[Thomas Leong]

Google for VJ software. There are lots out there, and a few would probably do what you want.

[Thomas Leong]

Try this with your cam (assuming it has the slow shutter speed you require). Take the tape out and operate without, and you will likely find that it won’t switch off when in pause mode. Apparently, the retail shops do this when demo’ing a cam outside their shops.

Thomas Leong

[Thomas Leong]

Two sensors triggering a different ending each, raises the following questions-

1. How is each sensor triggered? – via audience movement, or passing a laser barrier, or push buttons, or ??? To be able to trigger 2 different endings, it would seem that your show would have to branch to one of two different files or timelines. But more importantly, each trigger must send a different signal, else Max/Msp would not know which to trigger. Generally, I would think that hard industrial buttons are easier and more decisive for this – audience to push the button they want – to ensure the correct signal is being sent. This is the only ‘interactive’ part I presume.

2. Depends on Max/Msp being able to accept triggers – usually via RS232 into the PC runnng Max/Msp. Other acceptable ways of triggering are using DMX and Midi but I would think that RS232 is the most common especially since most PC motherboards have an RS232 built in. Most, but not all.

I’m not familiar with Max/Msp, but with my AvStumpfl Wings, I would ‘Pause’ my Timeline at the appropriate moment in the show with a prompt to the audience to select a button, then wait for a ‘Play’ signal via RS232. Then program one button to send an RS232 signal that would ‘Play Timeline 1 from Marker 1’, and the other button to send an RS232 signal that would ‘Play Timeline 1 from Marker 2’, in order to trigger the required ending.

As a safety feature, I would have the non-activated button disabled for the X amount of minutes + a safe 10 seconds when the other is activated (or both buttons de-activated to be ultra safe) in case children start pushing this and that whilst one ending is playing.

Another safety feature to think about is to activate the buttons for selection only at the appropriate moment. I mean one would not want anyone to push a button and have the show stop its play mid-way and jump to the selected ending at an inappropriate time!

Thomas Leong

[Thomas Leong]

Hi Maxim,

Using a Slave PC for each Display controlled by a Master PC is the ideal solution. But if resources are limited and your single PC has the oomph to handle the media playing at full frame-rates without hiccups, then you could use only that single PC (Master) as a Slave as well. This single PC is of course equipped with a triple-head graphics card (does any exist???). I use dual-head cards, but have not found a triple-head card yet.

With a triple-head gfx card, you then only need one licence key to run a 3-screen multi-display show with Wings. Note that by a triple-head graphics card (if any exist), I am not referring to the Matrox TripleHead2Go device which works differently.

If you want to learn further how to set-up a 3-display show, I suggest we take this off-line and I can step you through it, perhaps with some screen captures to illustrate. (But I’m having early nights and very early mornings with a full day outdoors till this Sunday…so you’ll have to be patient). Else, perhaps Alex can help instead.

Thomas Leong
tleong49 at streamyx dot com
https://www.multidisplays.freeforums.org (for Wings specific questions)

[Thomas Leong]

Scott,

I reckon Walter has answered your question – Renewed Vision with one licence, dual-head gfx card, and its playlist feature are all there…within your budget.

cheers,
Thomas

[Thomas Leong]

Ah Mac…yes, Renewed Vision would be your best bet.

BUT…I’m not sure if Renewed Vison would allow the Master to also be the playback presenter. You may need two licences there instead of one as in Wings Platinum, i.e. Master AND SLAVE licences are necessary…implying also two Macs with the Slave being a Mac Mini as a minimum. Best to check.

In the case of the PC-based Wings, you only need one, since the Master can also be used as Slave in a playback situation. Also, a possibly useful feature of Wings for novice operators is that the ‘programmer’ (you??) can use the Control Panel feature (one page will do – available with one of the paid versions) to program triggers into on-screen buttons, i.e. the novice operator does not see the Timeline and other confusing things. He sees only a Control Panel with buttons to ‘Play Video X’, ‘Stop Video X’, Play Video Y’, ‘Stop Video Y’, Pause, etc.

