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The Ultimate Guide to Multiscreen Output with Resolume
“I want to connect a dozen and then some screens, what hardware should I get?”
We get this question quite often.
The question sounds simple, the answer is always complicated. It’s the same as asking: “I want to buy a house, which house should I buy?”
Consider us your multiscreen real estate managers. [fold][/fold]We like to help you make the right decisions and find the house that’s right for you. After gathering lots of use cases, possible problems and possible solutions, we came to this document. This document will guide you through the overwhelming multiscreen adventure.
The adventure starts here!
You’ll find some essentials explained on the do’s and don’ts when using Resolume for multiple outputs. The different options are listed in order of preference and it even contains a flowchart. Yay. Just answer the questions and you will be guided to your ideal dream home. One click and you’ll be taken to all the essential information you need on that snazzy 3 story condo with all copper plumbing. We’ll try to avoid the shady parts of town, but if you like, we can show you some options in the extender hub ghettos as well.
Always remember, buying a large house is a big investment. Before going house hunting, you need to make sure your computer has enough pixel power in the bank to build that pretty picture. It would suck if you get all the gear together to run a beautiful 4 story pixel map and then realise your Intel Iris Pro chokes at more than a single bedroom NY apartment. When in doubt, check them benchmarks.
Here's that URL one more time, in case you missed it the first time
Resolume Blog
This blog is about Resolume, VJ-ing and the inspiring things the Resolume users make. Do you have something interesting to show the community? Send in your work!
Highlights
Super Quick Review: Samson Conspiracy
As you all know, Resolume stacks layers vertically. To us, it always felt a bit weird to control those layers with a midi controller that puts its faders horizontally. So we got this little guy in the office because we liked the vertical fader layout, and wanted to see if it was a good match for Resolume.
[fold][/fold]
The good news is that the Samson Conspiracy is a regular USB midi controller, so it pops right up in Resolume and works out of the box. Even the XY pad can be assigned to do fun Kaosspad type of stuff.
The rotaries are the same faux endless controls that most midi controllers have these days. They send out regular 0...127 midi cc data, but can be spun endlessly. They don't respond to midi feedback though. This sucks when using layer focus mapping to map the same rotary to different controls. For instance, you could map it to the active clip speed. When you then switch between clips, the control won't update to the speed value of the current clip in Resolume. So when turning the knob, the speed value will jump to whatever value is set to.
A great thing is that the rotaries are velocity sensitive. When you turn them quickly, you can cover the whole range of 0 to 127 in one turn. But when you turn slowly, the sensitivity increases, and you can very precisely adjust the values with increments of 1. Pretty nifty.
After doing a couple of mixes with it, I get why most controllers put their faders horizontally. This may be a personal thing, but my mixing style is mostly fading layers in and out rhythmically, while occasionally triggering effects with the pad. I quickly found myself turning the controller 90 degrees to get the faders horizontal again. Somehow, it feels more natural to my hands that way.
Even then, theres is a set of rotaries between faders and pads, very close to the end of the fader. This is both annoying when fading all the way up, as well as when switching from fader to pad and back. Also, most of my show compositions are built up of 8 layers of content, composited together with alpha channels to create the particular look I need for that stage. 4 faders is just not enough control for me.
All in all it's a great controller, but not my style. I guess we'll just have to make Resolume with a horizontal layer layout instead :)
http://www.samsontech.com/samson/products/usb-midi/controllers/conspiracy/
The good news is that the Samson Conspiracy is a regular USB midi controller, so it pops right up in Resolume and works out of the box. Even the XY pad can be assigned to do fun Kaosspad type of stuff.
The rotaries are the same faux endless controls that most midi controllers have these days. They send out regular 0...127 midi cc data, but can be spun endlessly. They don't respond to midi feedback though. This sucks when using layer focus mapping to map the same rotary to different controls. For instance, you could map it to the active clip speed. When you then switch between clips, the control won't update to the speed value of the current clip in Resolume. So when turning the knob, the speed value will jump to whatever value is set to.
A great thing is that the rotaries are velocity sensitive. When you turn them quickly, you can cover the whole range of 0 to 127 in one turn. But when you turn slowly, the sensitivity increases, and you can very precisely adjust the values with increments of 1. Pretty nifty.
After doing a couple of mixes with it, I get why most controllers put their faders horizontally. This may be a personal thing, but my mixing style is mostly fading layers in and out rhythmically, while occasionally triggering effects with the pad. I quickly found myself turning the controller 90 degrees to get the faders horizontal again. Somehow, it feels more natural to my hands that way.
Even then, theres is a set of rotaries between faders and pads, very close to the end of the fader. This is both annoying when fading all the way up, as well as when switching from fader to pad and back. Also, most of my show compositions are built up of 8 layers of content, composited together with alpha channels to create the particular look I need for that stage. 4 faders is just not enough control for me.
All in all it's a great controller, but not my style. I guess we'll just have to make Resolume with a horizontal layer layout instead :)
http://www.samsontech.com/samson/products/usb-midi/controllers/conspiracy/
Review: Showjockey Art-Net devices
Arena 5 made outputting to LED strips a piece of cake. Arena can sample the video pixels and output RGB values to the strip via DMX.
DMX is great, because it’s been around since forever and has become an industry standard that most devices will be able to work with.
The downside is that it has the concept of ‘universes’, which is basically a fancy term to describe all the lights that are on a single control line. A universe is limited 512 DMX channels. This is fine for conventional lighting setups, and was more than enough when the protocol was established way back in the eighties. But with every RGB pixel taking up 3 channels (1 for Red, 1 for Green, 1 for Blue), you can only control a maximum of 170 pixels per universe. With LED strips becoming super cheap and more and more high-res, building anything fancy can quickly require 10 or more universes.
[fold][/fold]
In the past, we’ve always recommended USB to DMX devices to get started with DMX. These are great, because they’re simple in operation and relatively cheap. The trouble is they only output 1 or 2 universes at the most and don’t work via USB hubs. So using USB, you quickly run out of breathing room.
A great alternative is Art-Net. Art-Net lets you send DMX signals via a regular network connection. Especially when working with computers, Art-Net is awesome, because you can use the same Ethernet cable as you use to connect to the internet. Instead of connecting to your modem, you connect it to an Art-Net to DMX device, which will convert it to a signal that your DMX light will understand. Using a regular network switch or router, you can add as many Art-Net devices as you like, so you’re not limited by the amount of ports your computer has.
So the race is on to find affordable, reliable Art-Net to DMX devices. We took a look at Showjockey’s selection. Showjockey is a manufacturer based in China (and they have many interesting gadgets aside from Art-Net stuff too!). We got a chance to play with their 4 universe SJ-DMX-E4 and the crazy 16 universe SJ-DMX-E16.
The Showjockey material comes nicely packaged, but is very spartan when it comes to documentation. The package does contain some booklets, but these are just advertising material for their other products. Since setting up Art-Net can be a bit of a black box, this can be a deal breaker, especially since the Showjockey devices have a somewhat unique setup method. It would greatly benefit from a manual, or maybe just a short setup guide.
An Art-Net device is essentially a network device, so it needs an IP address in order to let the sender computer know where to send its packages. Unlike a computer, Art-Net devices generally are programmed to have a fixed IP address. We were informed that all Showjockey devices default to IP 192.168.1.200 and subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Since our office network expects all IPs to be in the 192.168.178.x range, we had to jump through some hoops to get the devices to work.
On the SJ-DMX-E16, things weren’t so complicated. It has a little onboard menu display where you can set things like the IP address, and once we figured that you need to turn it off and on again to have these changes take effect, we were blasting pixels in no time.
As long as your Art-Net device is in the right IP range, Resolume will broadcast to all IPs in that range, so no further tech setup was needed. Our test setup consisted of 12 8x8 RGB LED tiles. With each tile needing 192 channels (8 * 8 * 3), we were stuck to 2 tiles per universe. We ran a single Ethernet line to the SJ-DMX-E16. We then ran the first 6 DMX outputs to each of the 2 tiles in each universe, with 10 outputs still to spare.
We had a bit more trouble on the SJ-DMX-E4. This one doesn’t have an onboard menu, so you first need to set your computer’s ip to the 192.168.1.x range (we used 192.168.1.10) and connect the SJ-DMX-E4 directly to it with an Ethernet cable. At this point, you can access a setup page by typing 192.168.1.200 in a browser. Here you can change the IP address, the name the device has on the network and things like the universe and subnet offset. Once we set up the IP correctly and power cycled the little rascal, this device was also working correctly.
