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.
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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.

A while back we had a whole thread on making visuals with Resolume. So we already knew it was possible.

But to see a whole music video based on the concept is still taking it to the next level. Coming to you courtesy of Masanori Yamaguchi (aka Reelvision), this wonderful piece of minimal glitch design manages to walk that elusive fine line: reactive without becoming repetitive, visually interesting without becoming cluttered.



Perhaps best of all, he's not afraid to share with the rest of the class. [fold][/fold]Masanori started a separate blog, where every element of his video is explained in detail. Both in video and still images, he recreates his work step by step.

Truly inspirational.



Be sure to click through to http://resolumextheater.blogspot.jp/ to see the rapidly growing amount of tutorials there!

Here is the first Resolume release of 2014! Version 4.1.8 fixes a few critical bugs, and the Mac installer is now signed with our Apple Developer ID so it will install without complaining on Mac OS X 10.8 and 10.9. We are still working on a few fixes for 10.9 Mavericks but those require a bit more time and will be released in version 4.1.9.

Hit that download, then read the short releases notes:

[FIXED] Crash when setting autopilot for individual clip and switching to non-empty deck
[FIXED] SMPTE delay causes weird jumps around the 1 (and 2 and 3 and...) minute mark
[FIXED] Arena doesn't remember DMX Preferences
[FIXED] Clip menu does not always work for active clip
[FIXED] Crash on shutdown with windowed output

Happy New Year Everybody!

We are rapidly approaching the end of 2013. The year always ends with the best party; New Years Eve! The NYE gig is always a special one, everybody comes out to party and you get paid trippple, right?

Make that NYE gig a special one and get some fresh footage. We have Luminator dropping a successor with Lumotion 2. Laak gives you the versatile VJSurvivalKit and STV releases the colorful StripeTease.


LuMotion 2 VJ Footage by Luminator


VJSurvivalKit VJ Footage by Laak


StripeTease VJ Footage by STV in Motion

From the wonderful folks at Urban Projections comes this lovely project using Tagtool, Arena and a cargo bike. What's not to love?

The Light Cycle.

The Light Cycle is a bike with personality. Housing a high power, 6000 ansi lumen projector, sound system, ipad and battery pack, it is a fully mobile, street art device. It aims to provide an innovative means for taking digital art into public spaces and out onto the streets.



Created by Urban Projections, the Light Cycle has been used to illuminate streets with colourful digital artwork and animation. [fold][/fold] The company have been working with young people from various towns and cities, to breathe life back into disused areas, through interactive projection workshops.

“Our aim is to use innovative methods to bring art into public spaces and onto the streets. We love the fact that we can transform unused spaces into places of temporary beauty. It’s always great to see the reactions of unsuspecting passers-by” - Bec Smith, Creative Director, Urban Projections.

The system runs from battery, with a flexible life span of between one to three hours. It can also run directly from mains electricity for the more permanent positions. Artwork is created though a live drawing and animating application on the ipad called Tagtool. A Macbook Pro runs Resolume Arena for more complex visual setups.

“We’ve designed the bike with precision in mind, so that we can also execute mobile mapping projects. The projector has a fully adjustable, tilt and pan mount, as well as four leveling feet around the bike, so that we can ensure stability and accuracy”.

The light cycle was created by Urban Projections and was funded by Nottinghamshire County Councils ‘Nottinghamshire Arts Fund’. It’s journey can be followed on it’s blog: http://www.thelightcycle.com.

The light cycle is available for hire and involvement with creative projects, contact Bec@urbanprojections.com

Urban Projections are an arts organisation based in Mansfield, but whose work spans across the U.K and Europe. They provide innovative performance opportunities, workshops and creative projects to organisations, companies and brands. Their previous work includes collaborations with the BBC, Vauxhall, The Saatchi Gallery and The British Red Cross.

When we first started working on Resolume, VJ’ing was an underground culture. VJs were people who loved to do what they do, who just loved to drag projectors and computers around, show after show, weekend after weekend. If there was any form of payment, it was often just a crate of beer which doubled as a "desk" to put their laptops on.[fold][/fold]

Since then we’ve seen the scene grow to heights nobody could have imagined back then. Huge LED screens now take up the stage designs of every music festival. Projection mapping on custom geometry is a staple of the DJ booth in every club. Around the world, visual artists are setting fire to every room and facade with beautiful glowing pixels. Some of the people playing from that beer crate 15 years ago are now flying across the world in private jets accompanying superstar DJ's.

