[Bob Bonniol]

If you are talking about 24 to 36 screens that will be playing identical content, then you need a single source and several distribution amplifiers. These come in numerous I/O flavors.

If you are talking about 24 to 36 screens which will play discreet, synchronised content, perhaps forming unified palette, but each individual, then honestly you are describing a fairly enormous multi screen gig.

If it is a temporary installation, or a one off event, you should seek out a local AV vendor with deep experience in this and rent a system. Watchout from Dataton, Wings Platinum from AV STumpfl, Spyder or Montage from Vista systems, Encore from Barco, are all extremely flexible and robust systems for multi screen display. I cannot stress enough that the number of screens you are talking about makes this a considerable task, and to be brutally honest no solution is going to be cheap or uncomplicated.

If it is a permanent install, any of the above systems will of course serve, but again, the price tag will be substantial. I can imagine several more DIY approaches if this is an arts based situation, which might involve using MAX/MSP Jitter, VVVV, or perhaps Isadora in combination with multiple platforms (I’d recommend MAC) running Matrox Multi Head adapters, and sync’d via a master unit with a MOTU Midi Timecode generator. In this case you could even avail yourself of the free software QLab, which can sync to Midi and run any form of multimedia.

And lest we forget, authoring content for an installation this size will in itself be a challenging task.

If this is a commercial gig, I recommend retaining an experienced AV equipment company to provide, install, and program gear, as well as hiring an experienced content creation company (with multi screen experience) to work under your direction in the creation of content.

Good Luck,

Bob Bonniol

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

Gee what a surprise, Thomas is flogging Wings again.

SO Thomas do they actualy give you a percentage on systems sold?

I think people around here know I have my favorite solutions for these kind of things, but at least I also lay out all the competing options.

It’s beginning to feel like the AVStumpfl forum…

Just FYI, one could also tackle this with products like Watchout, Arkaos, Hippotizer, Pandoras Box, and others.

Heck with one of those Matrox Multi-Head adapters you could pretty much do it with power-point.

Regards,
Bob

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

Yep… we’ve actually been doing this for the last 2 or 3 years. Of course our gig is a bit different than average broadcast. We have clients come back cyclically so having our media archived right on a drive made sense early on.

It works awesome.

Here’s a challenging aspect though: When we started doing this we were archiving SCSI drives. Then it became FW400. Now it’s either FW800 or triple interface drives. With every new development in bus technologies, we’ve had to do some migrating occasionally.

Anybody seen this ?

https://www.fusionio.com/index.html

I think AlienWare is already coming out with solid state storage. Now you won’t even archive a drive… It’ll be more like archiving a RAM stick…

Bob

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

Whoa… easy there fellas…

A whole lot of trigger happy condemnation just poured out.

Let’s assume that you are sincerely interested in finding out the difference between the deep compositing capabilities of AE as opposed to the fairly robust Motion Grpahics add ons one can find in any NLE, vegas included.

After effects is optimized specifically for the application of heavy compositing and FX. WHile Vegas enjoys some great plug in support, it cannot compare to AE in terms of sheer numbers of plugs.

AE offers industry leading motion tracking tools. Through Keylight, it is inherently an amazing keying engine; and through the addition of some even more powerful plugs (i.e. Silouette Roto) it becomes a really robust rotoscoping tool.

AE represents a TRUE 3D compositing space.

AE is capable of dealing with images in extremely good color space.

AE is capable of multithreaded processing.

Through powerful tools like expressions, and layer parenting, the application of temporally based or attribute based procedural keyframing is possible. In simple terms, AE is capable of using almost any variable to trigger and shape other variables through the use of expressions.

Of course it is possible to crop, resize, do basic geometrics, etc, within Vegas, or with most NLE’s for that matter. But AE is capable of much more complexly computed geometrics, things like mesh warps, corner pinning, or other extremely precise AND ARTIFACT FREE distortions.

