Zulu Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Hi,I'm planning to project images onto the cyc for my theatre's upcoming production of Breaking the Code. I'm pretty new to this technician stuff, and have never done any projection before. I anticipate using a laptop and a normal computer projector (although I haven't got one yet). The projector will be mounted on the grid, angled down at about 30-40 degrees, at the cyc, maybe about 2.5 m away.A few questions spring to mind:Will this arrangement work? (I could position the projector differently, but I want to miss the acors as much as possible)What's the best connection, eg VGA, s-video, etc?I estimate needing about 25-30m of cable to the perch. Will that be ok? (and where can I buy that kind of length cable?)Will the image be bright enough with normal stage lighting?Is there any preferred paint or colour for the 'screen' area of the cyc, or just white emulsion?Is there any specialst software needed, or just any "slideshow" software.Can the advancing of the slides be driven from a DMX programmable lighting desk?Anything else I should be asking? Hope you can help with some of these entry-level questions. :D thanks, Zulu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Angle of projector - seems excesively steep - I very much doubt you'll be able to keystone a cheap projector enough to be able to overcome that sort of angle. Connection - VGA would be preferrable. Cable length is fine - one place to look for that sort of length at reasonable cost would be CPC. Will it be bright enough? Depends how you define 'normal' stage lighting. As long as it's not too bright, and you take care when focussing and plotting to keep as much light as you can off the projection area, you should be OK as long as it's a halfway-decent projector. Colour? Plain white is good! Software? Depends what you want to project. If it's just a sequence of stills, good ol' PowerPoint (or Keynote on a Mac, or its OpenOffice equivalent) will do the job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason5d Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 30-40 degrees is quite steepbut sanyo projectors can keystone up to 40 I think you'll need at least 5-10k lumento compete with your stage lighting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 I think you'll need at least 5-10k lumen to compete with your stage lightingWith respect, Jason, without knowing how bright the stage lighting's going to be that statement is fairly meaningless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy MLS Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 If your struggling to find a decent length VGA cable you may want to try a pair of VGA extenders which will allow you to send a VGA signal over inexpensive cat5 cable. We regularly use a set of VGA extenders so that we can have our projector (5000lumin) rigged above the stage projecting onto the cyc, while controlling the data sent to it from a control position at the rear of the of the auditorium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zulu Posted February 10, 2009 Author Share Posted February 10, 2009 Thanks for the input, guys. Very helpful. A couple of follow ups . . . Gareth, who or what is CPC? I'm sure it's obvious, but I don't know. Jeremy, how does the VGA extender system work? Sorry, I don't even know what Cat 5 cable is. What do I need? thanks again, cheers, Zulu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pritch Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Gareth, who or what is CPC? I'm sure it's obvious, but I don't know. http://cpc.farnell.com/ (Edit: Incidentally, I believe CPC deliver internationally, but are mainly UK oriented - in suggesting that, Gareth has assumed you're UK based, because there's no location in your profile) Jeremy, how does the VGA extender system work? Sorry, I don't even know what Cat 5 cable is. What do I need? Cat 5 is cabling which, most commonly, is used for computer networks, but has other uses as well. You'd get something like this (let's stick with CPC, seeing as I'm already on their site!)http://cpc.farnell.com/unbranded/av16050/v...cat5/dp/AV16050 And link it together with some cable, like this:http://cpc.farnell.com/belkin/a3l791b25m-b...-25m/dp/CS11021 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleah Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 We did something similar for a Panto last weekend, however we were using a white gauze as a cyc. It was a pre-installed projection system. The problem I found was that the stage was gloss black ;) ;) Not hitting the cyc directly wasn't a big deal, it was the bloomin' reflection of the darn silly gloss black stage that was the problem! :** laughs out loud **: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zulu Posted February 12, 2009 Author Share Posted February 12, 2009 Thanks for all the reponses, folks. I'm plenty wiser. CPC is a whole new world !!cheers, Zulu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.