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#1
4th November 2003, 01:05 PM
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Hardware Philosophy
Hi!
I have just read a thread that has impressed me a lot! I had some ideas in mind and I wrote them all here. I don't know if it's the best deparment... One guy complains that the videos that come with Motion Dive are pixelated at 640x480... He didn't understood he bought a VJ app, not a "become a VJ" pack... Really people think that because you have a tool, you are a profesional. One month ago I bought Resolume and a Dell notebook. I am more a VJ now than two months ago?????? If I have Microsoft Word in my computer means I am a writer/novelist??? The other day I discussed with two persons that believed that "chemical" fotography had nothing to do with "digital" photography. But when a photographer takes a photo, he wants to make an image or just "impress" silver particles??? I mean the camera is the tool/medium to make a picture or is the end??? If I get a Leica I will make better pictures than with my Coolpix????*  The idea that a REAL VJ needs to own a lot of flight cases full of equipement has been written many times in this forum, but how many of us do STILL believe it is true?? Don't misunderstand me, even a laptop VJ needs a lot of things (notebook, loops, external HD, cam, software, cables lots of them, etc.). If you have to generate more than one screen things get complicated and minimal setups don't supply. But how many hardware is necessary to make great performances?? For some time, one of the promotors who work where I am resident, started to make me a lot of questions. Now he has bought a Edirol V-4 and even VJs the saturday afternoons (for the teenagers). I have to recognise that for a moment I thought about not answering (at least not correctly answering  ) any of his questions. But then I thought, what stupid I am!!! I have been into video for more than five years, I have 200 ideas every day to make new videos and the place where I work more beautiful. Before this guys knows how to focus a videocamera I may be doing High Definition!!! Or maybe he is a genious and becomes a VJ superstar, but a VJ superstar doesn't work in the disco where I work neither... What's better a newbie full of ideas or an old cat empty??? Let's forget the hardware/technical part of it, and start to think about content/images!!! Let's start to be VJs not hardware/software/clips owners... * Any excuse is good to get a Leica! 
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#2
4th November 2003, 11:51 PM
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the trouble is that a lot of people lack the basic experiance to be able to setup and use there equipment and the hire gear that they require to do a show.
you do not need to own huge truck fulls of gear but it is nessacerry to be able to plug the gear you do own in and get it working without asking the sound engineer or lighting guy to help you (they have there own jobs to do) i am thinking that i may well start charging people ?20 to make the tvout on there laptop work - the number of times i have had to help someone do this in a club this year is quite amazing - after all its your laptop you can practice getting the tvout to work at home! beyond this a basic grasp of health and safty is a prerequisite to working in clubs - use of safty chains and fireproofing your screen are the key ones too many newbees miss. most vjs need to see themselves as more than a performer - a knollege of rigging and being prepaired with your own reel of gaffer tape, some basic tools and the knolledge to use them will gain you a lot of respect from the club owners / lampys / noise boys - turning up late and expecting the projectors to of been set up by someone else will not. if your just starting out write down a list of everything that you take to each gig and if you have to borrow something from someone else during a gig add it to the list and make sure you have one with you next time. and if you can try and hook up with some more experianced people who can show you the ropes. VJing is a strange job - its half tech and half art and though you can choose to bias yourself to one or other of these it is improtant to be awair of the other elements to ensure that you are eble to do shows that run smoothly and look profesional content is important but so is being able to do the job, after all, the best content in the world is no good to you if you can't get it out to the projector!
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#3
5th November 2003, 04:18 AM
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Another common problems among VJs is the "I-need-new-hardware" sickness. I know a lot of people who are continually buying new stuff - a new computer, a new camera, a new graphic card, as if a new piece of hardware was going to make them better VJs or Vjs at all. Think about it before buying something, like Videotheque wrote there is no piece of hardware/software that will make you a VJ, just like buying a drum won't make you a drummer overnight.
Many-2
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#4
5th November 2003, 04:31 AM
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I agree that kit doesn't mean you know what you doing, in regards to buying new kit though then I have to say you buy what you need, I have bought a new comp, but thats to get my kit more portable. I bought a midi controller, to get more fast control live, the list goes on.
I dont have any problem with people buying lots of kit as long as they know why they are buying it, after all its there money, and if they spend alot chances are they'll use it. Kit is irrelevant, you'll never stop people buying it, new or old in the game, however content is king, let people buy what they like and critise poor content rather than judge on kit.
