[SML] media servers: was Re: Future of Luminaires

[illuminati500]

I had a production of The Tempest, produced in the round,  for an intimate audience  four vertical lighting towers and surrounded with blacks, which for certain scenes  used nothing but video projectors. I used the smallest possible analogue pinhole cameras attached to the chest of  each the four omnipresent spirits of the island with a very unreliable transmitter on each, each fed to a projector projecting back onto its own content. The cheaper the kit the better because it introduces all kinds of instability and feedback which creates a constant sense of movement and colour both on the floor and on the people. Add to that a couple of projectors  as a general wash being fed with premade content. The big projectors are manned and can move about.  I take two of the camera feeds and use them to generate randomised weird  sounds. It all gets fed through on old ex-broadcast video mixer. The result is unpredicable and quite spectacular. But as I say just for certain scenes. 

I would like to repeat that sometime..

DK



> On 8 Sep 2015, at 15:05, Mike Katz via Stagecraft <stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> 
> I am sure technically one could light a stage using video projectors, no one has yet mentioned what I consider the biggest obstacle. Who is going to create the software, IE the video for even one projector never mind hundreds.  Even now when directors ask for video in a show (because that makes their show high end and contemporary :-) ) everyone at the production meeting immediately sinks down in their chairs to say NOT ME! Even if there is a video designer, most shows simply cannot afford 1 full length video feed, never mind many. 
> So sorry there might be a few shows to play with the idea, but I for one will not hold my breath waiting.
> Mike
> 
> Michael Katz
> narishkup at gmail.com
> C: 857.383.0020
> 
> On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 3:35 PM, Kim Hartshorn via Stagecraft <stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> The projector technology is pretty much already there...except for maybe a really opaque black (not using a mechanical shutter).  But in my original post I was not envisioning a bank of 10 $100K projectors but more like 100 $1000 projectors.  The technology that would need to become more managable is on the server end.  It is already possible to download shareware that will allow 10 or so independent video feeds from a single machine.  But that single machine with 10 video cards is not yet available at Best Buy.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Kim Hartshorn
> 
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