Awards Ceremony Video

[jezt]

I've got a gig to do for a friend which is an awards ceremony. There's gonna be a screen (rear projected) on stage which is being supplied by a third party company. During the night this screen will show a logo from a pc/mac, video clips from a dvd and a feed from a Panasonic MX(forget which model) which has two cameras going into it. There's also a SmartFade unit aswell acting as the master before the projector. And also just to say I've been asked to take over this job with 72hours notice!

My question is this, is there any software so that I can load the video clips in, have the logo ready, use on the fly and with a video input on the back of the pc/mac (from the MX) so that I end up with a 'one box' solution instead of having all this equipment? I know this years is going to have to be done like this as there is'nt enough time to change to anything else, but for next year. I've tried to search in google etc. but all I keep finding are glorified powerpoint clones that won't do what I want! One other thing is if anyone knows of an open source / linux alternative that's no problem.

[drummerrhys]

Screen Monkey

[Pete McCrea]

Generally we'd suggest running the system as you have described. If you wanted to drop the number of inputs to the Smartfade, I'd look at loading the VT's into Keynote on an Apple Mac, or using Pro video Player or something of that ilk.

 

Putting the live camera feed through a PC could add significantly to the frame delay. So the image on the screen lags behind the actual persons mouth and the audio, so the speakers mouth will appear delayed compared to the speech. Capture cards will add to this delay, so using an vision mixer will add ad delay, the capture card would add a delay, the Smartfade would add a delay. The magnitude of the delay depends on the quality of processing.

 

The other issue of building it into an one box solution, is the possibility that the regular PC you expose yourself to the risk of the PC glitching and taking the whole visual aspect of the show with it. I know many of our clients would find this unacceptable. with seperate elements you give a fair portion of diversity, so if the PC dies, you can cut to cameras, and vice versa.

[Johnparrack]

Have to agree with Pete, eventhough the kit u are using isn't state of the art it will perform the task u need. As it is, you will probably add 3 or 4 frames video delay to the system (1 Via Mx 50, 1 via Smart fade, 1 via Projector), this your Noise boy should have no problem dealing with. If you go for the all in one box solution, I will again agree with Pete, that you will add to the delay significantly..and probably to an amount that if Your sound chap puts delay in, that it may really look and sound odd on the stage (and probably confuse the person on stage, who will hear what hes just said quite late)

 

Also in my world a "one Box" solution wouldn't be contemplated for a live event.(that includes Anycast!)

 

We have moved on from Smart cuts/fades through Extron 408 (Sgs/iss) onto Fsr S2's and Navigators and now on Diventix and screenpro 2 solutions. Now the worlds gone digital..Delay has become even more of an issue, so only the best scalers are used and Projectors with much larger panels (in terms of pixels) are being run at Native resolutions to cut down on delay. Hi def rigs are now widely used in my environment, so laptops/pcs/graphics machines are being run to the max to perform at 1920x1080 resolutions.

Theres my 2p's worth...sorry for waffle at end.

[jezt]

Thanks drummerrhys, Screen Monkey is just what I was after. And free aswell!!!

[eventstudio]

I am a huge fan of Apple's Keynote... get a pair of Apple laptops, run the the presentation on both of them, load all the graphics and video into it and wire them through a switch/scaler and use a smart cue presentation remote to keep both the machines running in sync, if one goes down for whatever reason just flick the switch to the back up...

 

just the trick!