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#5
5th November 2003, 06:10 AM
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Re: Hardware Philosophy
Quote:
The lack of communicational/social skills. I spend a lot of time in forums, discussing the most complicated topics but I never see so much aggression and so much immaturity at the time of expressing some point of view. Videoteque: some people spend a lot of money in equipment; some other people feel envy from that too. That is an issue everywhere; the only ones who do not pay any attention to it are the ones with the experience. Measuring your talent on the amount of equipment some one has of course is childish, but let me tell you is worst to feel envy or to start a threat about what ever some one else?s is doing. The forums are not for gossiping about some one else?s works.
__________________
Around here.
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#6
5th November 2003, 07:33 AM
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Ooookay...,
Lets get back on topic. Hardware! When do you have enough? When do you stop buying? When is the gear you have "good enough"? I have a G4 Mac tower with a fancy-schmancy broadcast video card in it that cost me a mint. This will likely be my "video station" for years and years to come. Now they have the new G5s out and they are supposedly so radically better as to be in a whole new league, but I'm not going to waste time drooling over new gear I don't have and don't need. Someday, there will be realtime AfterEffects on computers and then I will be crying, but shaving half my rendertime is not going to make my life SOOOO much better. I mean, I still have to render and I don't fill my entire day with rendering now.... In performance I use DVDs. I decided this was the level of quality I would be satisfied with, plus the cost of cheap players means I can have one "video station" churning out DVDs and then gig with as many players as my mixer can handle.... For me it was better to invest in one un-mobile supertower and playout with cheap portables that can be replaced if/as they breakdown. For others it is necessary to use live software so they must choose between one super lappy, or two lesser lappies, or possibly two cheap-but-powerful shuttles.... You get the idea. I felt I wanted faster expansion in the short run. Since I am content-oriented, I can slowly build a full library of content and actually invest in a second VJ rig for lower money than maybe some other VJ solutions. I could hire a second crew to do another job on the same night using my same content for minimal investment. I have also sold some of my specialized content (halloween, etc) to other VJs, which is similar in a way to having two crews. This is my hardware philosophy. At the moment, I am still paying off my VJ studio (content production can lead to many many expenses outside the VJ rig), so did I save tons o' money in the big picture? No, not really. Nice camera, lighting, broadcast video card, etc. These far outway any savings I had with portable DVD players over multi-lappy, but as I said it has other ways to turn into income.... Now I am getting more gigs and (cautiously) looking around to enhance my live rig with some in-the-moment tricks that cannot be done with DVD players and a V-4 alone. I know I do not (and cannot) spend more than $1000 on a new piece of gear (please, I can't really spend THAT much either but I am starting to look). My options: * a second V-4 (hired a buddy with a V-4 on a recent gig and I have to say when you account for dual feedback and colorize and keying, 2 V-4's is a geometric jump up to another level. WOW!) * Korg Entrancer (could add live FX the V-4 cannot do, including "spinning" the feedback loop in various pretty ways, but when I saw one demoed recently I was not impressed the FX or image quality being shown, and there was no way to tell if it would do what I want until I get to plug it in my rig and jam on it....) * Enhance my videostation (more RAM, a faster external DVD burner, a few more harddrives would help in the process of making more content, but does not improve my live shows....) Decisions..., decisions.... It is no crime to make a first investment (MotionDive) and then realize it is not the turnkey solution you thought and you will need a little more to make it work for you, but once you have a working rig (and the bills have subsided somewhat) there is no need for more, More, MORE! You start to see holes in what you are doing and maybe look for a solution. Maybe I am critical of hardware enough to avoid "buy me" syndrome, and I won't spend money on a gadget that just doesn't provide enough options, but yeah, new lappy next lappy, new software/next software is a real problem that you have to keep in check. Hardware is just more lasting than lappy/software, you just don't get a new model every 6 months to drool over....
