Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

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0x80
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Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by 0x80 »

I'm trying to work out a setup for this theater play were we want to have a rear-projection screen of 8 meters width at 16:9 aspect ratio. Due to budget and space constraints we'll have to project the screen using 2 XGA beamers. My plan was to connect them to a dualhead2go.

For the beamers to project 4.5 meters in height they will be 6 meters in width each, since they are 3:4 ratio. Can I use this setup to have them both project 4 meters in width, cutting off 2 meters for each and have them line up? The source will have to be a single 16:9 clip...

Other suggestions are welcome of course ;)

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He2neg
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Re: Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by He2neg »

i think with arena and the Softedge mapping tool you can just overlapp the 2 projektors how much u ever need...
http://resolume.com/manual/en/r4/output ... arena_only

But i think it will be some work ( setup / adjusting) the more easy way would deff be to get a 16/9 projektor.

The Easy way:
Or if the quality dont have to be good then use the XGA projektor on 16/9 modus ( i´m sure he can )
then there will be the resolution ( 1024 x 576)
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Oaktown
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Re: Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by Oaktown »

I blend projectors all the time using the Soft Edge technique and I get very smooth blends even with projectors that not aligned so assuming you've got the right lenses for your throw distance, it would be very easy to achieve what you need to do with 2 XGA projectors.

ince your screen is 8M wide, to get the best results, you would position your projectors at 3M and 5M at 2.25M high. As a result, you will get a 2M blended area which should yield a very smooth blend between your two projectors. Assuming the 2 projectors are the same brand & model with similar hours of use, they should be easy to match in color and you can tweak the blended area in [Advanced Screen Setup] under the Soft Edge menu by adjusting the Gamma, Luminance & Power.

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drazkers
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Re: Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by drazkers »

Have you thought about how your going to program the fade up and down times of all your cues?

If your director wants a 0 count to black and then a perfect 5 count fade to match the lights your gonna be a pretty disappointing video designer without some solution using MAX/MSP or something from the board. Resolume doesn't have a cue system for fades.

Which is kinda a big deal in theatre.

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Re: Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by Oaktown »

I find that by using Luminair (DMX over Artnet) for iPad or iPhone you can create a very theatrical style cueing system and program perfectly timed fades up & down or any other parameters.

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Re: Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by Joris »

With the risk of permanently derailing this thread:

You can use solids with animated opacity for fading. If I wanted to 1 cue to be a perfect 0 count to black and cue 2 to be a perfect 5 count fade up to video:

- In column 1, put a black solid on top
- In column 2, put a black solid on top, set its opacity to animate 'down and hold' over 5 seconds (this is speed 1.0, 10 seconds would be speed 0.5, 1 second would be speed 5.0 etc ).

I'm not saying that Resolume is perfectly suitable for cueing, but there's a lot of ways that you can improvise things like this.

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drazkers
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Re: Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by drazkers »

Joris wrote:With the risk of permanently derailing this thread:

You can use solids with animated opacity for fading. If I wanted to 1 cue to be a perfect 0 count to black and cue 2 to be a perfect 5 count fade up to video:

- In column 1, put a black solid on top
- In column 2, put a black solid on top, set its opacity to animate 'down and hold' over 5 seconds (this is speed 1.0, 10 seconds would be speed 0.5, 1 second would be speed 5.0 etc ).

I'm not saying that Resolume is perfectly suitable for cueing, but there's a lot of ways that you can improvise things like this.
That is pretty clever, i'm gonna keep that up in the old brain. Altho a deal killer for me is if you use the layer router to multiple projectors your in trouble with this method. The layer router still in my opinion is Resolume's greatest mapping feature that I use alot.

The black solid is a great work around but still a work around, without a board, doing theatre tasks is far from ideal. But! that never was really the focus when Resolume was designed, I think its more a testament to the users and developers for finding all these work abouts.

Personally I don't subscribe to the one tool for every job task, I think its also why people complain about resolume so much. Sometimes they want things that aren't really Resolume's focus.

Personally I use Resolume on a lot of corporate gigs, the flexibility on site is killer, but i'd rather use my copy of Isadora or Qlab for a finely timed theatre show.

edit: Actually the technique above will work if you use two layer routers, this could actually be used for one layer to controller multiple projectors or certain projectors fading in sync.

0x80
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Re: Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by 0x80 »

Guys thanks for the input! I completely forgot to check back to this thread :oops:

I will be queing resolume (and lights) from Ableton with max4live patches to tie everything together. I think it will work out. I'm a programmer and sound designer, but because of this low budget performance I'm juggling all at once :roll:

The workaround for the fades sounds useful, but I think in my case it will be sufficient to just control the opacity of the top layer via osc or something. In the coming weeks I'll start experimenting with the first video content to see how I'm going to build the scenes and queue everything. It'll be a nightmare to arrange I'm afraid but we'll see.

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Re: Multiple beamers single screen, need some advise

Post by Zoltán »

0x80 wrote:
I will be queing resolume (and lights) from Ableton with max4live patches to tie everything together. I think it will work out. I'm a programmer and sound designer, but because of this low budget performance I'm juggling all at once :roll:

The workaround for the fades sounds useful, but I think in my case it will be sufficient to just control the opacity of the top layer via osc or something. In the coming weeks I'll start experimenting with the first video content to see how I'm going to build the scenes and queue everything. It'll be a nightmare to arrange I'm afraid but we'll see.
or simply control resolume via midi clips from ableton
over a virtual midi driver?
you can have one midi clip with a 5sec control channel drop from 128 to 0 assigned in resolume to layer 1 opacity.
then a simple midi note to trigger column 2 and in the same midi clip the controller channel assigned to layer 2 opacity.
or just set the transition times via midi control channel !
you can assign the same midi control to all transition times at once.

then copy paste the midi clips in the correct rows in resolume.

or check out the link below for cueing resolume...
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Control Your show with ”Enter” - multiple Resolume servers at once - SMPTE/MTC column launch
try for free: http://programs.palffyzoltan.hu

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