Commonwealth games dancing LCD monitors

[timsabre]

I was rather intrigued with the dancing LCD monitors during the Gold Coast segment of the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. (if you didn't see it, there were about 20 black-clad dancers each holding a large LCD displays which they continuously rearranged in different setups, while the pictures on the screens moved around to make one large image).

 

Not ever seen that done before and I can imagine some technical fun making it work, mainly getting a different video signal wirelessly to each monitor, and enough battery power to keep it going. The video mapping was presumably pre-programmed and relied on the people positioning the monitors correctly, although something like Ai could have done it dynamically with suitable position sensing.

Was anyone here involved or know how they got the pictures to the screens?

[ImagineerTom]

Whilst I don't know what technology they specifically used it was quite clearly inspired by the work of Marco Tempest (google him) and he's made his video control/sync software freely available - google "multivid"; we've used it many times with ipod touch's and a video out cable in to screens/projectors to create an entirely scalable media server system. It doesn't have the lighting control interface of more traditional media servers but when it comes to spitting out video across multiple devices it's very good.

 

Marco's also just a really nice guy so if you have a project and need some input he's always up for a collaboration.

[timsabre]

Thanks for that info Tom. Had not heard of him before, interesting stuff. Looked exactly the sort of thing he does with a load of stand-alone players synced together.