UK newbie needs advice

[x1ejm]

Hi - this looks like the place for me! My background is that I am a 37 year old 80s reject and at the time I spent my life DJing. Now a family + job mean that I only get out to play once a year - at my birthday party and this year I want to do something really spectacular. I have spent the Xmas hols gathering all sorts of video and music files onto my PC and I intend to use it as the centrepiece of my show (and ditch CDs + vinyl for the first time ever).

I am now looking for help with 2 aspects of what I am doing - a) how on earth do I playback these video (mpg) / audio (mp3) files and b) where can I go to find suitable projection equipment?

I have been researching this a bit and have found a piece of software called DJPower that does what I want - the trouble is it costs $900 and from the looks of the site they may have gone out of existence (no updates since July 2002 - have they gone bust)?

So over to you guys to help me with my adventure.

Cheers
Ed

PS - if you want to see last year's effort check out http://www.synthwizard.co.uk

[LEVLHED]

DJ Power sucks ass as both a DJ program and as a VJ program, it is bloated code beyond belief....

[x1ejm]

Hi LEVLHED

Thanks for the forthright + speedy response! What do you suggest as an alternative that I can use?

Cheers x1ejm

[LEVLHED]

for DJing w/ MP3's I recommend www.pcdj.com they have a freee version of their app..."red" has some killer features but is probably more than you need...as for the video side...hmmm....thats tough to answer without more info about what you are trying to accomplish...my first thought is that if your files are already in the format you could just burn them out on VCDs? look to www.vcdhelp.com for everything you ever want to know about making VCDs (and SVCDs, DVDs, etc)
oh, and check your yellow pages for A/V rental house to get a projector...

[x1ejm]

Hi again

Sorry for the dumb questions. When I walked into this, I thought I would just be able to pick up a single piece of software that would allow me fire off the MP3 audio and / or MPG video files that I have on my PC. My machine already has a couple of sound and a couple of video cards in it - so one set could be used for front of house sound/video and the other for me to cue up songs.

(Apologies for going back to it, but) DJPower appears to allow me to do this but the price is a real ball-breaker and I can't see anything else that does what it does from a video playback perspective. Do you know of anything that does?

Your VCD suggestion is interesting but then I move into having a couple of DVD players and some form of vision mixing equipment and I had hoped to keep everything self contained running from my PC. Am I dreaming?

Cheers
x1ejm

[LEVLHED]

I see what you're going for...yeah in that case DJPower would be advantageous...don't know off hand what else would do that for you, I'm sure something else would be better than DJPower though...someone else might know!

[x1ejm]

OK VJForum world - over to you.
Are there any DJPower alternatives out there??

x1ejm

[stevefromNewcastle]

If I remeber rightly doesn't winamp 3 play all the file types you want to play. I don't no how well it will work, but it is free
Steve

[eyescream]

If you have multi monitor and several soundcards, then I'd imagine you've got a fairly punchy processor behind it.

if so, your best bet is on your second monitor cue up the mp3 files you want to play ( pcdj as suggested above, mixmeister and bpm studio are all well respected progs and i *think* all of them let you preview the mix through a second soundcard ) in one window and run any of the hundreds of vj apps alongside

I don't think there are any decent solutions for doing both at once in the same program.

It's probably best to pick the video app yourself, we all like different ones so see what suits your needs.

Best thing to do would probably be to cue up a load of (unmixed?) mp3s and then alt tab and just play with the vj app over the top, see how far you can push it.. obviously the more video clips you play at once the more power you're going to need, so try one, two, then three etc to see how much you can get away with on your machine.

[DJRobB]

I use DJPower in my DJ/VJ shows.

The program could be a lot better, but as far as I can tell it?s the only program out there that will mix music Videos and mp3s. And for the most part it does a good job.
It does have a few little bugs that it shouldn?t have. I really hope that they will fix them in the next release.

One thing that you will have to consider is that DJP will only sell the video version of there program with a PC. This will cost you at least $2500 just for the pc and program, no monitor, mouse, or keyboard.

The next version should be out soon. It is rumored to have some video fx added to it too.

I will post when it comes out.

[DJRobB]

Now to give you some help?

You can try this?

Get a DJ program. PCDJ, ots juke, bpm, etc..

Use the program to play your mp3s through your second sound card.

Use windows media player (or what ever) to play your videos through your main sound card.

(The reason why I say to do this this way is that the dj software can pick its sound card, but WMP will only use the main sound card. )

Hook one sound card to your external mixer and the other card to another channel on your external mixer.

Then mix between the two sound cards and there you have it.

Hope this works for you.

If you need more help let me know.

[kommy]

robB droppin some knowledge....you go buddy

[paradoxewan]

mixmeister pro 5!

[DJRobB]

paradoxewan,

Please tell me more about this program.

[paradoxewan]

Pro 5 has just been released. Lets you mix mp3s / wavs / avi's / mpegs on a timeline, allows you to pitch video, without changeing the musical key, the software even tells you the key of the track you are working with.

check out www.mixmeister.com, there is a demo there, PRO5 will require xp for video mixing (its a direct x thing :) )