Digital Performance Institute

Participants:

PERFORMANCE: SOUNDING
February 17-March 13 2010  -  $18 8:30PM

HERE Arts Center at 145 6th Ave (entrance on Dominick Street).
http://www.here.org

I know this show has a lot more than the video design to offer, but so far the video aspect is all I've gotten to see.  It's a lush abstract immersive video that plays to the theatrical non cinematic.  In other words worth seeing.

It's nothing short of amazing the amount and variety of video surfaces and environments that can be packed into a small blackbox like HERE. 

Directed by Kristin Marting 
Written by Jennifer Gibbs
Video by Tal Yarden

Featuring Bessie Award-winning Okwui Okpokwasili* as Ledaand an ensemble cast featuringTodd d'Amour, Ana Kayne, Irene Longshore, Rudy Mungaray, Michael Pemberton*, Stephen Reyes*  
Music Kamala Sankaram Set Nick Vaughan Light Rie Ono Seo Costumes Elizabeth Bourgeois Sound Jane Shaw Technical Direction Nate Lemoine Stage Management Emily Rea Casting Judy BowmanAssistants Jane Jones, Jennifer Kraus, Elenna Mosoff, Zarrin Whyte, Taili Wu

DPI lost it's former space but thanks to our great friends become great partners at One Arm Red, we've got a new office at:

10 Jay St 9th Fl. suite 903
Brooklyn , NY 11201
Vox (530) 324-2701

The One Arm Red facilities are fabulous, it's nice to be our here where things are happing, and good things are to come.

There are many ways, from the brute force anolog.
Downsample your Montior output to Composite or S-Video and Capture it on another Computer with a frame grabber.
Or Output your Monitor to HDMI (or convert your DVI -> HDMI) and re-capture that on a HD capture card on another computer.

But that's a mess, uses 2 computers etc...

Or if your using Jitter there is a option to capture a portion of your desktop as a Matrix source. That's a perfect solution, but only for Max/Jitter.

I used to use Camtasia which included a live output driver. I've been using a venerable old V3 version for years. But I recently had to purchase V6 to edit some files for a client.
And I was disappointed to find that they had abandoned the live feature in V6 (v5 still has it)

I've never used the other features of camtasia much and it's seemed like an expensive solution, but I could never find another software option like it.
However this go round I did find a source for what looks like a better and free alternative!

http://www.splitmedialabs.com/vh-video-sdk/vh-screen-capture

Actually the features and performance of this tool are awesome, way better, though just as confusing as Camtasia ever was.
The multi-mix option is a whole new feature set to explore. I've needed those exact features in the past. (say to get multiple camera inputs into a VJ app.) Isadora my favorite application supports multiple inputs, and native capture drivers so I don't need this feature as badly now but it's still nice to have in a bag of tricks.

For instance you can change the video settings, and even some effects on the video input source in real time.
Scale and mix multiple cameras. (need a picture in picture this will do it with more options than you could hope for.)

Plus you can of course save your presets, a crucial feature.

Oh I'm giddy with the possiblites.

also if for some reason your software is not compatable with the drivers for your capture device (Skype crashes with my laptop's built in camera) you can run it through the multi-mix as a virtual camera and still use that device.

THANK YOU http://www.hmelyoff.com

As a society we are dangerously close to losing essential facts about many important works that are part of our cultural heritage – seminal yet ephemeral. At a time when information about anything can be so easily accessed, the concept of centralizing data on performing arts productions will enhance the fields’ability to create context for new generations of artists and audiences.

Alyce Dissette & Hal Eagar from DPI, Sharon Lehner from the BAM Archive, and Ben Vershbow, from the New York Public Library's Digital Teamin the Strategic Planning Office will talk about the new initiative.

On Saturday, October 24, Wendy and I demonstrated some of the elements of the “Overheard” installation to a small group in order to articulate our current ideas and obtain feedback.

We demonstrated typographic projections, sound elements (recorded conversations), and physical interaction with typography using the rope&pulley.

We are reflecting on the observations we made during demonstration and are incorporating them into the next phase of development.

The Digital Performance Institute lent us two video projectors for the demonstration.

Michael working on Rope&Pulley, etc, etc, etc!

As I've mentioned before I'm keeping my eye out for that elusive super cheap projector that I'd be willing to use in situations where it would very probably be destroyed or stolen.   Not that I want any projector to suffer that fate, but even though I've extremely cavalier with $500 and even $2500 projectors I'll generally only do things with them that I have a pretty high expectation of them surviving and being used again.

Perhaps for some people that price point for being able to say "oh well" is higher but for me it's ~$50.   none of the above projectors have hit that mark yet but they are getting close.

I don't really want to dispose of the projectors but I imagine using them in street installations, or party installations where the likelihood of them walking away or just getting smashed is >25%. And based on my experience with occasionally killing a $50 component of a robot I think I can take that.

A month ago I spotted the EyeClops Mini Projector in the store for $100, it seems to be the closest yet, and looks like the price has dropped to $80. 
It's also gotten some good reviews, which I put down to the "price point", not the "features" which are sketchy, not lumen rated and no pixel dimensions.  But it is battery operated which is pretty cool.

The Zoom box that I had my eye on and mentioned in the past seems to have become unavailable without every dropping below the $200 price point.

But just today I spotted a much higher end LED projector for $150. Recertified: 3M MPRO 110 Still not in my target range for price or lumen, but a very nice little package, much smaller than and better Pixel resolution than any of these other toy projectors.

A last mention in the toy projector realm is the Torpedo Entertainment and Game Projector which I have also mentioned before, but it's actually a bit higher priced than last time $100.  Non-LED lamp probably brighter than the LED options if hotter and more power draw.  Though this one can be run off a 12v battery pack.

I have not tried any of these little toys out, they all look fun, but just a little to expensive to pick up without a specific job for them yet.   Though I think I'll be giving one a try sometime soon.

We did some product research on the LED projectors a few years ago, and
what we came up with was that they probably needed to hit the <$100
price point to sell to a wide enough audience.  Also we felt that they
needed to hit >=60 lumen to actually be usable and better than just
looking at your cell phone screen.

none of the projectors here seem to meet those criteria yet actually.