[Walter Soyka]

Hi Carlos,

You might also check out Red Giant Software’s PlaneSpace, which allows you to easily arrange and manipulate dozens of 2D planes (like the screens in the video you linked) in After Effects’ 3D space.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

Absolutely — the playback system drives your content creation, and the physical displays drive the design of the playback system.

Other considerations not mentioned include depth (if your displays are not all co-planar) and pixel density, if your displays are not identical.

Like Maurice mentioned, I use Dataton Watchout for things like this, although I too am starting to research CF players for applications like this.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

What you’re looking to do is called “show control,” and there are a couple different ways to do this.

You could have your lighting controller fire off timecode, and have your playback device follow the timecode, or you could have a playback system fire off the lighting cues. Either way, the idea is to synchronize the lighting cues and the media to a common timecode. Theatrical lighting systems use a protocol called DMX, so if you choose the latter option, your playback system must interface with DMX.

More complicated systems use software like Medialon to synchronize and control multiple subsystems.

Dataton’s Watchout is pretty common in installs like this, since Dataton has been doing automation like this for years. There are other options, too, like Wings or a media server.

Some important considerations might be what playback systems the museum already has familiarity with, and what lighting systems they already own. You might consider hiring a professional lighting designer to help with the lighting and automation.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

Hi Leo,

What resolution must you output to in order to drive the displays, and what will the positioning of the screens be like?

When doing widescreen, I always backtrack to my pixel space from the physical display and its resolution.

Don\’t forget to account for the negative space between displays.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

Hi Thomas,

I’ve been looking at the Brightsign units — the feature list seems great. Have you used them? What did you think?

Thanks,

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

I’d look at getting two solid-state video players, one for each output. Each player will be loaded with its own media, but identical playlists.

Your kiosk (with push-buttons? a touch screen?) would interface with the players; when your guest interacts with the kiosk and requests a particular piece of media, both players respond, each with their own media, and you’ve got your two channels.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

Sorry, I had meant a flash memory-based video player, not Adobe Flash—although you could certainly hire a Flash developer to write something like this for you.

Can you describe your project in a little more detail?

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

A couple years ago, people were doing kiosks like these with industrial DVD players, custom-authored DVDs, and RS-232 serial control. Today, you’d also have the option of flash-based solid state players.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

Julian’s suggestion to hire a consultant is excellent—these systems get complicated fast, and having someone with you who’s been through it before would be invaluable.

[Sam Chan] “Have you used PowerShow, seen or know anyone who used it before? I tried to look for reviews, demos or user experience descriptions, but couldn’t find any.”

There’s a 10-day demo for PowerShow available for download from their web site.

[Sam Chan] “Could you please explain your comment about the separate switcher downstream of the graphics computer if I want to feed live video please? Does this refer to any specific configuration (ProPresenter, Watchout, Media Shout, PowerShow) or does it apply generally to all?
“

You can mix live video with software-based systems like Watchout and Wings, but I almost always prefer to do it with a dedicated switcher. Both platforms are very stable now, but they both still crash occasionally, and you don’t want a computer crash to ruin your event or service. If the computer is the last element before the screens, your audience will be treated to your startup screen while it reboots. If you’ve got a switcher after the computers and before the screens, you can take cut away to something else.

[Sam Chan] “Could you also comment on whether we should consider switching to the Mac? We are just starting to think about multi-screen. In terms of future availability and cost of the technology, software, hardware; market share, etc. does it make sense for us to change or stay?”

For me, the platform is a non-issue. I use both Macs and PCs in my studio; I think it’s a matter of having the right tool for the job at hand. Apple is doing very well financially, so I’m not worried about future availability or market share. You’ll have to answer any cost questions for yourself, but you’ll want a high-powered computer on either platform for this use, and I don’t really see a cost difference on the high-end machines. I’d just pick the software that does what you need and has a workflow you like, and then get the box it runs on.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production

[Walter Soyka]

I’m not very familiar with either one of these packages myself, but I believe the leaders in this category are Renewed Vision’s ProPresenter on the Mac—which will meet your needs with the Advanced add-on— and MediaShout on the PC.

You could stick with PPT on the PC if you got either a Matrox DualHead2Go. Alternately, you could replace your graphics card with a dual-headed graphics card and use PowerShow to control multiple PPT shows over the two monitors.

Watchout is great, but it doesn’t have a built-in titler and I think this would create a huge amount of pre-production for you in this case.

I’d also think you’d want a separate switcher downstream from the graphics computers if you want to feed live video.

Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production