what gear do i need.....

[Anonymous]

i'm wanting to try a bit of vj'ing and was wondering what additional equipment i might need?

i've got a pentium4 2.8Ghz tower (i know laptops are better for portability, but one thing at a time) with 512mb of ram (which i'm thinking of upgrading to 1Gb)

i don't have a good graphics card - so if i had £200 to spend what would you suggest? i like the idea of being able to have different visuals on different screens, like different images on 2-3 projectors aswell as the main screen for mixing? is this possible for this budget?

also, to able to have live video aswell - would i need a tv capture card aswell?

any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks
Jeikeco

[levon]

you have around the same computer that i have, so you will be able to run it fine. for multipule projectors you will need another graphics card, a PCI or PCIE card, if you motherboard supports PCIE, go for one of those. and you will also keep you current card, what sorta card is it?, cause resolume doesnt require a top of the range geforce 6, it doesnt need the 3d side of the card.

to have a live input, you will need a tv capture card, or web cam. webcams dont have the greatest lens though. firewire out of a camera isnt much of an option, cause you have almost a second delay.

[GuyKo]

Hi Levon,
...Did I read you mentioned you have a live input going on? Do you mean something like a camcorder feeding Resolume with live video footage? I wanted to try that too, but wasn't sure how best to do it.

I experimented with a webcam, which means using a USB connection and Resolume's LIVE FEED option, but sometime things got sticky and jammed.

I guess the two main questions I had are: how do you run the camcorder to your computer, and how do you use Resolume to process the singal? I was under the impression that Firewire was the best option, considering the speed of data transfer, but you say there's a delay...

Thanks a lot,

GuyKo.

[levon]

the best way of having a live input into resolume from a normal camera, is to buy a video/tv capture card that has a composite in. then get your camera, and plug a composite (RCA) cord from the camera to the input on your computer. then in resolume 2 under the sources tab, under capture devices, there will be a device there, probably named after the drivers. then you click and drag it to a clip, and it will work like any normal clip.

i only just bought a tv capture card yesterday (still on its way) but i have tested it before with a usb web cam, and a firewire device, and both worked that way.

ill tell you how it goes when i get the card.

[GuyKo]

I see; actually I should have mentioned I'm working on a laptop, which means capture cards might not be an option (unless they have a PCMCIA version). In that case USB or Firewire might be the only input options, wouldn't they?

Thanks,

GuyKo.

[MtB]

there are some external usb based cheap video capture devices with a simple usb2.0 hub, you can connect that sort of stuff.

[GuyKo]

Thanks for the tip, will keep an eye for.

By the way, when you say "cheap" -- does it mean there are better? Does it mean the "cheap" ones are not worth it? Do you have some examples for us?

GuyKo.

[MtB]

with cheap I mean consumer products. they accept, composite and s-video signals which is o.k. for personal/home use but not o.k. for broadcasting.

because of, they do not suppose to give you high industry standards, they are cheap but this doesnt means that they are not working...

bw

[GuyKo]

OK, I see what you mean; will have a look around. By the way, do you have a favourite or ones you've heard good things about?

Thanks,

GuyKo.

[MtB]

check out snazzi's products... u can also use them to convert video files directly

bw