Toby Harris a.k.a. Toby *spark did a presentation of his first manufacturable prototype at the Visual Berlin festival. He just finished editing a video from the presentations that contains a few revelations:

1. The unit will have a fade curve control so that you can mix from a flat blend to a flat add.
2. It will be ethernet enabled so that you can use several d-fuser mixers in master / slave mode. It also makes it possible to write a OSC library for the unit.
3. It has a screen and a menu.
4. The unit’s software is open source and will be available on line as soon as the mixer is released. This makes it possible to add more functionality to the mixer.

There are still a few things to do before the mixer goes in to production so there is still no release date yet, but “soon” toby says. Regarding the pricing it seems like he is still on track, to quote Toby: “£750/$1000 is very much the plan. If you budget for that, I think we will be in a good place, you might even get a surprise”. So the pig is out of the sack, now lets anxiously wait and tap our fingers…

Link to Toby’s original post. Video by Pedro, photo by Andreas Apelqvist.

This installation at Heineken’s Green Room Sessions party at Malmen, Stockholm, is a was a group effort. Jakob Grandin, head of Grandins Flying Circus asked the Vidiots to set up a triple screen video installation displaying film and photography from a number of artists. One wall displayed a slideshow and the other two video. Every 8th second a strobe went off the movies and the slideshow changed.

The gear used in this project was 3 projectors, a Triplehead2go and a Macbook Pro running Modul8 (VJ software). A Modul8 module, that was programmed specially for the occasion by The Midi Thief, sent a midi signal to a DMX light board causing the strobe to flash and the video plus slideshow to forward to the next piece.

Contributing artists:
Curator – Tony Cederteg
Left wall – Ruben Broman
Middle wall – Mathias Sterner
Right wall – Nakkna

All work and no play makes Mikey a dull boy. I’ve been busy with work and not been able to post for a while. Got some half finished articles just waiting to make their way on to the blog. But some news just magically produce themselves. Like this one: The *Spark Defuser mixer by Toby Harris is one step closer to getting into production. And you can help by showing your interest so that Toby can esitmate the price better and get to the next step. Read all about it here!

To be a little bit more objective about it than in my last post: This is not an entirely new subject and it has been talked about before. That’s why some VJs wern’t too excited when they heared of Toby’s project. Read more about it in this recent thread and this old thread on VJ Forums.

But still, considering the decent price and all the features I say I’d probably buy the mixer.

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:

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I was inspired by Smashing Magazine top lists and thought I’d start busting out some list featuring vj clips in different genres. First out is this compilation of live multiscreen projections. The criteria for the clips was that they should be using 2 screens or more and the composition has to span over all screens (no repetition of one screen) and be performed live.

Ryoichi Kurokawa @ Club Transmediale

Zava & Neon Golden vs. Sascha Funke @ Wilde Glocke

Otolab:  Cimatics 07 - Op7

Picturing sound: Extrait multiscreen live

Novak Collective: TripleHead2Go VJ set. (Micro Edit.)

VJ Samesame: Mini Copenhagen - visuals wall on windows

KEBOW: Multiscreen HD live visuals @ VERSCH Amsterdam

Digital Slaves: Pimp my Art

These clips didn’t make it on to the list since they weren’t recorded live, but they are nice too, so I share them anyway:

Rebeloverload: Multiscreen composition

Rebeloverload: Dual output vj comps

If you want to do multiscreen projections, check out the Triplehead2go device from Matrox. It’s probably the cheapest way to do it. They recently released a new version that is compatible with the new Macbook’s display port. Many modern VJ softwares (like Arkaos, Modul8, Resolume, VDMX) supports multiscreen output.

There is a channel on Vimeo dedicated to multiscreen and panoramic live visual, it’s worth keeping track on!