Another thing you can set via this page is the universe and subnet offset. This is really useful when you want to work with multiple devices on the same network. For instance, we can use both devices in the same network, simply by setting the first device to start on subnet 0 and the second device to start on subnet 1. This way, any Lumiverses patched to subnet 0 will always go to the first device, and Lumiverses patched on subnet 1 will always go to the second device.
All in all, the beauty of Art-Net is that once you actually have it working, it’s pretty rock solid. You can hot plug power and DMX cables, and the LEDs will just pick up right where they were. The Showjockey devices work with a web interface, which is a great way to configure the device without the need for additional software. It’s also worth to note that the SJ-DMX-E16 can be configured both via the onboard menu and the web interface, and changes on one end will be picked up on the other.
The downside of the Showjockey boxes is that they’re a bit of a black box without a setup guide. Especially when you have to jump through some hoops if your IP is not in the same range initially. They have some videos online showing you the process, but these are hilariously unprofessional. Also, there’s a status LED on the device, which we’ve never seen change from red. It would be nice if that gave some additional feedback on what’s going on.
On the upside, they’ve been very responsive to our requests, and can’t be beat on price: the 4 universe SJ-DMX-E4 is $196, the 16 universe SJ-DMX-E16 is $600, and there is also a 2 universe SJ-DMX-E2 for $120.
More info via http://www.showjockey.com
DMX is great, because it’s been around since forever and has become an industry standard that most devices will be able to work with.
The downside is that it has the concept of ‘universes’, which is basically a fancy term to describe all the lights that are on a single control line. A universe is limited 512 DMX channels. This is fine for conventional lighting setups, and was more than enough when the protocol was established way back in the eighties. But with every RGB pixel taking up 3 channels (1 for Red, 1 for Green, 1 for Blue), you can only control a maximum of 170 pixels per universe. With LED strips becoming super cheap and more and more high-res, building anything fancy can quickly require 10 or more universes.
[fold][/fold]
In the past, we’ve always recommended USB to DMX devices to get started with DMX. These are great, because they’re simple in operation and relatively cheap. The trouble is they only output 1 or 2 universes at the most and don’t work via USB hubs. So using USB, you quickly run out of breathing room.
A great alternative is Art-Net. Art-Net lets you send DMX signals via a regular network connection. Especially when working with computers, Art-Net is awesome, because you can use the same Ethernet cable as you use to connect to the internet. Instead of connecting to your modem, you connect it to an Art-Net to DMX device, which will convert it to a signal that your DMX light will understand. Using a regular network switch or router, you can add as many Art-Net devices as you like, so you’re not limited by the amount of ports your computer has.
So the race is on to find affordable, reliable Art-Net to DMX devices. We took a look at Showjockey’s selection. Showjockey is a manufacturer based in China (and they have many interesting gadgets aside from Art-Net stuff too!). We got a chance to play with their 4 universe SJ-DMX-E4 and the crazy 16 universe SJ-DMX-E16.
The Showjockey material comes nicely packaged, but is very spartan when it comes to documentation. The package does contain some booklets, but these are just advertising material for their other products. Since setting up Art-Net can be a bit of a black box, this can be a deal breaker, especially since the Showjockey devices have a somewhat unique setup method. It would greatly benefit from a manual, or maybe just a short setup guide.
An Art-Net device is essentially a network device, so it needs an IP address in order to let the sender computer know where to send its packages. Unlike a computer, Art-Net devices generally are programmed to have a fixed IP address. We were informed that all Showjockey devices default to IP 192.168.1.200 and subnet mask 255.255.255.0. Since our office network expects all IPs to be in the 192.168.178.x range, we had to jump through some hoops to get the devices to work.
On the SJ-DMX-E16, things weren’t so complicated. It has a little onboard menu display where you can set things like the IP address, and once we figured that you need to turn it off and on again to have these changes take effect, we were blasting pixels in no time.
As long as your Art-Net device is in the right IP range, Resolume will broadcast to all IPs in that range, so no further tech setup was needed. Our test setup consisted of 12 8x8 RGB LED tiles. With each tile needing 192 channels (8 * 8 * 3), we were stuck to 2 tiles per universe. We ran a single Ethernet line to the SJ-DMX-E16. We then ran the first 6 DMX outputs to each of the 2 tiles in each universe, with 10 outputs still to spare.
We had a bit more trouble on the SJ-DMX-E4. This one doesn’t have an onboard menu, so you first need to set your computer’s ip to the 192.168.1.x range (we used 192.168.1.10) and connect the SJ-DMX-E4 directly to it with an Ethernet cable. At this point, you can access a setup page by typing 192.168.1.200 in a browser. Here you can change the IP address, the name the device has on the network and things like the universe and subnet offset. Once we set up the IP correctly and power cycled the little rascal, this device was also working correctly.
Another thing you can set via this page is the universe and subnet offset. This is really useful when you want to work with multiple devices on the same network. For instance, we can use both devices in the same network, simply by setting the first device to start on subnet 0 and the second device to start on subnet 1. This way, any Lumiverses patched to subnet 0 will always go to the first device, and Lumiverses patched on subnet 1 will always go to the second device.
All in all, the beauty of Art-Net is that once you actually have it working, it’s pretty rock solid. You can hot plug power and DMX cables, and the LEDs will just pick up right where they were. The Showjockey devices work with a web interface, which is a great way to configure the device without the need for additional software. It’s also worth to note that the SJ-DMX-E16 can be configured both via the onboard menu and the web interface, and changes on one end will be picked up on the other.
The downside of the Showjockey boxes is that they’re a bit of a black box without a setup guide. Especially when you have to jump through some hoops if your IP is not in the same range initially. They have some videos online showing you the process, but these are hilariously unprofessional. Also, there’s a status LED on the device, which we’ve never seen change from red. It would be nice if that gave some additional feedback on what’s going on.
On the upside, they’ve been very responsive to our requests, and can’t be beat on price: the 4 universe SJ-DMX-E4 is $196, the 16 universe SJ-DMX-E16 is $600, and there is also a 2 universe SJ-DMX-E2 for $120.
More info via http://www.showjockey.com
Performance Benchmarks
'What computer do I need to run 12 layers of HD?'
'I need to send 3 videos to 3 outputs, what graphic card do I need?'
We get these questions a lot and there is no easy answer for them. Performance depends on a lot of factors, and any recommendations we make are usually outdated a week later.
So we thought we'd try a different approach: the Resolume Benchmark, patent pending.
Click here to view the results in a handy spreadsheet!
[fold][/fold]
The idea is simple. You run our test compositions and content on your own computer. You start with no clips playing and you keep triggering clips, one at a time. The moment you cannot play more clips without dropping below 30fps, you got the benchmark for that computer. Then you post results.
This way, hopefully we'll get a good overview of how well different computers perform.
You'll notice that each resolution has two benchmarks, Clean and Noise. This is done because typical VJ content is easy to compress and decompress. Photographic content is usually a bit harder to process. To give an accurate overview, we made separate test material for each type of footage.
Now let's get this benchmark party started!
Download the comps and content and mark some benches!
Files for Resolume 6 and 7:
Benchmark files and composition for 480p
Benchmark files and composition for 1080p
Benchmark files and composition for 4K
Benchmark files and composition for 8K
Files for Resolume 4, and 5:
Benchmark files and composition for 1080p ( this is the main benchmark test, now updated with DXV3 files )
Benchmark files and composition for 4K part 1 and part 2
Benchmark files and composition for 480p
Add your own results via this handy Google Form!
Or read on below for extended results and discussion!
