Sometimes prayers are heard. Remember the poll we did where we were asking “What do you think is a reasonable price for a modern video mixer that has the ability to mix VGA and send out an video that spans over 2 or more screens?”. A saint named Toby Harris has modified a conference kit and built a controller for it so that it’s possible to mix two VGA or DVI sources and output to a Matrox TripleHead2Go, which means that you can make a multiscreen projection and mix content from two computers. This has been possible to do earlier, but at a huge cost. Toby is negotiating with the manufacturer of the original box and he is planning to assemble enough orders to put it into production. His estimated price for the box is… ta-da… somewhere in the $1000-£1000 range. At the moment the manufacturer is busy with a trade show. We just have to tap our fingers impatiently until deal is sealed and Toby is ready for pre orders. Read more about the mixer on Toby’s website.

Results from the poll:

[poll id="8"]

So finally, the long awaited Modul8 version 2.6 is now out in beta. Along with some bug fixes and Snow Leopard compatibility there are some exciting new features: blend modes, sound analysis, dmx support, 4 video inputs and importing/exporting of midi & key maps.

The beta is available for registered users and the final version will be charged a €49 upgrade fee. Garagecube hasn’t charged for minor versions before and even if annoys me a little bit, I’d still buy the update in a heart beat. Even if I’m missing better OSC and Quartz Composer support in this release, this is a huge step in the right direction.

Read more about the new version at modul8.users.

It might just be the biggest article ever about VJs in swedish press. Cap & Design features a 6-page article called “Design on the dance floor” written by Mats Almegård. It includes interviews with The Midi Thief, Morrsken, Vidots, Joel Dittrich and Bertrand Gondouin. Issue nr 4 is out in the stands now.

So I went to this vase party at Nordic Light Hotel last week. Iittala was showing off their vase “Lantern” by Harri Koskinen in a two piece video installation called “Light Reflections” by the Vidiots.

The first piece was a 4:3 projection on a screen (and on a sequence of monitors in another room) portraying light shooting through the the glass surface while the vase turning on a rotating foundation going in and out of focus.

In the second piece they had vases put up on a wall and video overlapping the vases so that it looked as if streams of light were shooting up from the vases. This was the more spectacular of the two even if the “analog quality” of the first one was nice too.