Thinking outside of the box

[vjpixylight]

Is anyone thinking out side of the box, that is the 720x480 or 720x576 box, and making higher resolution visualz?

I am not talking about zooming smaller vids up in size, but actually writing video, say for HDTV or another custom size?

I am wondering now, with the speed of computers getting faster and faster, and with video cards getting more vram than ever,
why we aren't making video that is a higher resolution?

Maybe we are...I would be interested in what some of you are doing on this video front???

[murph]

I remember on eyecandy someone posting about how they're doing work at insanely high res, meant to be projected across multiple projectors at like 1024x768 each.

[vjpixylight]

Hmmm, kinda remember someone mentioning that, but wonder why they would have to do 1024x768 from multiple beamers, when most new beamers already do XGA??

Are any of you out there using a video scaler device such as the
videonics quadscan-elite? This device can quadruple the lines of resolution up to 1365x1024..
http://www.sepharus.com/444-5600.html

I can't be the only one out there pushing this envelope...

[labmeta]

I`m quite keen to be upping the resolution really but havent found the affordable solution.
I`m a laptop vj so i`d be happy to get things running at full pal res. Although i been told vdmx 3 can achieve this with ease on a powerbook.
I`ve never really considered more than that.

[vjpixylight]

Yea, on the VJing front, (that is live mixing using software) it is still out of most VJ's reach... But by "thinking outside of the box",
I am refering to the making of higher rez visualz, now for future use down the road when hardware become capable of handling it..I am doing this now as I don't want to be scrambling to be making this size video a year or two from now...

That said, there is still ways of doing higher rez now..
Electronika VJ software(and a couple of others) supports resolutions as high as 2048x1536, (digital film), and the ati all in wonder 9700 pro video card can support PC monitors up to that same size resolution...

There is also the video scaling box I mentioned earlier, so it is possible if you have the right gear now..

[elbows]

Im aiming for high res but at the mment many realtime effects I like to do struggle even at 800x600, 1024x768 is my aim hopefully sometime in the next year.

This brings me to wondering about whether VGA mixers will become a reality? I know a lot of peple like the power and flexibility of a mixer, as well as the backup it provides in the event of computers crashing, but I see this as the least likely element to be available to handle our high res needs in the near future. Hope Im wrong - any ideas?

[vjpixylight]

yea, I would also like to see a vga video mixer coming out soon:P

The nice thing about a vga video mixer is, theoretically, 2048x1536 could be mixed, given you have a powerful enuf computer outputing that rez, to this kind of mixer..

Until a VGA mixing table becomes available, there is still the possibility of using the video mixers available now, to mix video up to 1365x1024 using the quadscan elite box inbetween the video mixer and the projector..

[murph]

pix - I wasn't referring to 1024x768, more like 2048x1024+ split into 4 screens. All 3D rendered stuff. I've no idea how they were doing it though...

[vjpixylight]

wow!
Can anyone on this forum claim these visualz that murph speaks of?

I know that it could be done in after effects, using the Boris Plugin for AE, but have yet to see this done..Maybe someone out there can help me out on this and give me a link to who is doing this...
:D

[vjpixylight]

Come to think of it, the SunWuKung collective out of Milano has been doing multiple screen mixes with flash...but nothing with 3D or 4 screens...still looking...

[burstingfist]

DJ Shadow and his video cohort used 3 laptops and a MIDI sequencer to project onto 3 screens to make it look like one big screen. He was sending objects from one end to the other. This is probably not the solution you are looking for, but it sure did fool me until I discovered how they were doing it. This solution would require that you render your video into 3 different segments and each computer is responsible for each segment.

[vjpixylight]

Now were getting somewhere, although the original idea was about authoring video to a higher screen resolution, the styles that ***** and Burstingfist has described is what got me doing the higher rez in the first place...

I also am using WMP to do 1600x1200 vids, but in a somewhat different manner..(that is, I am making the 1440x480, and streatching it out to 1600...) In this way I hope to use just 2 beamers to cover a 360 degree screen with a strip of video just 480 pixels wide...

I do like the idea of multiple head cards like the new matrox cards that can spread the video across 3 monitors though, and wonder if that style is going to be more and more used in the future..

