Sending Video Out To TVs From Laptop

[mikedon]

Hey folks,
Love this forum, learning a ton.

Been Dj'ing at a bar/club for a long time, the place just got all new plasmas, so I've been starting to add video loops to run with the music.

I'm sure it's basic, but I'd love some help on how to get my clips up on the screens back to back without having to also show me choosing the clips on my desktop and then making my Nero or Windows Media Player full screen to make it look right on the plasmas throughout the room.

Will VJ software allow me to choose between clips and send just the video signal out to the screens like a virtual mixer, or is it a hardware/ video card issue? I don't know of another way to send a video signal out of the laptop that is not exactly what appears on my laptop screen. I send out the video through the S-Video port on my HP laptop.

Sorry if this is the most basic question ever, but I've looked for an answer and come up empty.

Thanks,
Mike D.

[shudder inc]

well Mike D, the first thing i would advise is to hire a vj. i didn't check to see where you are located but i imagine there is someone in your area who can help you. hiring a professional vj would be the best way to help you to learn how to best use the plasmas at your bar. even if it's only for a night or two and to show you how to run things. doing this yourself with no prior knowledge you will run into all sorts of new and aggravating issues.
that said, yes there is a load of vj software that will allow you to run looped clips from your laptop without people seeing you select the clip and size windows and all that other stuff they don't need to see.
i would recommend going to vjcentral.com to look at some of the various software options. there is also a site that forum member Astrix put together, i believe it is softwarevj.com. it has a wealth of info on software for this. there are a lot of different softs with different pros and cons, it's really a matter of preference. some are even free and most all others are very reasonably priced. don't steal vj software!
whatever soft you use, be sure to read the manual. it should clue you in to preferred codecs to render your clips in for smooth playback.
as far as sending out exactly what's on your screen, you need to set your video out to be 'dualview' and not 'clone'. depending on your video card this option might be in a few places. for me i can right click the desktop and bring up the dialog box to do this. you might need to go to your display dialog window, through your control panel if nowhere else.
again though, i would really recommend hiring a professional vj. to at least help get your system started if nothing else.
good luck!

[vdmoKstaTi]

all of the answers are out there. most kids on the forum would have been in the same situation with you. advice on hiring a vj is great, it sure would clear a lot of headaches for you!

if you have a laptop, you can run video out to a splitter or a video port which sometime supports club systems.

picking your software is a matter of choice.. you pc or mac?

even after you select it, you'd need some number of video loops. what music do you normally play?

[asterix]

mikedon,

you need to use your multiple display wizard for your graphics card >
right click desktop > propertys > settings > advanced
then it will vary depending on your graphics card.

Run your display in 'dual view' not clone.

Most vj software really isn't ideal for play listing. Usually we mix up lots of little clips in real time - so we might use 10 clips (or loops) for one dj track - and mixing and effecting them constantly. If thats what you want to do, or just simply run one loop at a time for a few minutes then most vj software will definately do that.

If you want to play music videos and dvds in which case - stick to a hardware dvd player or dvj's - that way you don't have to reencode them all on your hard drive.

Else there is:
http://www.softwarevj.com/softwareov...on%20+%20Video
http://www.softwarevj.com/softwareov...%20Video%20VJ2
PCDJ VJ
CLUBDJ
to name a few for dj oriented av systems.

On some cards windows media player will let your run the interface on one and fullscreen video on the next. But I've never been down that path

[asterix]

By the way - I will just add this remark:

What exactly do you want to achieve in the club? Or more importantly - what did the venue operators want to achieve so much they invested big $$ on plasmas and video infrastructure?

The reason I ask is that the end result most bars end up achieving is pretty bland - and doesn't match the outcome they first anticipated. Whereas if they'd invested a little more they would have got what they paid for. VDmok and shudder have therefor made some valid points - hire a vj! We're more video savvy and will have a far better chance of coming up with the right result. Else it'd be the equivalent of replacing the dj with an ipod on random play. The result would have a negative effect rather than a positive one.

[nwonknu]

Originally Posted by asterix

... hire a vj! We're more video savvy and will have a far better chance of coming up with the right result. Else it'd be the equivalent of replacing the dj with an ipod on random play. The result would have a negative effect rather than a positive one.

I was just about to write that

[mikedon]

Thanks for all the input everyone.

They basically bought the plasmas for the bar/restaurant during the day to have on sports or whatever, then for us to use at night to enhance the bar/club aspect that the room switches over to. I've been making some clips & videos of my own and experimenting with some of the awesome loops some of you offer for free on various sites. It's a pretty small place, we fit a few hundred people. I run an HP PC laptop, I spin a mix of everything, hip hop, house, reggae and some rock, typical college spot music. I've been running a lot of videos to the songs I'm playing, with a mix of other clips as I mentioned, some message board type stuff, photos of the customers, the place's logo, weird videos and so on. What I want to achieve is basically having some cool visuals going on with the music that I can run myself simultaneously, since they're way too cheap to pay someone to VJ while I DJ or vice versa. What I'm doing now is still light years ahead of what the other places in town are doing, (nothing with visuals) so in comparison, we offer way more.

I just experimented this weekend with a couple of different softwares, Atomix Virtual DJ and DJ Video System and yes, my laptop can put out a signal sent from the software, so that was cool, but I still had some issues with the videos blinking and not running completely smoothly. I think it's just an issue with me having too much stuff on my computer, so I'm going to defrag it and free up some more space on the drives, or at worst re-image the whole thing.

Here's another question for you all- is there software that will link up mp3s and videos so that I can eventually run my music synched up with video straight off the laptop?

Thanks again for all the help. You guys are consumate professionals. Also Happy Holidays to all.

Mike D

[VJDanzilla]

Are you using the same codecs and resolutions for all your clips? I use Arkaos NuVj with 640x480 reso and the PhotoJPEG codec with NO audio. I convert everything with AVS Tools (which is not free) but seems to have smaller file sizes and better viewing quality than using QuickTime Pro to encode. None of my vids skip or blink and run perfectly smooth while playing at any speed, while being mixed with other video, while being played backwards, or while being scratched. Arkaos has an option to play sound in a .mov so if you really wanted, you could Mux an music file with the video and have it sync that way. Very crude, but will work fine starting out if you live in a town like mine...In Zanesville, a "DJ" is a guy that plays CDs at a bar...feckin' terrible isn't it?