Model: Mac Pro desktop
Operating System: OSX 10.9.2
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770, 1024 MB
Harddisk: Samsung SSD 840, 512 GB
Processor: 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 8GB RAM
Resolume: 4.1.8
Output Setup: 1 Control Monitor at 1920x1200, 2 Fullscreen Outputs at 1920x1200
Benchmark 1920x1080
Minimal content: 5 layers
Noise content: 3 layers
Benchmark 640x480
Minimal content: 20+
Noise content: 20+
Model: Anttec desktop
OS: Windows 8
GPU: NVidia Geforce GTX 770
Harddisk: Samsung SSD 840
CPU: Intel Core i7 3.20GHz
RAM: 16GB
Resolume: 4.1.7
Setup: 1 Output Monitor at 1920x1200, 2 fullscreen outputs at 1920x1200
Benchmark 1920x1080
Clean: 20+ layers
Noise: 17 layers
Benchmark 640x480
Clean: 20+ layers
Noise: 20+ layers
Model: BTO laptop
OS: Windows 8 Pro
GPU: Nvidia Quadro K3000M 2048MB
Harddrive
CPU: Intel i7, 2.8GHz
RAM: 32GB
Resolume: Arena 4.1.8
Setup: 1 Control Monitor at 1920x1080, 1 Fullscreen Output at 1920x1080
Benchmark 1920x1080
Clean: 8 layers
Noise: 7 layers
Benchmark 640x480
Clean: 9 layers
Noise: 9 layers
( This really shows that the Quadro cards are not really performing that well at the moment. This thing should burn through the 640x480 clips )
Model: MackBookPro Retina Mid 2012
OS: OSX 10.9.2
GPU: NVidia Geforce GT650M 1024MB
Harddisk: Apple SSD 500GB
CPU: 2,6GHz Core Intel i7
RAM: 16GB
Resolume: 4.1.8
Setup: 1 control monitor at Best (Retina), 3 fullscreen outputs at 1920x1200.
Benchmark 1920x1080
Clean: 12 layers
Noise: 10 layers
Benchmark 640x480
Clean: 20+ layers
Noise: 20+ layers
Model: MacBookPro laptop, Mid 2010
OS: Mac OSX 10.8.5
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB
Harddisk: SAMSUNG SSD 830 512 GB
CPU: 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 8GB
Resolume: 4.1.8
Setup: 1 control monitor at 1920x1200, 1 fullscreen output at 1920x1080
Benchmarks 1920x1080
Clean: 2 layers
Noise: 2 layers
Benchmarks 640x480
Clean: 12 layers
Noise: 12 layers
There you have it...
'I need to send 3 videos to 3 outputs, what graphic card do I need?'
We get these questions a lot and there is no easy answer for them. Performance depends on a lot of factors, and any recommendations we make are usually outdated a week later.
So we thought we'd try a different approach: the Resolume Benchmark, patent pending.
Click here to view the results in a handy spreadsheet!
[fold][/fold]
The idea is simple. You run our test compositions and content on your own computer. You start with no clips playing and you keep triggering clips, one at a time. The moment you cannot play more clips without dropping below 30fps, you got the benchmark for that computer. Then you post results.
This way, hopefully we'll get a good overview of how well different computers perform.
You'll notice that each resolution has two benchmarks, Clean and Noise. This is done because typical VJ content is easy to compress and decompress. Photographic content is usually a bit harder to process. To give an accurate overview, we made separate test material for each type of footage.
Now let's get this benchmark party started!
Download the comps and content and mark some benches!
Files for Resolume 6 and 7:
Benchmark files and composition for 480p
Benchmark files and composition for 1080p
Benchmark files and composition for 4K
Benchmark files and composition for 8K
Files for Resolume 4, and 5:
Benchmark files and composition for 1080p ( this is the main benchmark test, now updated with DXV3 files )
Benchmark files and composition for 4K part 1 and part 2
Benchmark files and composition for 480p
Add your own results via this handy Google Form!
Or read on below for extended results and discussion!
Model: Mac Pro desktop
Operating System: OSX 10.9.2
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770, 1024 MB
Harddisk: Samsung SSD 840, 512 GB
Processor: 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 8GB RAM
Resolume: 4.1.8
Output Setup: 1 Control Monitor at 1920x1200, 2 Fullscreen Outputs at 1920x1200
Benchmark 1920x1080
Minimal content: 5 layers
Noise content: 3 layers
Benchmark 640x480
Minimal content: 20+
Noise content: 20+
Model: Anttec desktop
OS: Windows 8
GPU: NVidia Geforce GTX 770
Harddisk: Samsung SSD 840
CPU: Intel Core i7 3.20GHz
RAM: 16GB
Resolume: 4.1.7
Setup: 1 Output Monitor at 1920x1200, 2 fullscreen outputs at 1920x1200
Benchmark 1920x1080
Clean: 20+ layers
Noise: 17 layers
Benchmark 640x480
Clean: 20+ layers
Noise: 20+ layers
Model: BTO laptop
OS: Windows 8 Pro
GPU: Nvidia Quadro K3000M 2048MB
Harddrive
CPU: Intel i7, 2.8GHz
RAM: 32GB
Resolume: Arena 4.1.8
Setup: 1 Control Monitor at 1920x1080, 1 Fullscreen Output at 1920x1080
Benchmark 1920x1080
Clean: 8 layers
Noise: 7 layers
Benchmark 640x480
Clean: 9 layers
Noise: 9 layers
( This really shows that the Quadro cards are not really performing that well at the moment. This thing should burn through the 640x480 clips )
Model: MackBookPro Retina Mid 2012
OS: OSX 10.9.2
GPU: NVidia Geforce GT650M 1024MB
Harddisk: Apple SSD 500GB
CPU: 2,6GHz Core Intel i7
RAM: 16GB
Resolume: 4.1.8
Setup: 1 control monitor at Best (Retina), 3 fullscreen outputs at 1920x1200.
Benchmark 1920x1080
Clean: 12 layers
Noise: 10 layers
Benchmark 640x480
Clean: 20+ layers
Noise: 20+ layers
Model: MacBookPro laptop, Mid 2010
OS: Mac OSX 10.8.5
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB
Harddisk: SAMSUNG SSD 830 512 GB
CPU: 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5
Memory: 8GB
Resolume: 4.1.8
Setup: 1 control monitor at 1920x1200, 1 fullscreen output at 1920x1080
Benchmarks 1920x1080
Clean: 2 layers
Noise: 2 layers
Benchmarks 640x480
Clean: 12 layers
Noise: 12 layers
There you have it...
Onwards! To 4K and Beyond the Infinite
Club3D is a hardware company that, aside from making AMD and Nvidia graphic cards, make a lot of useful adapters, dongles and gadgets. For instance we’ve been using the Club3D USB to DVI dongles quite a bit to add an extra highdef output to a laptop setup.
So when we heard that they make a dongle which can extend a single Displayport output to 3 Displayport outputs, we just had to order a few units for testing. We simply can’t resist a fancy new dongle.
Here’s the nitty gritty on this little gadget.
[fold][/fold]
It’s not a simple splitter, the operating system will see each of the three monitors as an individual output and you can send each different content, or one big video stretched over the 3 displays. That’s 3 times 1920x1200, son!
Although the spec sheet claims it works with any card with a DP output, it’s recommended to use a Radeon™ HD 5000, 6000 or 7000 series.
It costs a little over 100 euros.
Displayport is a good cable, but very uncommon outside of an office setting. You can use miniDisplayport to Displayport going into the box, and Displayport to VGA/HDMI/DVI adapters going out of it, to convert from the DP cable to a cable you can actually use.
Pushing pixels
So after we got our two test devices in the mail (because we don’t mess around with only one if they’re only 100 euros) we quickly realised we only had miniDisplay connections, so we spent 30 euros more and waited another week for 2 miniDP to DP adapters. Sigh.
After a quick unboxing session, we found out that although the device looks very neat on the website, it comes with a big old power block which is nearly twice as big as the device itself. You can say things like that shouldn’t matter in a review, but it’s good to know about when you need to pack for aircraft regulation limits or stuff things into a backpack.
What it actually looks like
Then we grabbed the first available computer with a Displayport output, which happened to be Bart’s old MacBookPro. On OSX Mavericks it didn’t do anything at all. After booting into OSX Lion we were only able to get two monitors to work at some weird stretched resolution, or three monitors mirrored at 1920x1200. We’re not sure if this was to do with the Nvidia card in the machine, or to it being a Mac. All we could was shrug and move on.
Next up was our trusty old PC, also known as ‘old faithful’. Running a Club3D HD7970, it already handles 5 monitors, so it was the ideal candidate for pushing things a bit further. We didn’t have enough dongles to test with DVI or VGA leads, so we ran each box with a MiniDP to DP cable and then 3 DP cables to the monitors.
Getting every monitor recognised required a little setup dance. Sometimes a single monitor wouldn’t show up. Turning it off and on again causes the MST boxes to refresh, and each monitor would then turn off and back on, giving a nice cascading effect of monitors refreshing. Repeating this process once or twice always got the setup with 6 outputs working. Going through this dance felt a bit wonky, but compared to the hassle we’ve had with some Matrox TripleHeads, it was relatively painless.
