directly. (If you’ve never used DMX, to a MIDI guru it can actually feel like a step backward — and most of us find MIDI plenty primitive on its own!)

And that’s before we started having DMX troubles. Apparently because of some strange interaction between one of our iCues and our lighting board, the iCue would sometimes behave erratically or stop responding. (We’re fairly certain this wasn’t the result of something as simple as a bad cable, because a second iCue daisy-chained through the first worked just fine.)

The other problem is the mirror itself. They’re extremely fragile; they routinely break in shipment. That’s presumably a problem with any mirror, but worth watching out for. The other issue is the default mirror is built for a light, so it’s round; you might need to build your own mirror for your own use.

Collectively, I have to say the drawbacks for me outweigh the advantages. The simple reality is that moving around a projection image isn’t something you’re all that likely to do in the first place. Moving the image is awkward, and it’s tough to choreograph movements so they look right. (Distortion isn’t such an issue — I quite liked some of the effects of that. But most of the time you might just achieve this with a stationary mirror.) I have to wonder if a better solution, if you really want this, would be to build a MIDI-controlled DIY mirror that you could design to your own specs. Controlling stepper motors isn’t such a big deal.

That said, the solution did essentially work; I’d just want MIDI-to-DMX control to go with it if I used it again, and I would tend to look for simpler solutions.

Color Scrollers

The other piece of lighting gear I got to work with was color scrollers. (Can’t recall the make/model of the ones we had, but they’re fairly standard.) These are rectangular boxes that are fitted in front of lights to change color, as the name implies. Inside is a roll of colored gel with gradated areas of color; the scroller simply scrolls the gel in front of the light to shift its color. Different gel scrolls are available for different effects; in our case, we had stepped color from light to dark.

In a pinch, the color scrollers certainly worked as dowsers: we were able to entirely block the light out of the projector, so we could blacken projectors when we needed. The problem is, there’s no particular advantage to using the color scroller in place of the dowser. The one thing a scroller can do is “fade” from one color to another, but it does so inelegantly enough that you’re unlikely ever to do that anyway. The effect isn’t so much a smooth fade as a series of stepped shades that scroll in front of the projector/light — that is, you get exactly what the scroller is. Working with projections, you’re far more likely to want to fade in and out with your source. Worst of all, the color scrollers are loud: they snap, crackle, and pop as they’re moved. With properly-maintained gels and the right unit, this might not be the case — I see various products employ the brand name “Whisper”, whether they live up to that or not. But they were certainly loud enough to be noticeable in our case, regardless of how carefully we moved them.

And, lastly, you’re back to using DMX yet again, which means navigating the needs of the lighting design on the board. A better solution is to use a dowser with a wired remote, so the projectionist/visualist can dowse manually.

That said, I wouldn’t be all negative on the color scroller. By going directly from light to dark and avoiding the intermediate gradations, we were easily able to make the scrollers into dowsers. And I have to return to the reason we used them in the first place: they were free. That’s a situation I could imagine happening again, because unlike iCues, color scrollers are very common in lighting.

Hands-on Experience?

So, there you have it: color scrollers and iCues are fascinating pieces of gear that … I … may never use again. But on the other hand, I can see cases in which I might have use for one, or have access to one and make use of it, and having had these frustrations with them actually would leave me better prepared for dealing with them in the future.

Given my complaints, was it worth it? Absolutely. Thinking out of the box and blending lighting techniques with projection offers the chance to do things differently, and, sometimes, at least, better. While I tended to learn the hard way, I learned a lot. And I see some real potential for new DIY solution, experiments with gels, and experiments with mixing light colored lighting with projection.

But I’m curious, have any of you had experience with these or related pieces of equipment? And anyone got a preferred way of generating DMX signal?