Video splitter on a budget?

[bricummo]

Hi guys,

 

I've possibly been let down by a guy who was Gona prep my whole show for me, he's cool just a tour he is on has been extended.

 

Anyway, I need to create three individual independent screens on stage, I was told I could maybe run them as a 'strip' with one big image across the whole stage, but might need three projectors?

 

I have three but they are all quite big (DP Mercury Gv5000)

 

My lighting guy has limited knowledge with AV and would ideally like to run it off laptop, someone said an EDIROL V4 might do it?

 

Can someone advise me on maybe the best way to go about it?

 

Cheers as always!

 

Bri.

[lite_lad]

Hi Bri,

 

Your description is a little vague but if im right your wanting to project different images onto 3 strips of screen that have gaps in between them? but them all to share content thats part of the same "canvas"?

 

there are a few ways to do this, your not looking for a video splitter per se as this would give you the same image on the all screens/projectors.

 

you could go down the digital route of running it on a laptop and using software to break up the image (is it a windows or mac laptop, this will make it easier to suggest the right thing)

 

or just use the laptop to playback the image and use something physical to mask the bits in-between the screens.

 

I havent used a edirol v4 but im fairly certain its just a standard vision mixer for switching between different sources so wouldnt be much help here...

 

also depending on the size of the screen you might need to use more than one projector to get a decent brightness...

[bricummo]

Hi there,

 

Thanks for the quick reply lite lad, yeah I suppose I should have explained better instead Of just focusing on the problem ** laughs out loud **.

 

We are a Genesis tribute and recreating the famous Lamb Lies Down on Broadway slideshow from 75.

 

We have the footage and are debating which is the best way to go about it but yeah I visualised projecting a HUGE square across the whole stage of 'black' except for the strip of projection we require? We also have bespoke adjustable screen frames so we can resize to each venue on the tour.

 

We have a suite of lenses with each projector short, medium and long throw all Minolta motorised lenses and to combat the loss of brightness I was thinking of piggy backing two projectors together?

 

That's about all I know (well, have been told ** laughs out loud **) but if there's a better way I'm all ears :-)

 

Cheers,

 

Bri.

[top-cat]

For computer options there is a nice little device called a Matrox Triple Head 2GO which might well do exactly what you want, it can take a single screen image and split it across 3 outputs. But for not dissimilar money for a decent laptop for live video will also buy you a windows PC from eBuyer more than capable of 4-outputs of SD video with your spacings and any mapping or blending set up in the software (reasonable priced software of the moment tends to be Resolume or Mediamaster Pro; and they are also the easiest to learn as they're squarely aimed in the semi-pro field).

 

Using 2 projectors together and blending them manually is not out of the question, if you can stack them atop each other this is a popular method as it gets the lenses closer together, but generally you will still want for your projector to have a lens shift available, especially if they are receiving the same signal from the graphics card.

 

If you can run to the cost of a media server (when I say media server - this doesn't need to be some pre-assembled, branded thing. It can just be a computer. It is a media server by the job it is doing, not by the words on the box) with multiple outputs, I would say the ideal solution is to run each screen from a separate output and then configure this within your software. But failing that, drawing the lines in with some such software, and running a Matrox Triple Head2GO with the whole thing as one 'screen' would be a good way to use 3 projectors and 3 screens to get your result. You will just have to do a bit more playing night-by-night getting the lines int he right places. For SD video at a reasonable resolution (I have used 800x600 in performance and it looked fine) you could probably use a 3 year old Macbook Pro from eBay at quite a reasonable price. But for reference I bought a pretty hardcore Asus laptop at Christmas time which is capable of a lot of HD video, and has 2 external monitor outputs, for about £800.

 

Buying computers is annoying like buying cars they lose you money from the day you buy them and they are out of date in no time at all, but if you can do this as a fairly lo-fi project you should be able to team those projectors up with a fairly affordable computer setup and get something very useable and shouldn't need anything like the V4... a fairly off the shelf graphics card should do you fine.