This is scratching the surface of course.

AE is capable of industry class digital intermediary, color correction tools that dust Vegas, as well as deep histogramatic and image control variables. AE does this non destructively while maintaining maximum bit depth.

An analogy: A screw gun could probably be used to drill a good hole. But if you were going to need to be absolutely precise, you might use a drill press, right ? Same thing. A compositing app is worlds more powerful than an NLE at what it does. Conversely, most compositing apps are not so good at all for actual cutting of media.

Right tool, right job. I know plenty of great editors who do decent motion graphics on their NLE programs. But you get to a certain point where more precision, more options, or mor deep controls of attributes are required, and then you need a real compositing app.

Hope that helps…

Best,

Bob Bonniol

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

While it is possible to get 6 monitors hooked up to a G5 quad, It is entirely another thing to get all 6 monitors playing full frame video, frame accurate. This is exactly the sort of thing my studio does constantly, and I can tell you that a one machine scenario is no go. It’s got less to do with the graphics cards than it does with the ability of the SATA (or other) drive bus to deliver the media without any hiccups. After endless experimenting with this situation, in a case where we wanted 6 outputs, driven by Mac, you’re best served with one mac per two outputs. Even better is to add an additional for unimpeded control and monitoring. Speaking of which you can jigger the runtime environment in Quartz Composer, or you could also whip this up in MAX/MSP Jitter. Another option would be professional level multi-screen presentation software like Dataton’s Watchout or AV Stumpfl’s Wings Platinum.

The main thing here is to split the load between multiple machines. Like I said, this is mostly to do with drive bus and Front Side Bus MOBO bandwidth limitations.

Best,

Bob Bonniol

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

Sho,

OK… So you’ve got 5k to buy something, or you’ve got 5k for one particular gig ? If you are talking about something you want to buy and use in low/no budget gigs, the most flexible thing you could do would be to buy a decent little projector (you can get a 3000 lumen DLP for around 2k, or you could get a 6000 or 7000 lumen LCD for around 5k), then get some VJ software like Arkaos.

The ‘current’ big trend in live performance lighting is digital lights and pixel mapped LED fixtures. Stuff like High End Systems DL2, or any of the products from Element Labs. Connected to happening media servers (like Hippotizer, or Pandoras Box), and controlled with DMX consoles, these sort of setups are becoming the heart of big concert and event lighting rigs.

So, in a very simple sense, by buying a little projector and some VJ software, you are doing the same thing.

To give you some perspective about the financial side of middle to big size pro gigs, a big summer concert tour (let’s say something like The Police, or Nickelback, or U2) will spend between $18k to $30k per week on moving lights, strobes, truss, rigging, etc. They will spend an additional $20k to $80k per week on high res LED video, Digital Lights, or other arrays of Low Res LED product.

On one-off concerts in theatres, clubs, or amphitheatres it is entirely common to spend between $8k to $20k on some forms of lighting. The thing with live performance lighting is that the gear is expensive. Average purchase price for one moving light: $7500. DMX lighting control console suitable for using moving lights, driving media servers, pixel mapping, etc: $40k. Most pro level media servers go for between $10k and $35k.

I don’t mean this to be demoralizing at all. There’s a really active and thriving scene in many towns where you could do alot of good work with the sort of rig I suggested at the beginning, coupled with whatever you find in the venue. It’s possible to find some used dimmers, some PAR 64 units, and maybe even some color scrollers (all used, of course) for pretty reasonable prices. But basic light, stuff that illuminates performers, is oh-so-1980s… These days it’s all about projecting imagery with digital lights, and creating big stage sets from modular LED products.

