August 16, 2008
Hey - don’t all die of fright, but I’m posting a new post here again.
I won’t bore you with a detailed explanation, but suffice to say that a young family and a new job in a different city, house sale, purchase, rennovation etc. etc. meant that VLOBLIVE posts weren’t high enough up my priority list to surface for a long time.
Anyway - enough excuses - how about a post, you all say…
Well I was finishing off a video for showing in a Church today and the church in question had a rather limited video projector - I think it’s around 2000 ANSI lumens and it doesn’t cope too well in strong sunlight.
I was thinking how to colour correct for this and thought I would note down my musings here.
This first post concentrates on preparation…
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1. Preparation |
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Posted by drc
March 22, 2007
I don’t usually post ‘hey look at this on the web’ type posts here at VLOBLIVE, as I like to focus on content, but this one is too good not to pass on.
Ever wondered what the throw distance of a projector is, or how the brightness is affected by the screen size etc. etc.
Pretty much every numerical calculation required to spec out a new projector is shown in the wonderful projector calculator at Projector Central .
Read on for more info on why this particular interactive calculator is so useful
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7. Editorial |
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Posted by drc
February 13, 2007
I did a gig a while back where the organisers were VERY keen to have IMAG.
We had the gear, we had the crew, we had the time, but we said no.
Read on to understand why… Read the rest of this entry »
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7. Editorial |
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Posted by drc
February 13, 2007
There’s a growing trend in live and installation video circles to move towards the use of Cat5 twisted pair networking cables for long video and VGA runs.
As with many new technologies, it’s easy to get caught out, so read on for a quick primer from an engineer’s perspective…
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2. Equipment |
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Posted by drc
February 12, 2007
Hi all,
iTunes is a great music player app for organising your music library and buying tunes from the iTunes store. However with a few very simple tweaks it can be a very effective live audio and SFX playback system. Read on for more details…
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5. ideas to try |
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Posted by drc
January 4, 2007
In case you are wondering why things have gone a bit quiet here recently, I should mention that due to a new arrival in the family VLOBLIVE activities have taken a lower priority for the moment.
I hope to resume posting soon.
Dave
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7. Editorial |
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Posted by drc
August 10, 2006
If you create video content on a Mac, but you need it to be played back on a PC at a live event, you may run into the situation where you are using a PC app that doesn’t play back .mov files (yes, it happens - especially if the app is built on the windows media player framework….like most PC song projection apps are!)
Here are a few options…
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1. Preparation |
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Posted by drc
July 25, 2006
Here’s a rough and ready guide to recording ‘fly-by’ videos using the popular Google Earth application. This can be great as an introduction video for someone visiting an event from elsewhere around the world or as a backdrop to a phone interview etc. I have found it is much more engaging than a simple map slide.
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5. ideas to try |
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Posted by drc
July 24, 2006
If you are playing back video clips directly to a projector from a PC or Mac, and the clips are interlaced video, then you have probably seen the ‘jaggies’ effect where fast moving edges take on a comb effect, due to the two fields of the video capturing the motion at slightly different times. Here’s some suggestions for how to get rid of that distracting effect.
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1. Preparation, 5. ideas to try |
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Posted by drc
July 21, 2006
With the size of media clips, graphics files and even powerpoint files growing larger all the time, transferring these files electronically is becoming more of a headache.
Here’s some suggestions for reducing the headache for you and your VLOBLIVE clients…
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1. Preparation |
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Posted by drc
July 20, 2006
Here’s a quick tip on exporting still images from an HDV video sequence. There are various occasions where this might prove useful. The one I came across recently was needing stills to add to the cover of a DVD of an event. The HDV format makes this slightly less than intuitive, so read on for a quick guide.
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5. ideas to try |
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Posted by drc
July 19, 2006
With the increasing popularity of widescreen TVs and DVDs, it’s hard to find an LCD or DLP projector now that doesn’t have a ‘widescreen’ or 16:9 aspect ratio mode.
Coupled with this is the increasing number of cameras and camcorders that are either true 16:9 (HDV) or have a widescreen mode, and the idea of ‘going wide’ can seem quite attractive.
So how can you get best use of these features for a VLOBLIVE gig?
Read on to find out…
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2. Equipment |
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Posted by drc
July 17, 2006
I recently did a gig where we used the built-in remote control pan/tilt/zoom cameras in the venue to do IMAG. The gig was a big (250 people) choir with a very small band and some soloists and speakers etc. Audience of 1000 on two nights.
Using PTZ cameras is becoming a popular configuration in some church installs due to the low visual impact of the PTZ cams compared to manned cameras on tripods, so I was curious to see how well it would work for a live switched IMAG gig going to the projection screens. Read more to see how it went…
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8. Gig Blog |
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Posted by drc
July 11, 2006
Which is better - mixing onstage where the action is, or mixing in a control booth?
Read on to see how the two compare…
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4. The art of the mix, 7. Editorial |
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Posted by drc
June 23, 2006
HDV is the new buzz in video circles - it seems to offer the impossible; High Definition video at the price (and datarate) of Standard Definition. Great for low budget video production, but what about VLOBLIVE gigs? Should you care? How can you make use of all those extra pixels?
Read on to consider some of the issues raised by this new video format…
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2. Equipment |
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Posted by drc
February 7, 2006
One of my quests is to find inexpensive software that works well for playing playlists of video files directly from a PC or Mac. Here’s another contender: AV Player HD from Neuromixer
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9. Resources |
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Posted by drc
January 12, 2006
You have maybe seen cheap pro analog video mixers for sale on ebay or elsewhere for knock-down prices.
Just be careful that you know what your are bidding for/buying…
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6. mistakes I've made |
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Posted by drc
January 12, 2006
In the kind of budget range most VLOBLIVE gigs are operating, your camera choice is going to be limited to pretty much whatever you can get your hands on. However if you do have some choices, or if you are
looking to invest in purchasing some cameras, here are some pointers to help you choose.
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2. Equipment |
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Posted by drc
January 10, 2006
Here’s a great idea - an external box that looks to your computer like an extra wide display, but in fact it splits the signals across two displays.
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2. Equipment |
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Posted by drc
November 17, 2005
Something of a rarity - a new well featured analog video mixer that would be ideal for VLOBLIVE gigs. This one is from
Datavideo - the SE500.
Read more for some of it’s unique features…
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2. Equipment |
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Posted by drc
October 4, 2005
Another useful Mac app here- this one is called MaxiFrame and it lets you play a QT movie across multiple monitors or projectors from a (fast) Mac.
READ MORE for how this could be used for VLOBLIVE gigs, and how it could be improved.
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5. ideas to try |
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Posted by drc