SMS Messages

[complexvisuals]

Does anyone use text messages in their show, ie. punter sends message and it pops up on screen over your mix?

If so, how are you doing it. I've looked into systems used for TV but they are way way too expensive. Even if there was a way to display the messages on a a black background that then could be keyed in ontop of the mix.

Another, question is, do these systems keep the messages, so a database of customers numbers could be kept,(for future spamming on club offers etc.)


Cian "Value Added Service" Byrne

[myogenic]

was talking to dan syzygy about this earlier on this week.

I'll update you when/ if i hear anything, although i'm sure Dan or Tom will pop their heads in soon enough.......

[Portal]

I believe Videonics has a new TitleMaker product that is designed for "low-end" (a.k.a. less cost and features) professional use that will allow you to type in your own live messages to the floor video mix. I am thinking about adding one to my kit next year.

Would that help you?

Best,
Marcus {VJ Portal}

[funkcutter]

yeah - i've used them in my show - when getting a big up message from one of my djs -Rai- who wasn't coming to one of my +++femi9product+++ nights, i filmed it with my camera hooked up as a source and mixed it in live - got great big cheers from the rest of the crew and fans who love her!

nice touch - friendly people

[eyesupply]

well, we're actually working on a realtime text generator with controllable fx. It's remotely controlled by on a lappy.
The text and fx are displayed in flash. We can use the flashmovies in Resolume, to mix it with our visuals. Theoreticcally we can control an endles amount of computers on a network

One of the features we're currently adding is SMS imports:

so in a while we can do this, yes:
punter sends message and it pops up on screen over your mix?
with no extra costs for the sender!

Cheers and will keep you posted!

Martijn

[evomedia]

You'll not find a cheap system that will put up sms message on screen automatically, we were implementing one for nationwide estate agents. But all the solutions are designed as hi end for chains of bars / resturants, working from a centralised hub.

You dont want your own mobile number as an sms reciever, so you'd have to have an sms number specifically for messages. There are companies that act as a reciever but again never going to make it cost effective in show terms.

Seperate to that if a club has the ability already to display sms, then you'll still find that most messages are displayed through database integration via digital signage, again not easy to integrate into a show, as ds solutions usually are remotely managed. So not easy to integrate on site.

regarding spamming:

A: no one likes spamming
B: you can no longer market directly via sms or email without written authorisation from those you contact, so unless you have specifically asked their permission and they have agreed you are subject to large fines. And people just sending an SMS doesn't not count as authorising marketing replies.

This is required by law:
The consent of the end recipient obtained from a website, phone, written signed letter, or valid thrid party holding user consent. Also failure to provide an opt out is considered spam by the law.

Web Certain Email and sms Legislation Checklist:-

1. If the person you are sending to has had no contact with you previously - you need to ask for permission first.

2. If you have already had a business relationship then you can email them until they ask you to no longer send emails BUT see 3!

3. For 2 to apply, you must be offering SIMILAR products and services to those previously offered.

4. Make sure your email or SMS makes it clear who it is from.

5. Include a valid reply address.

6. Include an 'unsubscribe' link.

https://secure.oia.uk.com/docs/com.oia.sms.marketing.guidelines.pdf

From advertising guidelines

Well it's arrived and we now know what the initial UK law looks like. However, because of the way the legal system works, we will not really now how the law is to be interpreted until there is some case law and actions have been brought to court. Best to avoid that of course!

The key thing is that you now need permission for 'cold' emailing - but note that 'opt-out' still applies for fax and telephone - so you could use those techniques to request permission - provided that you check the 'block' lists before you fax or phone


The relevant legislation is called 'The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003'. This comes into force on the 11th December 2003.

[mikimoto]

i think there was a "module" for visualjockey from a german guy, which lets you integrate smss to a visualjockey composition.

couldn`t find anything on google. maybe on the visualjockey forum ...

[robotfunk]

Looking into making a generator in flowmotion that does this.

I've had two requests for this so far, if there's more interest it could happen sooner rather than later.

also looking for suggestions for a module like this, ie
is displaying text enough or would you want it cleverly animated?

[dedhedgehog]

if you or friends have and programming experience and a spare computer, you could always DIY... as breifly explained here (http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=2248&highlight=sms)

Have been planing on comming up with a version that would output to a text file/xml which could then be loaded dynamically by a flash file in whatever software.