This allowed us to run an impressive 5 individual outputs + 1 control monitor from two single miniDP outputs. Each display was running at a whopping 1920x1200, so we were able to run content at 5760x2400. It’s a powerful feeling and beautiful to watch.
Yeah, that's a Plexus plugin running at 60fps at 5760x2400
Computer says No
Of course we had to push the limits, and also connect the two remaining miniDP ports as well as the DVI output. The desk looked fancy sporting 9 monitors, but all we got was a lot of blue screen of death. So even though two MST hubs works flawlessly, using them in combo with a third display on the card was a no go. We're still not sure what exactly caused this, but there was no way around it.
We also got out our MacPro with a Radeon 5770 in it. This one did not do anything at all. Two hubs, one hub, OSX Lion, OSX Mavericks, with additional monitors connected via DVI/MiniDP, or without. Nothing would show up on the screens or cause OSX to even recognise them. Very confusion, much try, such disappoint.
Oh no!
When Push Comes to Shove
Probably one of the more interesting things was how well Resolume performed. Performance wise it didn’t really seem to matter if we ran with the hubs or with a single card with 5 outputs. So we finally have some benchmark tests on multiple HD streams on a PC rig. The specs of this guy are as follows: Antec eight core i7, 3.2 GHz, 8GB RAM, Win7, one Club3D Radeon HD7970, with OCZ Vertex SSD drive.
When running a 1080p comp with 1080p content, with layer 1 through 4 routed to its own screen via Arena’s Advanced Output and the comp routed to the last screen, we could rock 6 layers at 60fps steadily and easily. Up to 8 layers was still doable, a few dips in fps, but nothing going below 30 fps.
Next we upped the ante, and created a 5760x2400 comp, and spread it out over the 5 monitors. We ran this with a variety of content. We downloaded a few Apple 4K trailers and got busy with clips at 4096x1716 and 4000x2250 and even some custom content made to fit at 5760x2400. BTW, 4 minutes of photorealistic content in DXV weighs in at 87GB. Playing with the big boys.
One layer is fine at all resolutions, with a smooth 50-60 fps. Adding another layer brought things down considerably. Interesting enough, a lot of this is dependent on the content itself. Photorealistic material taxed the system a lot harder, dipping to the low 20s with two layers and unusably slow with three. More VJ oriented content with lots of black and high contrast imagery ran a lot better, and we could mix 3 layers of 5760x2400 at around 30 fps. Remember the days when 3 times 320x240 was impressive?
Playing with the big toys
So What's the Dealio
All in all the MST boxes are a cheap alternative to what Matrox has to offer, and can support up to 3 times 1920x1200. But with compatibility issues and the startup process not completely hassle free, we wouldn’t recommend this for permanent installs. If you have a compatible graphic card and are looking for a cheap way to considerably extend your output, you can’t beat the price. Just be prepared for a little more hassle during your setup process.
So when we heard that they make a dongle which can extend a single Displayport output to 3 Displayport outputs, we just had to order a few units for testing. We simply can’t resist a fancy new dongle.
Here’s the nitty gritty on this little gadget.
[fold][/fold]
It’s not a simple splitter, the operating system will see each of the three monitors as an individual output and you can send each different content, or one big video stretched over the 3 displays. That’s 3 times 1920x1200, son!
Although the spec sheet claims it works with any card with a DP output, it’s recommended to use a Radeon™ HD 5000, 6000 or 7000 series.
It costs a little over 100 euros.
Displayport is a good cable, but very uncommon outside of an office setting. You can use miniDisplayport to Displayport going into the box, and Displayport to VGA/HDMI/DVI adapters going out of it, to convert from the DP cable to a cable you can actually use.
Pushing pixels
So after we got our two test devices in the mail (because we don’t mess around with only one if they’re only 100 euros) we quickly realised we only had miniDisplay connections, so we spent 30 euros more and waited another week for 2 miniDP to DP adapters. Sigh.
After a quick unboxing session, we found out that although the device looks very neat on the website, it comes with a big old power block which is nearly twice as big as the device itself. You can say things like that shouldn’t matter in a review, but it’s good to know about when you need to pack for aircraft regulation limits or stuff things into a backpack.
Then we grabbed the first available computer with a Displayport output, which happened to be Bart’s old MacBookPro. On OSX Mavericks it didn’t do anything at all. After booting into OSX Lion we were only able to get two monitors to work at some weird stretched resolution, or three monitors mirrored at 1920x1200. We’re not sure if this was to do with the Nvidia card in the machine, or to it being a Mac. All we could was shrug and move on.
Next up was our trusty old PC, also known as ‘old faithful’. Running a Club3D HD7970, it already handles 5 monitors, so it was the ideal candidate for pushing things a bit further. We didn’t have enough dongles to test with DVI or VGA leads, so we ran each box with a MiniDP to DP cable and then 3 DP cables to the monitors.
Getting every monitor recognised required a little setup dance. Sometimes a single monitor wouldn’t show up. Turning it off and on again causes the MST boxes to refresh, and each monitor would then turn off and back on, giving a nice cascading effect of monitors refreshing. Repeating this process once or twice always got the setup with 6 outputs working. Going through this dance felt a bit wonky, but compared to the hassle we’ve had with some Matrox TripleHeads, it was relatively painless.
This allowed us to run an impressive 5 individual outputs + 1 control monitor from two single miniDP outputs. Each display was running at a whopping 1920x1200, so we were able to run content at 5760x2400. It’s a powerful feeling and beautiful to watch.
Computer says No
Of course we had to push the limits, and also connect the two remaining miniDP ports as well as the DVI output. The desk looked fancy sporting 9 monitors, but all we got was a lot of blue screen of death. So even though two MST hubs works flawlessly, using them in combo with a third display on the card was a no go. We're still not sure what exactly caused this, but there was no way around it.
We also got out our MacPro with a Radeon 5770 in it. This one did not do anything at all. Two hubs, one hub, OSX Lion, OSX Mavericks, with additional monitors connected via DVI/MiniDP, or without. Nothing would show up on the screens or cause OSX to even recognise them. Very confusion, much try, such disappoint.
When Push Comes to Shove
Probably one of the more interesting things was how well Resolume performed. Performance wise it didn’t really seem to matter if we ran with the hubs or with a single card with 5 outputs. So we finally have some benchmark tests on multiple HD streams on a PC rig. The specs of this guy are as follows: Antec eight core i7, 3.2 GHz, 8GB RAM, Win7, one Club3D Radeon HD7970, with OCZ Vertex SSD drive.
When running a 1080p comp with 1080p content, with layer 1 through 4 routed to its own screen via Arena’s Advanced Output and the comp routed to the last screen, we could rock 6 layers at 60fps steadily and easily. Up to 8 layers was still doable, a few dips in fps, but nothing going below 30 fps.
Next we upped the ante, and created a 5760x2400 comp, and spread it out over the 5 monitors. We ran this with a variety of content. We downloaded a few Apple 4K trailers and got busy with clips at 4096x1716 and 4000x2250 and even some custom content made to fit at 5760x2400. BTW, 4 minutes of photorealistic content in DXV weighs in at 87GB. Playing with the big boys.
One layer is fine at all resolutions, with a smooth 50-60 fps. Adding another layer brought things down considerably. Interesting enough, a lot of this is dependent on the content itself. Photorealistic material taxed the system a lot harder, dipping to the low 20s with two layers and unusably slow with three. More VJ oriented content with lots of black and high contrast imagery ran a lot better, and we could mix 3 layers of 5760x2400 at around 30 fps. Remember the days when 3 times 320x240 was impressive?
So What's the Dealio
All in all the MST boxes are a cheap alternative to what Matrox has to offer, and can support up to 3 times 1920x1200. But with compatibility issues and the startup process not completely hassle free, we wouldn’t recommend this for permanent installs. If you have a compatible graphic card and are looking for a cheap way to considerably extend your output, you can’t beat the price. Just be prepared for a little more hassle during your setup process.
Review: Hands On with the Spark D-Fuser
By now we all have figured out that analog video connections are not the way forward. Being limited to SD resolutions is just one thing. Those of you that ever tried to do a pixel mapping on a LED wall via a scan converter and an Edirol V8, you will know that pixel perfect digital connections can be better than free beer and pizza under a hot shower.