For Mac-based freeware, check out Multiscreener from zachpoff.com plus a few more links from there, eg. Isadora, Max/MSP Jitter. But I think these others are paid-ware.

If you do decide to go with a Windows software, just ensure that it is XP (Home or Pro makes no difference to your presentation), and that it is clean, i.e. little other applications (esp. 3rd party games), and most importantly, NO internet access for that machine. Only then can you be assured of a 101% stable machine for presentation purposes.

Thomas Leong

[Thomas Leong]

Here’s my 2 cents –

A clean XP PC loaded with AvStumpfl Wings Platinum, fitted with a mid-range dual head graphics card, and connect one output to a monitor and the other to your projector. Set the graphics card outputs to span the monitors rather than clone mode. Load up Wings, and drag its Timeline to the monitor output, and the Preview Window to the Projector output. Double-click on the Preview Window and it becomes full-screen (no windows, no borders except for black depending on the screen format of your MPEG-2 videos, etc). All your videos will now play full-screen on that output while your controller Timeline (for pause, stop, play controls) are on the monitor output. The MPEG-2 codec used is from Mainconcept.

You can download the demo version at avstumpfl.com. In fact try the Basic Version, which is free-ware (needs registration for continued usage, but still free). The Basic version allows one video track and that might suffice. If not, read the Help Files for comparison with the other versions, and perhaps buy the USB dongle key for one of the next 2 versions up…AFAIK, they are below your budget. Only the Multi-screen version is above your budget…and you do not need that.

Thomas Leong

[Thomas Leong]

Here is possibility –

In the modern world (i.e. for computers/mobile phones, etc), there a a few variations of Chinese – eg. Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Pin-Yin?, etc. Perhaps what you have in your version of AE is not compatible with that in OpenOffice.

That is what happened with two of my mobile phones – one Nokia, and one made-in-China ‘iPhone’ lookalike…on the former (surprise), all characters of a greeting came out fine, whereas the one made-in-China showed a couple of ‘square boxes’ for some characters.

The solution, maybe, is to download all the Chinese versions available for your AE, and have another try.

hope that helps,
Thomas Leong
A Chinese who doesn’t read/write/speak Mandarin Chinese 🙂

[Thomas Leong]

That would be Matrox’s TripleHead2go device, sort of a 1-in, 3-out device, without switching functions.

Haven’t used it personally, but it has been said that one does lose some functionality such as re-positioning and/or manoeuvring individual segments on each output, etc…but then again, if it is one large comp, no further manipulating is required.

I do, however, have one big question mark on using such a device though: the PC’s processing power and its sub-systems to run a 4:1 super high res video file at 25 or 30fps as the case may be, without hiccups. Another problem would be choosing the codec to output such a video, and run it as a single file. The triplehead2go is probably more suited for Desktop extensions and Powerpoint slides, rather than 4:1 super high res video.

Personally I would still prefer distributed computing under a Master controller over Ethernet, albeit at a higher cost, but both reliability and flexibility have been proven…especially to a live audience.

Thomas Leong

[Thomas Leong]

“…should i change my video card to the radeon X1950?”

According to Tomshardware.com’s latest Graphics Card Hierarchy chart, the Radeon X1950 is a few classes above the GeForce 8500GT. So if you can change the latter for the X1950 without additional outlay, I’d say go for it.

BTW, OpenGL itself has various versions and within every version there are a myriad of sub-sets which an application may implement, or choose not to. The graphics card a user chooses would have to, as a minimum, support the same sub-sets of OpenGL that the application has chosen to implement. Else there will be incompatibilities probably resulting in crashes. I do not see any details of the OpenGL sub-sets required for any particular version of AE at Adobe’s site, so I’m afraid it is a buy-and-pray situation unless someone can provide the OpenGl sub-sets required for your version of AE such that you can check them against your gfx card and its driver.

Sub-sets aside, you can nevertheless check whether your gfx card and its driver are using OpenGL 2.0 which would be a must for more recent versions of AE. To check your version of OpenGL (Windows or Mac) use this Tool at –
https://www.realtech-vr.com/glview/download.html

hope that helps,
Thomas Leong