Buying first computer for show control

[Evans Poulos]

Good afternoon everybody! I run a small multiuse theater for a local park district and we're looking to buy our first computer for the theater. We have an old EPC board with a midi USB dongle that visiting lighting designer uses from time to time that works well. We would like to be able to automate the light board, run sound, run projections and a variety of other things. We have a very tight budget obviously being a park district.

At first blush I would think to get a Mac Mini and Q lab and just get on with my life but we don't do anything else apple in the district at all so I'm wondering if there's a good windows alternative or if perhaps we should think about getting the Mac Mini but also getting a decent PC for playback control and other things any suggestions.

I'm actually very curious to find out if anybody has successfully operated to show using Q lab running in a virtual machine on windows that would be an ideal situation for me I think.

Right now I have about 60 tungsten light, 10 ETC LED pars, a 16 channel Mackie analog board, CD player, DVD player, VHS player, cassette player... you see why I am trying to combine things here right? And then I wonder why some idiot always brings his phone to try and run sound for a show...

Anyway I'd be very grateful for any and all advice you can give me. I have about a $2000 budget right now

 

[sk8rsdad]

Unless something has changed, Apple does not license their operating system on any hardware other than Apple so there's no legal way to put OS X on a Windows machine.

 

[Drew Schmidt]

Figure53 (Qlab) would steer you away from using non-Apple hardware. MacOS is created to work with very specific machines. VirtualMachines and Hackintoshes might work, but are rarely reliable for a show setting when there can be no hiccups.

I would recommend looking at the MacMini. You can get these for $500ish if you already have monitor, keyboard, etc. This should have the muscle you need if you're just doing audio and show control.

 

[notoriousRBG]

Get a Mac Mini, SSD, as powerful as you can afford. Ditto above. Hackintosh are just not that reliable. Really it's worth it for QLab-- industry standard and dirt cheap.

 

[Evans Poulos]

So USB audio
USB midi control
How do I feed VGA monitor and projector?

I appreciate the help I'll keep thinking of questions as this moves along

 

[Evans Poulos]

One of the reasons I was thinking PC in the first place was that I could use native graphics cards on these VGA devices

 

[dbaxter]

The Cue Player family of software is for Windows should you want to stay with that OS. [disclainer - it is from my company]
It will control up to 1024 DMX channels for lighting, no practical limit on cues for either sound or lights. With the Plus option, projections can be controlled from your VGA outputs.
Both programs have a free trial period so you can see if they fit your needs.

 

[Drew Schmidt]

See the image below for reference ...

There are two thunderbolt ports next to the HDMI port. These can be used as MiniDisplay ports. You can get a Thunderbolt - VGA adapter for your VGA monitor. Use the other Thunderbolt port or the HDMI port to get to your other screen. I often use HDMI via a Cat5 HDMI extender to get to my catwalks from the computer.

As for audio, if you don't already have a USB audio device and you're not trying to send separate audio to different locations, there's nothing wrong with using the headphone jack to go to your sound board. It's lesser quality, but at this point in your journey it's likely good enough. When you know why you need better quality, that's the time to spend the money.

Final disclaimer, the MacMini doesn't have a DVD drive (because it's 2015). You can purchase one as an add on. Sorry, there's no USB - VHS tape device : )

 

[Evans Poulos]

Lol. I already know that I'd rather not use the headphone jack. Already have buzzing issues with other devices people jack into our board...
What's a good USB capture device for an external video source? Or rip them on a pc and move them over?

 

[Drew Schmidt]

USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt - Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/intensity

 

[Evans Poulos]

I like. And not terribly spendy.

 

[jwh78]

I positively abhore Apple, but I the church I work for bought a MB Pro and a full Qlab license anyway. on my initiative. As far as my research could uncover there's just nothing that comes even close to Qlab for a payable amount of money, even if you already own a WinPC. Believe me, I've searched...

 

[robartsd]

Poor quality from one device's headphone jack does not equate to poor quality from all. Also I believe the audio output from all modern Macs have headphone jacks that support TOSLINK digital audio out using a mini-plug adapter.

 

[Evans Poulos]

If my board had a digital in...

 

[Drew Schmidt]

Honestly, the headphone jack isn't that bad. You're more likely going to be bound by the quality of sound effects that you can find.

If you're looking for a USB Audio Card, a lot of people have been happy with the Focusrite products. I have a Scarlett 2i2 that I really like. I also use this to do a lot of foley work for my productions (actually using the AKG Perception mic from B&H lower on the page I linked ... not studio band quality, but plenty good enough to do foley for live productions).

 

[Evans Poulos]

That would be more than good enough. I agree that some (most?) phone jacks are fine but I'm still dealing with a ton of crappy gear so I'm trying to make this as bulletproof as possible. It's getting better bit by bit busy still...

 

[DRU]

I'm actually very curious to find out if anybody has successfully operated to show using Q lab running in a virtual machine on windows that would be an ideal situation for me I think.

Running a virtual machine of OSX in windows would greatly reduce quality and speed. The computer has to render two operating systems instead of one, and the resources needed to run the cues Qlab would be used to render Qlab itself and OSX on the virtual machine. Never a good idea.

.message-body-dynamic { width: 300px; height: 250px; } Unless something has changed, Apple does not license their operating system on any hardware other than Apple so there's no legal way to put OS X on a Windows machine.

That is still true. Because Apple went from creating their own PowerPC chips to using Intel's CPUs, they saved tons of money and effort trying to keep up with Intel and AMD. But it does allow people to hack the OS onto non-Apple products as long as the specs required by the OS are the same as the hardware in the custom box they are making. Apple isn't going after individuals who do it in their homes for personal use, but if they try to sell them, they get hit hard by the lawyer machine.

On that note, buying an old Mac Pro silver tower and upgrading video, audio, memory, and HD is still kosher. You won't have the latest and greatest CPU (although a 3.33GHZ 6-Core Intel processor is nothing to complain about, despite being 5ish years old), but you can add multiple modern video cards, upgrade the memory, and add SSDs to increase performance. As long as you don't change the motherboard (where the Apple BIOS is located).

 

[ratthepoodle]

I agree with the mac mini. They are [relatively] inexpensive and also are build well. But, the thing that really makes Apple the better choice is QLab. Running audio out of the headphone jack should work fine too.

 

[robartsd]

Because Apple went from creating their own PowerPC chips to using Intel's CPUs, they saved tons of money and effort trying to keep up with Intel and AMD.

Apple never made PowerPC processors. They purchased them from IBM and Motorolla. IBM's PowerPC roadmap focused on servers, Motorolla's PowerPC roadmap focused on enbedded systems - neither were working to supply what Apple needed for 64 bit PowerPC notebooks. Intel's processors and roadmap was much more compatable with Apple's needs particularly for notebooks (high performance and efficiency) - that's why notebooks lead the transition to Intel processors.

So far Apple's in house design of CPU chips is limited to "System on a chip" processors for iOS devices (starting with Apple A4).

 

[Evans Poulos]

Back to this project now that the holidays are over. I'm pretty convinced that I should go with the Mac mini and Qlab for this. I'm wondering though if I should consider also getting a smaller PC to try out things like console software (I'll be putting in for a new console in next years budget! Lol). Do most of the majors make Mac versions as well?