[Whiskers]

Is the footage stills (slides) or moving pictures?

[Dave m]

the V4 is just a low level (composite y/c) vision mixer aimed at the VJ market

[bricummo]

Thanks guys,

 

I'll take a look at that Matrox definitely, and as for the projectors, they both have lens shift and I think actually have a preset setting for pairing up where they automatically adjust for exactly that so I'm told.

 

As for the images, I can do it two ways, I have the individual slides and images all of which are stills, but then there's also a completed 'video slideshow' of the stills which crossfade into each other, but usually across the three screens it's separate images.

 

Here's a link to the original slideshow...

 

 

That's what I have to recreate.

 

Cheers, Bri.

[top-cat]

 

I'll take a look at that Matrox definitely, and as for the projectors, they both have lens shift and I think actually have a preset setting for pairing up where they automatically adjust for exactly that so I'm told.

 

 

Ah.

 

Does this mean you have a total of 2 projectors? In that scenario, the Matrox is not what you want. The Matrox was my suggestion for having 3 / 6 projectors, so you could basically run each "frame" on stage as a separate output. If you have 2 projectors and want to run the entire image as one, the Matrox will serve no purpose to you.

 

If this is the case, then really my suggestion would be just to check that their lenses are wide enough to do the job. If they are, you should be able to come off a single output from the graphics card (IE the external monitor out on your laptop). You could then use the media server software I suggested above to use "Masking" which lets you put black areas on the image, so the projector does not fire onto these areas.

 

If they're not, you may have to use them side-by-side and do a soft-edge blend with 2 outputs (some laptops - such as the newer Retina Macbook Pros - support 2 external outputs. But if not, this may be an area you could use a Matrox Dual Head 2GO, which is the 2-output version of the Matrox I previously listed). The software - again either of the aforementioned - will help you blend the 2 outputs (read the manual on how to do this!) so a 2 projector blend in 4:3 will give you something just shy (in width) of 8:3 - make sense? And again you can display the 3 images across the screen, and use masking in the software to black out the areas between screens. NOTE I have a *feeling* that MediaMaster Pro will not let you do masking, and geometric correction (used when blending) at the same time, I think it's one or the other. So if you want to do both, Resolume may be the better choice.

 

Then in either case, you should be able to run each of the 3 slideshows in a "Layer" in the media software. Then you should be able to scale the image to only occupy a part of the screen, allowing you to control each of the 3 frames reasonably independently.

 

If you've not done it before I know that this probably all looks quite complex. But I would encourage you to download "Resolume Arena 4" (it's free, with a watermark on the screen); Read the (very comprehensive) manual following my guide above (you can PM me if you want me to clarify anything) and see if you can create what you are looking for using an external PC monitor from your normal computer. It's quite easy to do if you read up properly and I can assure you it will work so the best thing is to give that a try and if it works for you then you can easily license your copy of Resolume from within the software (I think it's about £700 - check the website) and remove the watermark.

[Oldradiohand]

Sorry, not a clue about this, but I'd love to see the final result! Who are the band and when are they touring (if you are at liberty to tell us, of course.)

[revbobuk]

The projector is a native 4:3 projector, 1024x768. And each of the segments in the original slide show looks like 4:3 - so if you stick with the idea of projecting using a single pair of stacked projectors, you are using just 1/3 of the pixels - you'll be working at a resolution of 1024x256 at best. And the rest of the image won't be black - it'll be grey. I'd be trying to find a way to use three projectors. Screen Monkey might be a useful tool here as well.

[bricummo]

Wow thanks again guys!

 

The one saving grace is that the image does have the black separations between the three images already. (Take a look at the Youtube clip in the post above) so it would seem the two projectors paired and projecting one big image might be my easiest option?

 

I understand the resolution won't be great but then the images are kinda grainy anyway as they're all 1970s camera images.