If you are really serious about getting into the big time with this, the best thing you can do is go get a job with a major vendor who has spent millions on toys like these, and go do gigs for them. Companies like PRG, Christie Lights, Q1, Nocturne, Upstaging, or XL Video all have giant inventories of the latest toys, and provide those toys, and the people to set them up and run them, to the biggest shows. A common arc would be to spend a year working the shop, learning what all the stuff does, how to fix it, etc, and then maybe starting to roll on gigs. It can take a while to work your way up to the point when you are programming or driving a big lighting rig during the show… But the payoff is great. It’s good cash, and there is nothing on earth like hitting a big light cue, and hearing 25,000 people go @$%#@ crazy.

Good Luck,

Bob Bonniol

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

First let me say, that you have nothing tow worry about at a macro level. So much of your stuff is absolutely shizzle. That 101st Airborne Firefight video is showing mad skillz.

With this one, it’s beautiful, on target human interest doc stuff… Did you tap into that dividing line between warrior and musician ? I don’t know… I don’t know if it was necessary to get down to mythological archetype here, if you know what I mean.

If there was anything I might ad, it would have been to ead with your intro (great work), but then give us just a brief introduction to what rock fantasy camp is, a little more detail on who our soldier is. You might want to think about some lower thirds to intro our rock stars (I work in the music biz and I can’t tell who these guys are).

Other than that, story=great and editorial=great.

Keep it up !

When you get out, stay in touch ! Might have a gig for ya…

Bob

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

Andy,

I don’t know if Stumpfl has a “controller” as in tactile control surface for wings. It works along the model of one PC per display, plus a PC running the interface Software. This is the defacto controller. It’s a vary powerful timeline based cueing interface.

Last time I checked, street price US for Wings Platinum varys… I think you can get the control software and one display client software for about $3300. I think each extra display node’s software is around $1500. This is exclusive of the cost of the host computers, which need to benefit from really good graphics cards. I thing Stumpfl (like Watchout from Dataton) also markets discounted packs, like the Master control software, plus 5 nodes for a given price.

I know that you guys are a rental house, so investing in this kind of system is not a bad idea. If your are doing a lot of big blended projection backdrops, then wings is a GREAT way to go. If most of your stuff is one or two display channels, with an occasional blended thing, then I would begin to sway towards a media server like Pandora’s Box or Green Hippo’s Hippotiser.

Cheers,
Bob

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

Wow… That’s a great rate in Austin. In LA, I can find really accomplished AE compositors at $35 an hour. There are SO many of them, that for me to bump up to a $50 p/hr person, that compositor has got to also be really expert in some peripheral skills like using roto tools, intense tracking stuff, or having deep experience with plugs like Particular or the RE: vision stuff, or 3rd party DI tools and such. Plus killer design sense, and an ability to help ride herd on a bunch of other folks.

Now the situation, I think, changes if you are sort of doing all in one shop kind of approach. If you’re going to produce, cut, composite, and master whole projects as a freelancer, than your rate can go way up… But at that point people start wanting to lock you in at some all in figure for the project as well.

I know there are some rarified strata of people working for a bunch more than what I am talking about, but I spend most of my time producing major music industry and music video projects, and I can pick any of a dozen killer AE jedi’s at the rate I’m talking about.

Ultimately anybody can make as much as they can manage a client to pay of course…

Bob

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader

[Bob Bonniol]

That is totally wrong way in my view. If you import something in DV, and then you go through one or two intermediary DV codec renders you are going to smash the living you know what out of the quality. There IS a value to rendering in a superior codec. It doesn’t have to be “none”… 10 or 8 bit uncompressed works well. I Like Photo JPEG set at around 88% quality… lot’s of people have favorites. The new Apple codecs are getting lots of favorable talk. I still say the besst answer is NO render until final. Convert and move the project files back and forth with duck, or via native in adobe apps. It’s a workflow efficiency issue as well. You get in a rendering rhythm and you’ll wait days to see results you can get to in hours. My .02

Bob

MODE Studios
http://www.modestudios.com
Contributing Editor, Entertainment Design Magazine
Art of the Edit Forum Leader
Live & Stage Event Forum Leader
HD Forum Leader