Still, for actual video manipulation and mixing, I think the best way to get 'outside of the box' is still by using the videonic box after the mix...Is there not anyone doing this now I ask???

[nubins]

How are you able to render your high rez (1600x1200) output in realtime. What type of system are you running to get this type of performance?

Are you still using video clips that are 320x240 and letting the computer scale them up? Or are you using software like TOUCH to output a 3D scene instead of just video clips? High rez output is one thing, but what is your original source material size (320x240, 640x480, 720x480)? Your vizuals will only be as good as your source. Granted 320x240 dosen't look that bad when enlarged to 640x480, but when you enlarge it to 1600x1200 it will look like S**T!

I have a pretty serious machine (Dual PIII 1Ghz, 1 GB RAM, 3D Labs Wildcat 4210) and find it hard to play back 5 mixed video clips @ 320x240 in realtime (30fps or 24 fps)! I am using Elektronika currently and find my frame rate drops down around 5 frames per second when mixing 5 clips together @ 640x480. I wouldn't even dare trying anything higher. For 3D I use TOUCH which gives me great realtime performance @ 640x480 and even 800x600, but thats no where near the size of HDTV or 1600x1200.

Maybe its elektronika that is slow in performance (I don't think thats it). Are you using something like the Nvidia Quatro card for multiple (4) video outs to your monitors and a Dual PIV setup? :confused:

[apu]

its is a very hungry beast thats fer sure but i only use an athalon 1800xp and i can mix more than 5 320x240 loops together no issues. its only when you throw in sphere or aestesis module does the frame rate suffer. you have to be very carefull with what you turn up and down to keep it around 20-25fps.

i dont know how a dual p3 compares to a single athalon but would of thought your system would handle 5 loops and then some. depends on your modules that you are using. though.

[jeffhtg]

most of the content i create from 'scratch' now adays is done in vector or in max.. by keeping my original files - when the day arrives that pcs have 8,000,000 rpm drives that can keep up with the data rate - I can re-render my work and output it at 3400x2700 :)

for the most part now i render everything at dv spec and even then my laptops are screaming for air

[vjpixylight]

How are you able to render your high rez (1600x1200) output in realtime. What type of system are you running to get this type of performance?

I am not doing 1600x1200 rez output off my PC, (although I can achieve 1600x1200 with Cathugha of a G4 DP 450 Mghz) but need to be able to run the PC at that screen resolution, to play 480x1600 clips in WMP, @ full screen...

I have a 3D labs/glint video card, which acts as a co-processor to an 'all in wonder' 32 meg AGP video card, to play back 1600x480 @ 30 fps...

I had never said anything about rendering 1600x1200 realtime...go back and read the post....I do need 1600x1200 to be able to make video, offline, in flash and director...

If Ex can give me a password to upload some of these clips, I'll post a few examples:nod:

[vjpixylight]

Okay I was finally motivated to upload some samples of pre Flash-MX, 1440x480 examples of thinking outside of the box...

http://www.levlhed.com/~fair/example1.swf 9616KB

http://www.levlhed.com/~fair/example2.avi 9188KB

http://www.levlhed.com/~fair/example3.avi 21826KB

These clips were some of the first 1440x480 clips I made to present at Psychic Chakra this last summer solstice...

Enjoy...

[Rovastar]

From a normal PC with a standard GFX card now a days it is very possible to have output in wide-screen desktop size of 800x1200 (tv-out reses) (or higher using 2xXGA output 1024x1536

I would be pretty easy to mod the output of many s/w's to do this although you not obviously have the config second monitor.

Depends if you need it or not.

Although I cannot imagine much call for it. but it would be easy as a s/w solution.

[BrainStove]

I wish that capability too, but all of you are missing the real constrains here as for real time VJing.... Right now you?ll need a very powerful PC to move pixels around fast enough, I mean good FPS from any High Rez XVGA resolution.
I?ve sometimes tryed this with a SVGA multiplier 8 outputs on 8 simultaneous projectors at 800x600, but even so it is just too much pixels to crunch for proper FPS.

Maybe very soon we?ll have the cheap laptop horsepower and of course a real nice XVGA hardware videomixer to do that.

BTW it is more common for Computer Generated Imagery than video clips/loops triggering/scratching stuff.