 

The band is The Carpet Crawlers and were performing The Lamb in FULL plus more Gabriel era material.

 

Our tourdates are at www.carpetcrawlers.com and you're all more than welcome! :-)

 

I DO have seven of these projectors with 5 working reliably so would it be better if I could pair up say 3 or 4?

 

Cheers again,

 

Brian.

[revbobuk]

I understand the resolution won't be great but then the images are kinda grainy anyway as they're all 1970s camera images.

 

I DO have seven of these projectors with 5 working reliably so would it be better if I could pair up say 3 or 4?

It isn't just that the resolution is poor - it's that you are throwing light away. 2/3rds of the light output of the pair of projectors (if you do one image) isn't generating visible image. You really would be better off (in my opinion) with three unpaired projectors than with one paired set. Of course if you could do three sets of stacked pairs, better still.

[AHYoung]

If you want three individual screens but working together, id get a decentish pc laptop and a matrox thtg , run the resolution at 3072 / 768 and let the matrox split the output into left centre and right. id also use powerpoint as this will do everything you need. you just make a presentation with the images in the right parts of the screen which is simple enough to do and you have all the basic fades and animations you could ever want. Keep it simple and once you have mastered that, look at some sort of media server , but if you have still images, you can do everything you need in powerpoint.

Id also not arse about double stacking. just use the best three of these rather aging but well made projectors and moderate the screen size to suit. 3 2 ~3m screens with gaps still fills a decent sized stage. Sorry to be offering such a basic solution, but it will cost you little and be stable and easy to understand. You need to be doing this sort of stuff to realise how tedious blending and stacking can be, and if you try and do it on a shoe string with aging equipment is triple tedious.

[bricummo]

If you want three individual screens but working together, id get a decentish pc laptop and a matrox thtg , run the resolution at 3072 / 768 and let the matrox split the output into left centre and right. id also use powerpoint as this will do everything you need. you just make a presentation with the images in the right parts of the screen which is simple enough to do and you have all the basic fades and animations you could ever want. Keep it simple and once you have mastered that, look at some sort of media server , but if you have still images, you can do everything you need in powerpoint.

Id also not arse about double stacking. just use the best three of these rather aging but well made projectors and moderate the screen size to suit. 3 2 ~3m screens with gaps still fills a decent sized stage. Sorry to be offering such a basic solution, but it will cost you little and be stable and easy to understand. You need to be doing this sort of stuff to realise how tedious blending and stacking can be, and if you try and do it on a shoe string with aging equipment is triple tedious.

 

Ok, thanks again :)

 

See, my lighting guy will probably now have to line up the cues as he knows the show inside out and getting someone to learn the show in such short notice would be a nightmare, he's first and foremost a lighting engineer, but the past few tours has done basic projections for us on the Selling England tour, and other animations from the Phil Collins era shows.

 

He does all of his prep on Martin LightJockey, I know some people frown on it, but he's used to it and pre-programmes all the shows and after touring a lot of these venues for the past 5 years, he already has a showfile in for each setup. The thing is MLJ allows you to trigger video alongside cues but only ONE video at a time.

 

So my question is, if our 'video or image' was the WHOLE 'letterbox' of the 3 screens if you get me? Kinda 12:3 ratio, then would the external Matrox or Powerpoint allow us to choose which segment was assignable to which projector? In other words, its a whole image of the 3 screens in one video, but splittable AFTER it comes out of the master laptop? Does that make sense?

 

Cheers, and I really appreciate your imput guys,

 

Oh and also, if you noticed, the ORIGINAL footage was done with three 1974 KODAK slide projectors, so again if it wasn't a hugely vivid and HD image it would actually maybe look more authentic haha, if you look at the video clip above the images are weak in places.

 

B.

[top-cat]

Not to put down PowerPoint or the simplicity that comes with it, but using Resolume or MMP you could use a DMX input to trigger the visuals. This might be something your lighting guy wants to consider, it cuts down on the number of hands you need to do the gig!