Trouble was that up until last year, there was no hardware mixer available that could mix between two digital sources. None that a normal person could afford anyway.
[fold][/fold]
If you've been keeping your finger on the VJ pulse as close as we do, you couldn't have missed the arrival of the Spark D-Fuser. However, we appreciate the fact that some of you are busy touring or designing wicked content. Or even may actually have a social life. Either way, you could have missed it getting that elusive 'Buy Now' button earlier this year.
Or it could be that you've seen the button and the hype, but are wondering if it's really all that it's cranked up to be. It could be that you want to know more about this mysterious magic box that will solve all your problems, before you part with your hard-earned VJ cash and actually press that 'Buy Now' button.
Either way, we've had the pleasure of working with that little bad boy on various occasions, as well as seen it in use by quite a few touring VJs. So we figured it was high time to give a first hand experience of what the D-Fuser actually defuses.
What it is
The Spark D-Fuser is basically a remote control for the TV-One 1T-C2-750 Scaler. That sounds a bit 'un-glorifying', but if you ever had the displeasure of working with the TV-One bare bones, you know that it is in dire need of a better user experience. This is what Toby Spark thought as well, and it became his ten year odyssey to create exactly this. Braving sirens, cyclopses and sleepy toms, this finally resulted in the Spark D-Fuser.
Put simply, it allows you to connect two DVI sources, fade between them with a crossfader, and send the resulting mix as one fresh, crispy DVI signal. In the words of Toby himself: "Boom…"
Looks good on paper. But let's get to the meat of this burger, how does it actually perform?
Look and feel
The overall look of the D-Fuser is very smooth. It's black and yellow color scheme is pleasing to the eye. We know it doesn't count for anything when it comes to how well it works, but hey, who doesn't like to look good in pictures?
Toby kept the actual product to a minimum. The D-Fuser itself is a small separate box which connects to the TV-One scaler via an included RS-232 cable. This means that the total weight of the D-Fuser is less than a kilo, and fits snugly in your backpack. Anyone who has ever played the game of "how-much-extra-weight-can-I-fit-in-my-hand-luggage-before-they-kick-me-off-the-plane" can appreciate this. So can everybody that ever rode their bike to a gig with two laptops and a projector balanced on their baggage rack.
The choice to have the TV-One box separate however, results in 2 extra cables on the table, and on an already crowded space, this can get messy real quick. Also the control panel is still exposed, which can result in accidentally activating something on the processor during a changeover. Trust me that that results in hilarious panic all around.
On the up side, the separation does mean that if you do need to dive into the TV-One menu itself, it's easily accessible. Also it keeps the clutter of connection cables out of sight behind the laptops, where they belong. The controller is what matters, and this can fit easily on any table.
The controller itself feels a bit plastic, and does not really feel meant for quick mixing. For VJ use, on an already messy table, it can be hard to quickly find the right knob to fade out when you missed a musical cue. Any attempt to get some rhythm going with the crossfader results in the device making laps around the table.
But perhaps that's an old-fashioned way to approach a mixer. During the days of the V4, we used the mixer as an additional instrument. Computers were struggling to keep up with 3 layers as it was, so doing some quick invert flashes or cross cutting on the mixer improved the overall performance in ways not possible in software.
The Spark D-Fuser is a new mixer for a new age. Compositing and layering are done in software, where we have blend modes and effects that actually look good. We're capable of running the entire show of one laptop with 8 layers of 1080p steamrolling along at 50 fps. The actual performance happens in the software and on the midi controller. The mixer just needs to provide a stable output for that performance.
Instead of being a 'anything-goes-VJ-mixer', the D-Fuser is meant for people who take their art seriously. It feels at home with a touring visual artist where the intended use is a smooth fade from A to B for the next artist, or a quick cut to the backup laptop in case of emergency.
Setup
This is where the D-Fuser really shines. It's very clear that Toby spent quite a few nights with his baby, coming across every problem and thinking of a good way to fix it. Setup is very intuitive, and once you get the hang of the onboard menu screen, you can setup everything you want without reading the manual. Which is good, because none is included. Extra info can be found online however.
The onboard menu itself is very well designed. It gives direct feedback on the important bits, and has an easy to navigate menu structure for the harder bits.
The TV-One does not have a preview output, which can result in it being a bit of a black box. The D-Fuser solves this issue by sending a Spark logo as long as no inputs are found. This is also reflected in the onboard menu, where the word Logo is displayed. This is actually very useful, because you can be sure that at first start up, a logo is always shown on the output. If this is not the case, you know the problem lies somewhere in the signal flow behind the D-Fuser.
The moment an input is detected, it changes it's status to Live. When said input is lost, the output is frozen. This makes it a very useful piece of kit for setting up before showtime. Once the signal is correctly detected and set up, you can take your laptop back to the hotel while leaving the D-Fuser running as an active input. When the time comes to plug back in, everything is handled smoothly without loss of signal.
The D-Fuser, or rather the TV-One, has one big drawback when it comes to connections: when for some reason the input is not recognized correctly, you're out of luck and have to figure it out by trial and error. No additional info as to why you're not getting a signal is to be had, which can be extremely frustrating when setting up in a stressful environment. This is purely a limitation of the TV-One, and if you really can't live with this, you're going to have to spring for a V800.
Choosing the correct output resolution is quick and painless, and has support for the most common digital resolutions, as well as dual head and triple head resolutions. Once the output resolution is changed, the inputs are scaled automatically to this new resolution, which results in quiet sighs of relief when struggling to get things set up correctly with the promoter breathing down your neck. For fine tuning, there are additional options for fit, fill and 1:1.
In case you're completely lost, there's also a hard reset option, that walks you through the key presses needed to reset the TV-One itself. It's little things like this that make the D-Fuser feel very user friendly and thought out.
Features
The D-Fuser has the basics down pat: it has a crossfader, cut buttons and a fade to black. As a testament to the work that Toby put into this, he managed to talk the TV-One people into making a custom additive blend mode, which allows the D-Fuser to mix without a dip in the brightness when the crossfader is in the middle. It's awesome to see a company like Corio actually take the VJ industry seriously in this way.
It also supports luma and chroma keying. I'm actually quite surprised by the luma keyer. It can pull an especially clean key when using alpha channels on the source laptops.
After this it pretty much ends for the D-Fuser. Personally, I think it's a shame Toby hasn't come up with an elegant way to control the scaling functions of the TV-One. For most users, the Fit/Fill/1:1 scaling options on the D-Fuser cover 99% of the bases when it comes to scaling issues. It's a very elegant and quick solution to a process that is nail pullingly gruesome to fix on the TV-One itself.
But if you regularly come across weird LED processors or use uncommon inputs like an iPad, the scaler can really come through. The TV-One is capable of pixel level positioning, and allow you to adjust even a single misaligned pixel. Of course, these functions can still be accessed via the front panel, but they are horrible to use.
Then again, you can also get lost in the scaling options. More menu options, buttons and dials do not necessarily make the product better or easier to use. All in all the features of the D-Fuser are minimal, but they do what they need to do, in an intuitive and easy to understand way.
Extras
A very powerful feature is the support for two-way OSC communication. This means that the device can both send OSC messages and can be controlled by them. The implementation is relatively straightforward. Both the fade to black and crossfader output their values and can be accessed using fixed addresses.
The D-Fuser has the additional benefit of being DMX capable for either input or output, so you can fade the house lights with it. Perhaps even more useful, it can be used in a cue controlled theatre setup to have control over projector brightness levels from the lighting desk. This makes the D-Fuser a very powerful tool outside of the VJ circuit as well.
Overall
If you're looking for a relatively cheap way to mix two laptops while on tour or just at your local residency, the D-Fuser is the way to go. It has plug-and-play appeal and fits in your backpack.
Functionality wise the D-Fuser doesn't offer much in terms of customization unless you want to get deep and dirty by editing .ini files and uploading to the device, which can be a bit daunting to most users and impossible to improvise on the spot. As a tool to work with many changeovers or guest VJs during a long festival day, the TV-One has too many quirks. Instead, the D-Fuser is mostly meant as an addition to an already existing visual setup. Once you get your kit working correctly with it, it will keep working, reliably and solidly.
In the end the D-Fuser is being marketed as a DVI mixer. In that it does what it says on the tin, which is a good thing. Toby really spent a lot of time on it, which he used to narrow down the TV-One functions to what a user would actually need, and what they shouldn't be bothered with. You can argue about some of the choices he made, but the result is an easy to use and intuitive product, that does what it needs to do.