[minimalniemand]

--> http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22receive+sms%22+activeX+freeware&meta=

[minimalniemand]

hey, what about a freeframe-Plugin, which displays sms (filtered through a customizable wordlist) recieved from a gsm-Module (Siemens M20 / 60EUR ebay) connected to the serial-port of your comp...

There is a free ocx, which can do that (called MIDA from http://www.redcoal.com/ )

would be a cool project, I think ...

[bobcalvert]

If your interested in installable system for a club...NeoOne impulse is installed in a load of clubs in the UK. Designed for club installs, links back via the web, is moderated, and has a DJ feedback screen aswell....monthly subscription.

www.neoone.co.uk/impulse

[pangolin]

Hi all,

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is William Benner and I am President of Pangolin Laser Systems and PangolinSMS. One of your forum members directed me to this page regarding SMS and such.

We have a product called Interactive Messaging Unlimited (IMU) and is, what we would consider to be, a third generation SMS system. This system can work with up to four SMS sources simultaneously and can work with both CDMA and GSM systems. It supports voting, chatting and even some limited picture messaging using EMS. MMS support is nearing completion as well.

You can read about IMU at our brief and albiet marketting-oriented web site which is www.pangolinSMS.com

Currently, the SMS and EMS messages are received into our IMU software and is then directed "somewhere" for display. This "somewhere" could be, for example, onto a laser display, or onto a video display or even an LED light up sign. The output of IMU is very flexible and can theoretically be configured to send messages in any way and to any program.

Currently for video display, we have another companion product called Video Messaging Unlimited (VMU). This takes the messages from IMU and can display them in video along with fixed or scrolling text, voting results, multimedia playback (MOV, MPG, AVI, etc), nickname list, etc.

Currently our IMU and VMU are used in discos, clubs, special events and the like. VMU is very well suited for "video beamers" and plasma displays. The results are very professional and are along the lines of the professional displays you see on TV, and even MTV "battle of the bands" and such.

Your forum colleague indicated that there is a large demand for our product, if it could be adapted to work with VJ software. I would say that since IMU is very configurable, there is a high likelihood that indeed, something like this could be done.

I am completely open to any and all ideas about how we might customize our IMU product to work with VJ software. I have looked into VJ software and VJs in general and find this to be a very exciting possible combination.

I suppose the key question is, how do we get messages from IMU into the VJ software for display? One possible answer is for us to work directly with VJ software companies using some sort of "plug in" architecture, if such a thing exists. Maybe another possible way is with text files or dynamic FLASH?

If you have any suggestions, please fire away. Send me email to visual@pangolin.com I would love to customize our product and make a VJ-specific version. Believe me when I say we are very customer oriented and would love to have a number of good BETA testers out there.

Best regards,

William Benner
Pangolin Laser Systems and PangolinSMS

[BrainStove]

Welcome aboard William :yep:

Actually I was snooping around into your little SMS site and technically I?m pretty sure from the brief description you provide there it wont be as hard as supposed to be to revamp your soft for VJ?s specifically needs.
Given your gentle offer & will to join us getting involved customizing your software to help us with the further advanced dream to incorporate new wireless crowd?s interactive features into the RealTime Live Visuals realms, I could say the best bet so far would be the OpenSource FreeFrame community (http://freeframe.sourceforge.net/), worth to check "plug in" architecture wise in order to cover a good bunch of popular VJsofts already in use by VJs everywhere with just one shoot, since they already support FreeFrame now and indeed there is an increasing healthy group of new coders/developers joining to this FreeFrame proposal everyday.

Hehehe, we still couldn?t be able to find what?s the price of your current standard IMU&VMU package, but we really hope a special VJ version wont leads us to throttle the streets at night to be able to buy your software. :D :up:

[0cuLa]

i have done this a very simple way be having a pay-as you-go mobile which receives texts from 'punters' and using VDMXX 'fontsyths' lets me display and add effects too. had a good response to it so far

[dongbamage]

We offer sms to projection as a service including database retrieval.

[fuussmuuss]

I am facing the same problem, a client is asking me to display sms live during our set. So finally is there an easy and cheap solution to achieve that? i would even be happy to have the text just displayed somehow on my screen that i could key via my mixer ontop of the other visuals!!