We should never forget who we are and where we come from. So this weekend we give thanks to the old people that have pushed the visual arts to such great heights. And to the new people that will continue to push it in untold directions. We love the path we have walked together with you for almost 15 years now and we're curious to see where it will take us in the future.

Thank You!

The discount deal is over, please do not email us that you just missed it, because you just missed it.

Get out your projector, fire up Arena and Cinema4D, brew a pot of coffee and start your week creatively!

Coming to you courtesy of the amazing Tom Watkins / VJFit from Fit Motion Graphics, Tom covers everything you need to know, nothing you don't. He doesn't waste a second and he knows what's up.

Starting off with some basic video warping in Resolume, he gets some trippy stuff going using only Resolume, which we likey.

Then he brings in Cinema4D to take you into the third dimension.

And he tops it off with an excellent and precise way to model your physical object in Cinema and align your projector/camera settings.

This world is a better place with people like Tom in it.



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As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a pixel gangster.

Crashing hotel rooms and swinging the Goose. Pimping out those RGBs and straight up hustling video adapters. Chasing the pixel perfect dragon.

One day, some of the kids from the neighbourhood carried my mother's LED panels all the way home. You know why? It was outta respect.

This release shows two pixel OGs dropping their stuff like it's hot and introduces one new player to the game.

Make no mistake, the pixel gangster game is played for keeps. You can't come playing those same old clips with those same old effects. Step it up son.


Video2000 is a certified OG of the pixel game. He's got street cred written all over his gold teeth.
www.resolume.com/footage/symytroid


ILQC is the new kid on the block, but you can be sure he don't take no D from Donnie.
www.resolume.com/footage/pinkeddy


Unit44 is so OG, they should be called OG-Unit. Dog.
www.resolume.com/footage/enter

We love themed releases, so we're extra happy to bring you some city flythrough based packs from Dan Wise and Daniel Knight, plus some high tech HUD goodness from newcomer Laak.


You need this: http://www.resolume.com/footage/globalnetwork


You want this: http://www.resolume.com/footage/neotron


You play this: http://www.resolume.com/footage/headsup

NONOTAK is a collaboration between Noemi Schipfer, illustrator and Takami Nakamoto, musician and architect.

We are interested in the relationship between space, light and sound. We try to express it through installations or audiovisual performances.

Over the past 2 years, we essentially worked on installations such as "ISOTOPES V.02" which was shown at Mapping Festival 2013 in Geneva. Each of our installations tries to create dematerialized spaces that can be controlled.

We wanted our visual compositions to go beyond the 2nd dimension, as if we were playing with an architecture made of light. This is also why most of our work is monochrome, we consider projections as light and not videos.

In order to make it possible we are projecting our visuals on different kind of textiles in order to make them look like holograms.

The technique used is projection mapping, obviously. The project Late Speculation is our first step into more improvisational live performance, where audiovisual elements are no longer looped like installations, but rather created in the moment. Each performance could have its own variations, generating different results, with an element of surprise even for the performers themselves.

Achieving this with Resolume worked like a charm. Resolume (especially the last one which fixed some speedy midi issues) is a really complete software for this kind of "live" purpose.

Basically we are using Ableton Live for the audio and sending midi to Resolume. The midi sent from Ableton is "written" and the same each time we are playing a song. But with some Max for Live patches and Ableton devices we are able to change midi notes and channels that are sent to Resolume. This is how we simply trigger different decks from a single midi note in order to create controlled variation that we can trigger via midi knobs.

Those "midi triggered" parts are basically After Effects compositions that we load into Resolume. Some parts of the project are made on Quartz Composer, but no panic because Resolume is able to load the patches and even load the sliders created on QC so we can easily map them to midi controllers! This kind of "highly" synced set up needs A LOT of Resolume decks and we were really impressed by the amount the software was able to handle according to our laptop setup.

There is one link that helped us a lot connecting some part of Resolume with Ableton for live purpose : https://resolume.com/blog/8717/max-for-live-resolume-patches This way I (Takami) am even able to send information to Noemi's Resolume from my Akai mpd32, so visuals can react with the effects I'm playing in Live.

In terms of projection mapping, Resolume does an awesome job by having output transform, warping, multiple layers, screens and slices options included. We are using 2 projectors and sometimes we are projecting the same visual from both of the projectors but they also act separately, one is off while the other one is on and this was easy to achieve within one unique software.

Performance setups need to be away from lag and bugs, thats why running only Resolume for the visual content was quite reassuring.

Music to our ears! For more info on Nonotak's latest project Late Speculation: http://www.nonotak.com/latespeculation.htm