In this, the D-Fuser is very much like Resolume, where we sometimes have to choose usability over feature. Believe us when we say this is often a much harder task than actually writing the code.
In the end, we can do nothing but applaud Toby for the crazy amount of hours, blood, sweat and tears he put into giving us this very useful tool. It's this DIY spirit that makes the VJ community what it is.
Toby, here's to you! You rock because you rule. Now go press that button, everyone.
http://sparklive.net/dfuser/
Trouble was that up until last year, there was no hardware mixer available that could mix between two digital sources. None that a normal person could afford anyway.
[fold][/fold]
If you've been keeping your finger on the VJ pulse as close as we do, you couldn't have missed the arrival of the Spark D-Fuser. However, we appreciate the fact that some of you are busy touring or designing wicked content. Or even may actually have a social life. Either way, you could have missed it getting that elusive 'Buy Now' button earlier this year.
Or it could be that you've seen the button and the hype, but are wondering if it's really all that it's cranked up to be. It could be that you want to know more about this mysterious magic box that will solve all your problems, before you part with your hard-earned VJ cash and actually press that 'Buy Now' button.
Either way, we've had the pleasure of working with that little bad boy on various occasions, as well as seen it in use by quite a few touring VJs. So we figured it was high time to give a first hand experience of what the D-Fuser actually defuses.
What it is
The Spark D-Fuser is basically a remote control for the TV-One 1T-C2-750 Scaler. That sounds a bit 'un-glorifying', but if you ever had the displeasure of working with the TV-One bare bones, you know that it is in dire need of a better user experience. This is what Toby Spark thought as well, and it became his ten year odyssey to create exactly this. Braving sirens, cyclopses and sleepy toms, this finally resulted in the Spark D-Fuser.
Put simply, it allows you to connect two DVI sources, fade between them with a crossfader, and send the resulting mix as one fresh, crispy DVI signal. In the words of Toby himself: "Boom…"
Looks good on paper. But let's get to the meat of this burger, how does it actually perform?
Look and feel
The overall look of the D-Fuser is very smooth. It's black and yellow color scheme is pleasing to the eye. We know it doesn't count for anything when it comes to how well it works, but hey, who doesn't like to look good in pictures?
Toby kept the actual product to a minimum. The D-Fuser itself is a small separate box which connects to the TV-One scaler via an included RS-232 cable. This means that the total weight of the D-Fuser is less than a kilo, and fits snugly in your backpack. Anyone who has ever played the game of "how-much-extra-weight-can-I-fit-in-my-hand-luggage-before-they-kick-me-off-the-plane" can appreciate this. So can everybody that ever rode their bike to a gig with two laptops and a projector balanced on their baggage rack.
The choice to have the TV-One box separate however, results in 2 extra cables on the table, and on an already crowded space, this can get messy real quick. Also the control panel is still exposed, which can result in accidentally activating something on the processor during a changeover. Trust me that that results in hilarious panic all around.
On the up side, the separation does mean that if you do need to dive into the TV-One menu itself, it's easily accessible. Also it keeps the clutter of connection cables out of sight behind the laptops, where they belong. The controller is what matters, and this can fit easily on any table.
The controller itself feels a bit plastic, and does not really feel meant for quick mixing. For VJ use, on an already messy table, it can be hard to quickly find the right knob to fade out when you missed a musical cue. Any attempt to get some rhythm going with the crossfader results in the device making laps around the table.
But perhaps that's an old-fashioned way to approach a mixer. During the days of the V4, we used the mixer as an additional instrument. Computers were struggling to keep up with 3 layers as it was, so doing some quick invert flashes or cross cutting on the mixer improved the overall performance in ways not possible in software.
The Spark D-Fuser is a new mixer for a new age. Compositing and layering are done in software, where we have blend modes and effects that actually look good. We're capable of running the entire show of one laptop with 8 layers of 1080p steamrolling along at 50 fps. The actual performance happens in the software and on the midi controller. The mixer just needs to provide a stable output for that performance.
Instead of being a 'anything-goes-VJ-mixer', the D-Fuser is meant for people who take their art seriously. It feels at home with a touring visual artist where the intended use is a smooth fade from A to B for the next artist, or a quick cut to the backup laptop in case of emergency.
Setup
This is where the D-Fuser really shines. It's very clear that Toby spent quite a few nights with his baby, coming across every problem and thinking of a good way to fix it. Setup is very intuitive, and once you get the hang of the onboard menu screen, you can setup everything you want without reading the manual. Which is good, because none is included. Extra info can be found online however.
The onboard menu itself is very well designed. It gives direct feedback on the important bits, and has an easy to navigate menu structure for the harder bits.
The TV-One does not have a preview output, which can result in it being a bit of a black box. The D-Fuser solves this issue by sending a Spark logo as long as no inputs are found. This is also reflected in the onboard menu, where the word Logo is displayed. This is actually very useful, because you can be sure that at first start up, a logo is always shown on the output. If this is not the case, you know the problem lies somewhere in the signal flow behind the D-Fuser.
The moment an input is detected, it changes it's status to Live. When said input is lost, the output is frozen. This makes it a very useful piece of kit for setting up before showtime. Once the signal is correctly detected and set up, you can take your laptop back to the hotel while leaving the D-Fuser running as an active input. When the time comes to plug back in, everything is handled smoothly without loss of signal.
The D-Fuser, or rather the TV-One, has one big drawback when it comes to connections: when for some reason the input is not recognized correctly, you're out of luck and have to figure it out by trial and error. No additional info as to why you're not getting a signal is to be had, which can be extremely frustrating when setting up in a stressful environment. This is purely a limitation of the TV-One, and if you really can't live with this, you're going to have to spring for a V800.
Choosing the correct output resolution is quick and painless, and has support for the most common digital resolutions, as well as dual head and triple head resolutions. Once the output resolution is changed, the inputs are scaled automatically to this new resolution, which results in quiet sighs of relief when struggling to get things set up correctly with the promoter breathing down your neck. For fine tuning, there are additional options for fit, fill and 1:1.
In case you're completely lost, there's also a hard reset option, that walks you through the key presses needed to reset the TV-One itself. It's little things like this that make the D-Fuser feel very user friendly and thought out.
Features
The D-Fuser has the basics down pat: it has a crossfader, cut buttons and a fade to black. As a testament to the work that Toby put into this, he managed to talk the TV-One people into making a custom additive blend mode, which allows the D-Fuser to mix without a dip in the brightness when the crossfader is in the middle. It's awesome to see a company like Corio actually take the VJ industry seriously in this way.
It also supports luma and chroma keying. I'm actually quite surprised by the luma keyer. It can pull an especially clean key when using alpha channels on the source laptops.
After this it pretty much ends for the D-Fuser. Personally, I think it's a shame Toby hasn't come up with an elegant way to control the scaling functions of the TV-One. For most users, the Fit/Fill/1:1 scaling options on the D-Fuser cover 99% of the bases when it comes to scaling issues. It's a very elegant and quick solution to a process that is nail pullingly gruesome to fix on the TV-One itself.
But if you regularly come across weird LED processors or use uncommon inputs like an iPad, the scaler can really come through. The TV-One is capable of pixel level positioning, and allow you to adjust even a single misaligned pixel. Of course, these functions can still be accessed via the front panel, but they are horrible to use.
Then again, you can also get lost in the scaling options. More menu options, buttons and dials do not necessarily make the product better or easier to use. All in all the features of the D-Fuser are minimal, but they do what they need to do, in an intuitive and easy to understand way.
Extras
A very powerful feature is the support for two-way OSC communication. This means that the device can both send OSC messages and can be controlled by them. The implementation is relatively straightforward. Both the fade to black and crossfader output their values and can be accessed using fixed addresses.
The D-Fuser has the additional benefit of being DMX capable for either input or output, so you can fade the house lights with it. Perhaps even more useful, it can be used in a cue controlled theatre setup to have control over projector brightness levels from the lighting desk. This makes the D-Fuser a very powerful tool outside of the VJ circuit as well.
Overall
If you're looking for a relatively cheap way to mix two laptops while on tour or just at your local residency, the D-Fuser is the way to go. It has plug-and-play appeal and fits in your backpack.