[levon]

im going to be doing this at this nightclub my friend is seting up. what i was going to do was just have a seperate simcard and enter the text into resolume manualy. though my friend wants to try and make profit out of it, so ill eventualy have to see about those 191 xxx sms numbers we have in australia and see if thats a good option.

[Mile]

The possibility for the crowd to send SMS-texts to the VJ is very cool. I only use it for clubs where they have commercial music though (not for the bigger parties with for example techno music).

I use the VJ program Pilgrim for it. It also has the possibility to use text-layers (which can be realtime edited). Whenever I get a SMS I type it in the text layer, click 'show' and the letters will fly around the screen for a while (and end on the bottom of the screen).

Here's an example: http://vj.electricfusion.org/photos/halloween/halloween01.htm
(text on the bottom left of the screen)

[levon]

someone ive been talking to over then net has just set up a system that can receive mms pictures and displays them on a screen, he said he will show me how it was done once its all working properly

[dongbamage]

that sounds cool.

Hmmm it'd be sweet if ppl could txt there photo's or even videos to the projector, I like the idea of using the audiences streams as an input :)

you could have some crazy fun with that i reckon...

wonder how hard that would be to prrogram?

I dunno how mobiles encode stuff, but that sounds like the biggest prob, I asumme the rest is pretty rudimentary.

Anyone know anything about mobiles?

[dedhedgehog]

as far as i know mms messages store their content on the internet somewhere (probably at the receiving end phone network). Your mobile then goes to that location (via gprs in the UK) and downloads the picture/text/whatever.

It should be posilble to write code to do the same thing, without the need for a phone<-->PC connection, although you would still need an account with the mobile network.

There are commercial services (MMS gateways) that can provide a phone number and will be able to send the message direct to your PC.

If you wanted it to autoatically link into your VJ software of choice you would probably still need some custom code writing.

try this mms gateway (http://www.nowsms.com/)
or this google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mms+gateway)

[natarius]

reading the german vj forum i saw that there will be a free tool available on monday from www.frontline-media.de !!

seems like it is that old tool for vjo who everybody is talking about!?

[natarius]

ok, i got it! nice tool :)

you'll need a nokia datacabel...got one from a friend together with an old 6130.....and IT WORKS!!!!! YEAH :)

cant wait to try this one out at a gig!!!

for now i will build some vjo compos for it and maybe programm a flash movie which reads out these txt files...lets go :)

[eps]

i'm preparing some videoinstallation for nokia-sponsored event here in moscow next weekend [dfuse as headliners plus local moscow media-artists]

the installation is called "mene, tekel, ..." [you know what it means ::] and consists of sms messages from the guests of the event, mixed together, treated with fire-styled effects and projected onto the wall

since i needed to handle several sms streams (2 inputs and 1 output) with unicode [to get cyrillic correctly] and could not rely on dedicated links to provider, i selected ActiveSMS gateway (http://www.intellisoftware.co.uk/products/activesms) software with attached mobile phones as transport. oxygen sdk also looked nice but i'm not a programmer myself and had pretty little time to wish to find one to make it work

messages are automatically logged into the file; then it is read by some perl script to decode the text and clear unwanted words; then text is animated by dhtml [alas i don't know flash] and goes to the video output for final mixing

[i've got another nice idea of some worldwide-translated installation based on this technology so keep looking around for other ways of such integration]

[natarius]

hmmm...this sms manager from frontline seems to be more straight forward to me and last but not least...its free!

active sms seems to offer a lot of possibilitys on the other hand, but if you just want to receive sms and display it by an common vj app then sms manager seems to be the easier way!

[Meierhans]

Ehm... natarius... aren`t you the coder of this sweet little SMS Manager? ;) And aren?t you one of the directors of frontline media?? I`m a bit confused.

But I fully agree with you its the easiest and cheapest solution.
How does the midi out works? Which output is used? Couldn`t get any reaction when inserting an SMS by hand.
Thx for implementation of midi.

[natarius]

hello meierhans,
no, i am not one of the directors (i wish i would ;)...but i have had some lan partys with of them (matthias) and we always used the same nick...so he decided to add "big" to his nick!

so i am "natarius" and he is "natarius_big"

about the midi out...i have no idea how it works, why don't you drop them a mail and ask!?

cheers

natarius

[stulloyd]

I have been doing this for nothing using my SE-P800!