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#7
5th November 2003, 07:42 AM
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Quote:
thats what ive done (oh And gone the 2 v4 route  ) and it really does take your performance to annew level, having a machine just dedicated to doing fx
__________________
ONE LOVE RED
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#8
5th November 2003, 11:45 PM
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Quote:
But the half part of art is the one I am more interested in. I don't know if I explained myself well, I wanted to say that hardware should not limit our performances. There are ways to go around hardware limitations. We should not stop ourselves in the hardware side, but jump to the art part of the VJ... Quote:
Seriously, so many times, when I have met talented people, they are good at the technical level AND at the artistic level. When you comit to an art/job, you do it at 100%, you need to know ALL that is needed. I am sure most of the people that doesn't know how to use the TV output of their own notebook, are not great content wise neither. There are exceptions to this rule, but most times I experienced that great artists are great at everything. Another thing I noticed is that the club environment is very hard. I have no doubt Technics turntables are standard: they resist!!! I have not seen a properly set up club in all my life. Perhaps it's different in UK or USA, but in Italy or Spain, when I plug my equipement I feel electricity. My S video cables give me ALWAYS black&white. The TV out of the computer has a different black border, always different. One day projectors seem too bright, next day too dark... Quote:
To VjRei: You noticed the "lack of communicational/social skills" but you didn't understand any of my message!!! I am not criticising the guy, I feel he is a victim of this general idea that flows in the wind that if you own a computer and Fruity Loops you are a musician. Just that. I don't have envy for any equipement or talent. I swear it. Should I have envy of something one day, would never be for a Motion Dive copy, but for some of the villas that I see here in Italy!!! Quote:
Quote:
We VJs so many times complain to be low payed, but if I didn't need so many equipement, I would feel well payed!!! Perhaps the Vj community needs a Dogme95 movement. Few rules, but important ones... 1. Your rig must cost less than 1000? 2. Your rig must weight less than 3Kg 3. You must take less than 10 minutes to set up, and 5 minutes to tear down 4. You shall use 320x240 5. You shall use 8bit color 6. Should you be AV, your audio must be mp3 at 64kbs 7. Only low quality, black and red cables should be used 8. Your projector must be less than 800lumens and have a lamp with more than 1000 hours of use 9. You must use Windows95 
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#9
6th November 2003, 01:30 AM
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1. imho limitations even make you more creative. If you have all the opportunities, will you really use them?
The more equipment you have, the less u exhaust the features of it. If you just have a lappy, it HAS to work. If u use a software without a midicontroller, you HAVE to know it 2. Only the result is, what counts. The audience don't matters what kinda and how many hardware u use. Thats, what often gets forgotten: its all about the audience. The Djs, the Ljs and the Vjs - they're all there for one reason: to entertain (from the clubbers view), to make a party worth paying for it (from the promoters view)
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#10
6th November 2003, 03:02 AM
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Hardware Rant
Just my two cents on the core PC setup issue, because it is always touchy for me.
To my grave, I will argue that the laptop is not the best field solution for club/event/outdoor party gigging as a VJ using powerful software, for several reasons: 1) Lack of component modularity compared to a rackmounted desktop or shuttle host 2) Vulnerable, expensive TFT screen which is a non-modular component of the equipment, that screams for dust, drinks, and foreign objects to ruin it. If you f**k that screen, you are replacing at least half of a $1500 U.S. PC, right then and there. And no manufacturer is going to honour a warranty on a consumer laptop taken to a club environment, and having drinks or impacts damage it. They simply were not designed with club chaos in mind, like a VJ mixer or road audio gear has been. 3) More expensive and difficult to conduct a hardware upgrade than a shuttle or rackmount host (and we all know we want to upgrade to the latest graphics card at some point) 4) Reduced inherent durability than a shuttle, or what I consider the toughest field solution, a rackmount PC in a proper rack flight case (like a vinyl flight case) with extra cooling fans and a reinforced power supply. 5) Extremely easy for someone to steal on the road 6) More difficult to change out dusty or damaged components Cons of a shuttle/rackmount: 1) Heavier, with greater shipping costs (however, the promotor can pay for this without much trouble if they are convinced the VJ is worth booking, and with a good case, it is not *that* difficult to move the gear around) 2) A little more difficult to work on new content on the road (but then again, why didn't you finish all that in your studio in the first place? Shouldn't the tour be for touring and performing?) Best, Marcus {VJ Portal}
__________________
Electronic Music Calgary presents: Weep 'O Mine Eyes w/{VJ Portal} Thurs., Aug. 5 @ 7:30 pm Cantos Music Museum
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