Functionality wise the D-Fuser doesn't offer much in terms of customization unless you want to get deep and dirty by editing .ini files and uploading to the device, which can be a bit daunting to most users and impossible to improvise on the spot. As a tool to work with many changeovers or guest VJs during a long festival day, the TV-One has too many quirks. Instead, the D-Fuser is mostly meant as an addition to an already existing visual setup. Once you get your kit working correctly with it, it will keep working, reliably and solidly.
In the end the D-Fuser is being marketed as a DVI mixer. In that it does what it says on the tin, which is a good thing. Toby really spent a lot of time on it, which he used to narrow down the TV-One functions to what a user would actually need, and what they shouldn't be bothered with. You can argue about some of the choices he made, but the result is an easy to use and intuitive product, that does what it needs to do.
In this, the D-Fuser is very much like Resolume, where we sometimes have to choose usability over feature. Believe us when we say this is often a much harder task than actually writing the code.
In the end, we can do nothing but applaud Toby for the crazy amount of hours, blood, sweat and tears he put into giving us this very useful tool. It's this DIY spirit that makes the VJ community what it is.
Toby, here's to you! You rock because you rule. Now go press that button, everyone.
http://sparklive.net/dfuser/
New Resolume MIDI Controller with Video Buttons and Monitor
SINCE WE ARE STILL GETTING EMAILS ABOUT THIS, THREE YEARS AFTER IT WAS POSTED: THIS CONTROLLER IS NOT REAL. IT'S AN APRIL FOOLS' JOKE. IT'S JUST A TRICK USING PROJECTION MAPPING. THERE'S A PICTURE AT THE END SHOWING HOW WE DID IT.
Which is the best Midi controller for Resolume? If we had a penny for every time we are asked that question, we would be [s]sipping caipirinhas[/s] developing Resolume on a sunny beach island resort.
But now we can finally answer it. This one!
This is a prototype of the upcoming custom Resolume controller that we have developed together with Akai.
It’s got full support for the Midi protocol, but the truly great thing is that it also has video feedback. The buttons are custom OLED buttons, that receive video data via OSC. So you can actually see what’s playing, and see a preview of your clips, with the active clip in full motion. Thumbnails are even updated in realtime when effects are applied.
All this OSC is actually controlled by the processor of an AR.Drone helicopter. After Bart ’accidentally’ broke ours (by landing it upside down from a first story building), we found out its internal motherboard actually runs Linux. We took this out and put it in the Midi controller with our own custom Linux distribution on it. This allows the controller to receive pixel data wirelessly with little to no delay.
We truly believe that this is the future of controllerism!
//EDIT April 2nd//
So to prevent people from sending emails asking about this controller two years from now, here's a little making of shot. Check out that duct tape action.
So yes, it was a hoax. Hope you all had a good laugh about it, and see you next year ;)
Which is the best Midi controller for Resolume? If we had a penny for every time we are asked that question, we would be [s]sipping caipirinhas[/s] developing Resolume on a sunny beach island resort.
But now we can finally answer it. This one!
This is a prototype of the upcoming custom Resolume controller that we have developed together with Akai.
It’s got full support for the Midi protocol, but the truly great thing is that it also has video feedback. The buttons are custom OLED buttons, that receive video data via OSC. So you can actually see what’s playing, and see a preview of your clips, with the active clip in full motion. Thumbnails are even updated in realtime when effects are applied.
All this OSC is actually controlled by the processor of an AR.Drone helicopter. After Bart ’accidentally’ broke ours (by landing it upside down from a first story building), we found out its internal motherboard actually runs Linux. We took this out and put it in the Midi controller with our own custom Linux distribution on it. This allows the controller to receive pixel data wirelessly with little to no delay.
We truly believe that this is the future of controllerism!
//EDIT April 2nd//
So to prevent people from sending emails asking about this controller two years from now, here's a little making of shot. Check out that duct tape action.
So yes, it was a hoax. Hope you all had a good laugh about it, and see you next year ;)
Coming Back From the Dead - Night of the Living HD Mixers
Just when you thought it was safe to drag out your old analog MX50s again...
A little while back (okay, a big while back), we posted about the current state of affordable HD mixing using the TVOne box. At the time of writing, only one of those projects was in an actual released state. The iMixHD is a great piece of software, not in the least because it's free and open source. But deep inside, the idea of a physical standalone mixer with a T-Bar was still nagging.
Flash forward to a year later, all of a sudden there's not one but two such projects that are both finished and actually in production!
First off, there is of course Toby's Spark d-Fuser. The d-Fuser is an elegant piece of kit, both the functionality as well as the box itself are amazing. It is a clutter free interface that does what it needs to do: mix between two sources. Being fans of intuitive design that doesn't get in the way of your creativity ourselves, we have to tip our hats to Toby on this one. Currently the first run is sold out, and the latest news is that the casings have arrived and look beautiful.
Then, out of the blue, the boys from CarrotVideo come with their own take on the TV-One, the tentatively titled 'HD Rabbit'. Focussing more on giving you access to everything the TV-One has to offer (it actually does a lot more than fade or key between two sources), they've made what Edirol should have done a long time ago: an HD V4.
In their own words:
Especially interesting for Resolume users is the customizable OSC output. As you can see in the video, the HD Rabbit is preconfigured to send BPM info to Resolume already, but all its other knobs and buttons can be assigned OSC commands as well. This could very well be the next step in hardware controllerism.
We've actually been lucky enough to see this gizmo in action, and have pounded those cut buttons to see if it they held up. We were pleasantly surprised so rest assured that we'll be following this one with great interest.
A little while back (okay, a big while back), we posted about the current state of affordable HD mixing using the TVOne box. At the time of writing, only one of those projects was in an actual released state. The iMixHD is a great piece of software, not in the least because it's free and open source. But deep inside, the idea of a physical standalone mixer with a T-Bar was still nagging.
Flash forward to a year later, all of a sudden there's not one but two such projects that are both finished and actually in production!
First off, there is of course Toby's Spark d-Fuser. The d-Fuser is an elegant piece of kit, both the functionality as well as the box itself are amazing. It is a clutter free interface that does what it needs to do: mix between two sources. Being fans of intuitive design that doesn't get in the way of your creativity ourselves, we have to tip our hats to Toby on this one. Currently the first run is sold out, and the latest news is that the casings have arrived and look beautiful.
Then, out of the blue, the boys from CarrotVideo come with their own take on the TV-One, the tentatively titled 'HD Rabbit'. Focussing more on giving you access to everything the TV-One has to offer (it actually does a lot more than fade or key between two sources), they've made what Edirol should have done a long time ago: an HD V4.
In their own words:
The HD Rabbit is a HD mixer and controller based on the TV-One 750.
We know what you're thinking now: 'Really? Another TV-One based mixer project? Really?'.
And we feel you on that one. There have been some awesome projects based on that little gadget, some of which turned into very well designed, thought out, and most importantly, very real products. So who are we to come up with yet another one?
Truth be told, we feel that you can do a lot with the TV-One. The AB mixer and keyer are its primary functions, but it has some very powerful scaler and image adjustment functions as well. It's just that its interface is so ridiculously clunky.
So we designed a more user friendly interface. All the useful functions of the TV-One are accessible in a more human way. Having grown up bashing our V4s to bits back in the 90s, all we really wanted was a similar experience, but not limited to crappy PAL resolutions. Let's face it, there was something innately satisfying about spamming those cut buttons, or strobing the output until the light engineer gave you the evil eye.
So we were dragging this piece of kit with us to shows, where it took up valuable space on our already crammed table. It did the job, but it was lacking something. Then it hit us. Why not make it a software controller at the same time? Besides OSC input for the main TV-One functions, we added fully customizable OSC and DMX output from the buttons and rotaries. Basically we made one big box with the flexibility to mix and control our favorite applications.
No more eighties looking hardware effects, instead we're controlling realtime effects in glorious HD at 60fps. No more overtaxed CPUs, instead we're cutting back and forth between two HD sources like it's going out of fashion. What more could you ask for?
We don't know either.
That's why the HD Rabbit is currently being produced in its 0-series run, contact us at http://www.carrotvideo.com for more info.
Especially interesting for Resolume users is the customizable OSC output. As you can see in the video, the HD Rabbit is preconfigured to send BPM info to Resolume already, but all its other knobs and buttons can be assigned OSC commands as well. This could very well be the next step in hardware controllerism.
We've actually been lucky enough to see this gizmo in action, and have pounded those cut buttons to see if it they held up. We were pleasantly surprised so rest assured that we'll be following this one with great interest.