Bought a pay as you go sim card.

1)receive sms

2)Copy sms to jotter

3)send to computer via IR or bluetooth

4)Cut n paste received txt into application with a blue background to key over video

You keep all Sms to sell database to club owner/promoter

easy!

p800 cost you around ?150 on e-bay

[Meierhans]

SMS-Manager is also free and the main advantage: No copy past by hand, can run completly without user interaction (including Bad Word filter)

[Stickman]

er, well I tried to download SMS manager but the frontline site won't let me login with my newly aquired username and password.... suppose I'll have to find somebody to help translate the instruction email...

Sticks

[levon]

i had that problem, i had to wait a whole day before it would work. so give it 24 hours.

[Meierhans]

They check emails ny hand. Anybody got the midi trigger working?

[asterix]

While not in a video mix:
Ive been to a club that ran a special sms night. Everyone gets a number, if you see a person you're hot for you sms thier number and a message to the club number. The number is flashed up on a scrolling led screen. The person with that number sees it and goes up to collect their message.
Quite successful if you're into that sort of thing.

[Amukidi]

O gdee, cnt wt 2 c crp mssgs on scrns - ths wll rilly lk gr8!




Note: Pleas check signature before flaming!

[levon]

Originally posted by asterix
While not in a video mix:
Ive been to a club that ran a special sms night. Everyone gets a number, if you see a person you're hot for you sms thier number and a message to the club number. The number is flashed up on a scrolling led screen. The person with that number sees it and goes up to collect their message.
Quite successful if you're into that sort of thing.

HAHA bit like speed dating. last year i helped a friend out on a doco on speed dating, i hope i dont end up there when im 30 :(

[SlinkyTrips]

am i missing the obvious, i cant get the bad word filter to work. Do you have to have a text file with a certain title or something?? I have selected it but it simply comes up with (in German) "an error has occured"
________
buy silver surfer vaporizer (http://vaporizer.org/reviews/silver-surfer)

[SlinkyTrips]

by checking the install location i found you have a text file called badlist.txt and you have a vertical list of banned words.

i am rendering the dunce hat as we speak
________
Suzuki DR-Z250 (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Suzuki_DR-Z250)

[vdjguru]

Hi all! I've got a software made by myself that allows to recive SMS via your mobile and put them onto screeen. You only need a PC and an inet conection.

You can see it in www.cafeconciertotesis.com (sorry, but only avaible in spanish).

[natarius]

hi vdjguru,
it seems like your app only works in spain because of the short number you use!

i am currently beta testing the new sms manager from frontline which can be connected to any shortnumber provider!

so everyone can get his own shortnumber in his country and make his own money :)

the downside is that frontline will charge for it :(

greets

natarius

[fbnts]

Hi, I have been referred to these forum.

I represent a company called Vidicom Limited. We produce the BlastText Text-2-Screen system used in nightclubs and bars across the UK & Europe.

We have a partnership with Beligum based Arkaos and are able to interface directly with their software to insert incoming SMS Messages directly into the Arkaos FlashText interface.

If anyone is interested we have a fully functional trial version available at http://www.vidicom.co.uk

Thomas Kirk

[videoswitchboard]

Hi Thomas,

thanks for joining in ;) !

Your software seems just like what we need despite being PC-only- any plans for a mac/linux version?

so, how much would a licence for the Text-2-screen set us back by as the website only mentions POA.

regards,

dav.

[fbnts]

Hi,

Well here is our retail feature and pricelist:
http://www.vidicom.co.uk/pricelist.pdf

However, we appreciate the feedback from the industry's core users and therefore we would be able to offer limited special pricing to VJ Forum members of a one off account fee of ?99. This would include account setup, keyword and software licence.

For users who wish to incorporate the SMS data directly into Arkaos VJ, then unfortuately there is a yearly charge of ?400 for the special Arkaos Licence Key.

Please let me know if you have any aditional queries.

Thomas Kirk

[Kai]

Originally posted by Amukidi
O gdee, cnt wt 2 c crp mssgs on scrns - ths wll rilly lk gr8!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAAAHAAAA!

That made me laugh this morning. Thank you.