VJ Review of the New Retina MacBook Pro
We were amazed at how many reactions a single Facebook picture with Resolume running on the new retina MacBookPro could get. In that post, we promised everyone with a full review, so brace yourself for some serious number crunching!
Overall impression: For a laptop, it's pretty darn amazing!
Compared to setting up with a triple head, it's smooth sailing. Each screen is recognized as an individual display, making screen arrangment and assigning via the advanced output a piece of cake. The choice to use only HDMI for the third connection is a little unfortunate, since you're forced to use a consumer connection. We had to fiddle quite a bit with our projectors before we had all three outputs recognized correctly. In all fairness that has more to do with the HDMI input on the projectors than the MBP, but it would have been better if three DVI or component connections had been available. Connecting to the computer monitors worked immediately.
Performance wise, it's quite astounding to see the amount of pixels that are being pushed without the computer complaining. Of course better performance can be gotten on high end media servers, but we're talking about a 15" laptop here. 6 layers of 1080p at 43 fps, across three monitors, while fitting in a backpack? Everyone who ever had to haul a server case across a muddy festival field or into a elevated FOH booth will recognize how awesome that is.
The fact that it includes a SSD by default makes the interface feel incredibly snappy.Triggering a column of 30 clips is gaspingly instantaneous. Deck switching is a fraction of the time as with moving drives. [s]Also it finally has USB 3.0 ports so you can plug in your Intensity Shuttle and make this a full mobile server laptop.[/s] Turns out Apple didn't use a USB3.0 chipset supported by BlackMagic. Perhaps BM will update their hardware, but currently the USB equipped Shuttle does *not* work (the Thunderbolt equipped Shuttle however, does). All in all, it has a bunch of features that make it a very appetizing box for mobile VJs, albeit one with a hefty price tag.
Check below for all the facts and figures of this fanboy extravaganza!
One cheeseburger, please.
Wait! Make that a Big Mac, actually:
Supersize me!
But will it blend?
Would you like fries with that?
All tests ran for about two hours, GPU temperature stayed steady at 68-71º. The body gets hot in the usual places, but not much hotter than a late 2011 MBP with one monitor connected.
For the super wide content, the limiting factor for the fps was the disk access. When the framerate drops below 30, it was maxing out at 90%. GPU load never came above 80%. For the 480p and 1080p content, the GPU was the limiting factor, and it was maxing out at 95% when dropping below 30 fps. Disk access in these cases was not even touching 1%.
In general we felt that when the fps dropped below 30, it would start affecting performance. The output was still fluent, but the interface became more sluggish. We were pushing things quite a bit in these cases, and bringing things back to 'only' 6 layers of 1080p content brought the snappy feeling right back.
Overall CPU never strayed too far from 15%.
We used both graphic as well as photographic content. Performance was overall better when using graphic content, since DXV can compress this more efficiently, so disk access is less. One of the super wide edge blend test files can be downloaded here.
The main monitor was running at retina recommend size, which is the middle one of the scaling options (resolutions apparently are handled differently on retina MBPs). So we could have gone with a larger interface screen, but we were more interested in output performance than screen real estate on this test. This also was a comfortable viewing size for a live performance, without having to hunch over the screen more than we already would.
For temp and performance monitoring, we used atMonitor.
Overall impression: For a laptop, it's pretty darn amazing!
Compared to setting up with a triple head, it's smooth sailing. Each screen is recognized as an individual display, making screen arrangment and assigning via the advanced output a piece of cake. The choice to use only HDMI for the third connection is a little unfortunate, since you're forced to use a consumer connection. We had to fiddle quite a bit with our projectors before we had all three outputs recognized correctly. In all fairness that has more to do with the HDMI input on the projectors than the MBP, but it would have been better if three DVI or component connections had been available. Connecting to the computer monitors worked immediately.
Performance wise, it's quite astounding to see the amount of pixels that are being pushed without the computer complaining. Of course better performance can be gotten on high end media servers, but we're talking about a 15" laptop here. 6 layers of 1080p at 43 fps, across three monitors, while fitting in a backpack? Everyone who ever had to haul a server case across a muddy festival field or into a elevated FOH booth will recognize how awesome that is.
The fact that it includes a SSD by default makes the interface feel incredibly snappy.Triggering a column of 30 clips is gaspingly instantaneous. Deck switching is a fraction of the time as with moving drives. [s]Also it finally has USB 3.0 ports so you can plug in your Intensity Shuttle and make this a full mobile server laptop.[/s] Turns out Apple didn't use a USB3.0 chipset supported by BlackMagic. Perhaps BM will update their hardware, but currently the USB equipped Shuttle does *not* work (the Thunderbolt equipped Shuttle however, does). All in all, it has a bunch of features that make it a very appetizing box for mobile VJs, albeit one with a hefty price tag.
Check below for all the facts and figures of this fanboy extravaganza!
One cheeseburger, please.
- 640x480 composition, 640x480 DXV content. Sent to three monitors, 2xMiniDP to DVI, 1xHDMI, 1920x1200 each. Layer 1 and 2 each get their own screen via layer routing, entire composition is sent to screen 3.
3 layers 58 fps, 34(!) layers 34-38 fps. At this point screen 3 was a big white soup and we stopped adding layers.
Wait! Make that a Big Mac, actually:
- 1920x1200 composition, 1920x1080 DXV content. Sent to three monitors, 2xMiniDP to DVI, 1xHDMI, 1920x1200 each. Same output routing as above.
2 layers 58 fps, 3 layers 55 fps, 6 layers 43 fps, 12 layers 25-27 fps, 17 layers 20-22 fps
Supersize me!
- 5760x1200 composition, 5760x1200 DXV content. Sent to three monitors, 2xMiniDP to DVI, 1xHDMI, 1920x1200 each, one continuous image.
1 layer 49-52 fps, 2 layers 30-35 fps, 3 layers 22 fps.
But will it blend?
- 5760x1080 composition, 5760x1080 DXV content. Sent to three 1080p projectors, 2xMiniDP to DVI to HDMI (!), 1 x HDMI, 1920x1080 each. Edge blended to form one continuous screen with about 15% overlap between each projector.
1 layer 58 fps, 2 layers 39-41 fps, 3 layers 32-34 fps, 4 layers 20 fps. (The kids that are paying attention will have noticed that the test with edge blending actually ran faster than the test without. This can be accounted for by the fact that two edge blends of 15%, results in 30% less horizontal pixels that need to be calculated. Effectively this test was running at around 4000 by 1080.)
Would you like fries with that?
- Effects, sources, Quartz Composer patches and Flash content run fine, fps hits vary with the actual file or effect used, as is to be expected.
All tests ran for about two hours, GPU temperature stayed steady at 68-71º. The body gets hot in the usual places, but not much hotter than a late 2011 MBP with one monitor connected.
For the super wide content, the limiting factor for the fps was the disk access. When the framerate drops below 30, it was maxing out at 90%. GPU load never came above 80%. For the 480p and 1080p content, the GPU was the limiting factor, and it was maxing out at 95% when dropping below 30 fps. Disk access in these cases was not even touching 1%.
In general we felt that when the fps dropped below 30, it would start affecting performance. The output was still fluent, but the interface became more sluggish. We were pushing things quite a bit in these cases, and bringing things back to 'only' 6 layers of 1080p content brought the snappy feeling right back.
Overall CPU never strayed too far from 15%.
We used both graphic as well as photographic content. Performance was overall better when using graphic content, since DXV can compress this more efficiently, so disk access is less. One of the super wide edge blend test files can be downloaded here.
The main monitor was running at retina recommend size, which is the middle one of the scaling options (resolutions apparently are handled differently on retina MBPs). So we could have gone with a larger interface screen, but we were more interested in output performance than screen real estate on this test. This also was a comfortable viewing size for a live performance, without having to hunch over the screen more than we already would.
For temp and performance monitoring, we used atMonitor.
*Spark D-Fuser DVI Mixer Official Announcement Video
Checkout this video where Toby presents the DIY DVI Mixer he is working on. He tells the tale of it's creation and then spills all the details: Two channel DVI mixing up to 1080p including "odd" TrippleHead resolutions like 1920x480. We can't wait to get our hands on this, it looks like a perfect mixer for VJ's. As more and more laptops are not equipped with analog TV-out anymore, DVI mixing becomes more and more a necessity.
Checkout all the details on tobyz.net.