Computer and software for theater projection

T

tatarczuk

Member
Hey all,
I need to purchase a system and software for running up to 3 projectors (Panasonic PTD-6000US 6500 Lumens DLP). We are a non-profit dance theater company and need a reliable and cost-effective system. I am normally on the creative end, making the videos that are projected, and need solid advice on the technical end. We have used Isadora and a Mac Pro rental in the past but it's time to buy!
Any advice is much appreciated.
Thanks!
 
Are your three projectors showing the same thing or different sources? Catalyst and Arkaos are two fairly standard solutions; I've also come across Dataton Watchout but it's more expensive (but a great piece of kit).
 
QLab is cheap compared to Catalyst but it is extremely comparable to Isadora in terms of pricing though they are wildly different in terms of functionality.

Tatarczuk, first of all, can you share what you did and didn't like about the Isadora rig you rented? This might help us steer you in a good purchasing direction. Also, if you can share some sort of budget that would be pretty helpful. I have worked with several different dance companies as a projection programmer and we have used everything from Isadora on a Mac Mini Server with a TripleHead2Go to a 4 dongle Watchout Rig to a pair of rented Hippo HDs. There are a lot of potential options for you but budget and whether or not you plan to integrate things like interactivity and realtime content generation into your pieces is going to make a big different regarding what you are going to be best off purchasing.
 
If you have Isadora experience and being that you are a dance company I highly suggest developing further on that track. You can very likely get the discount from Mark for being a non-profit which brings a full Izzy license down to just around ~$250 I would reccomend Qlab only for those unfmiliar with Isadora that need a more user friendly interface. They both can accomplish the same thing, bt Qlab is more structured for strong manipulation of audio and Isadora has the potential to do so much more depending on your Izzy engineer :)

The Mac Pro is also a good way to go. The HD 5770 card is what we use in ours (two of) and we were able to get it to give us 6 outs (a bit tricky, but possible.)

Best of luck :)
-Jon
 
I just started using Qlab and i think its fantastic for theater projection. And its pretty easy to get the hang of!
 
QLab is great if you are exclusively using content built using some other application but you can't afford or don't need a proper media server or something like Watchout but its generative and manipulative capabilities are nearly non-existent and it limits you to the cue stack format, which is great if you are coming from the sound or lighting worlds but ultimately not ideal and certainly less-than-efficient for many projection programming tasks. Like most programs, QLab has its time and its place and in those circumstances it is absolutely fantastic but it is not a widely professionally accepted video playback application for a reason and that is the lack of flexibility offered by many other programs.

I would argue that there is little point in comparing Isadora and QLab as they are nearly polar opposites in terms of playback programs. QLab is intuitive but limited whereas Isadora can do pretty much anything you can imagine as long as you are either a really skilled programmer or have enough time to figure out how to do it. I will be the first to say that Isadora is not the right tools for many jobs but for some tasks there are few, if any, alternatives that will do what it does in the way that it does it.

Ultimately, I will echo my early comment in saying that more information regarding intended use is needed. At the moment, any recommendations that are being made are a little bit baseless. It is possible (though unlikely) that a Pandora's Box Quad is really the only option that will meet the OP's needs and it is equally possible that they only have a $1000 budget in which case a Mac Mini and TH2G is pushing their budget and they would need to use free software like VPT6.
 
tatarczuk said:
Hey all,
I need to purchase a system and software for running up to 3 projectors (Panasonic PTD-6000US 6500 Lumens DLP). We are a non-profit dance theater company and need a reliable and cost-effective system. I am normally on the creative end, making the videos that are projected, and need solid advice on the technical end. We have used Isadora and a Mac Pro rental in the past but it's time to buy!
Any advice is much appreciated.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
What are you looking to do with the video? Do you need playback only? Image mapping? Edge blending? How familiar are you with Windoze or Mac OS?

If you provide more of an explanation of how you intend to use the system, then you will get better advice toward the specific product that might fit your need instead of just learning that there are several systems out there.
 
Again, more specifics of your use case are needed, but I really like Renewed Vision's ProPresenter. It is "church software" but certainly useful outside the church environment. It allows use of a Matrox TripleHead2Go to feed three projectors, and can do edge blending in the system, and ProPresenter 5 will have even more control over the output for awkward projector setups like you often deal with in theatre. "Corner pinning" they call that. The whole setup runs very well for what it is, and is definitely worth considering given the price is only about $1000 (software only need a high-end Mac and a TH2G) for one computer - even with edge blending and multiscreen support.
 
After thorough testing I can recommend Resolume Arena 4 for edge-blending and multiscreen, or Isadora would work great. Decent iMac and life is good.
 
Kingcaffeine said:
After thorough testing I can recommend Resolume Arena 4 for edge-blending and multiscreen, or Isadora would work great. Decent iMac and life is good.
Click to expand...

I purchased a license of Arena 4 to experiment with and it definitely excels in many areas but the lack of any sort of cue stack or timeline for playback vastly limits how useful it can be as an independent program in typical performance applications. Combining it with a light board for a cuing or feeding it content via a separate playback application using Syphon can work but neither is extremely elegant. I would love to see them implement something as simple as the cue stacks offered by VPT or the Mbox Extreme.
 
So, in reading this and other threads, I would like to know if I am on the correct path.

equipment: three projectors, MacPro Laptop with a GT330M video card.

To buy:TripleHead2Go, Isadora

Would like to be able to:

Run different content to each projector as well as one image across all three to make one really large image.

Other questions:
1. Does Isadora do edge blending? or do I need something else?
2. Should I get the DE or the DPE version of the TH2Go?
3. Anything I might have forgotten?

Other info, all the projectors will be hooked up via VGA cabling as thats what I have...
Will be using as Rear Proj.

Thanks for any help
Sean...
 
Scarrgo said:
So, in reading this and other threads, I would like to know if I am on the correct path.

equipment: three projectors, MacPro Laptop with a GT330M video card.

To buy:TripleHead2Go, Isadora

Would like to be able to:

Run different content to each projector as well as one image across all three to make one really large image.
Click to expand...
The TH2G essentially lets the three displays appear to the computer as one very wide display. You can create different images on each projector via the TH2G by having three applications running with each on one third of the 'display', otherwise you are going to have to rely on the software to handle all of the processing and create three separate 'windows'.

Displaying three different images versus one single image also creates a situation where for displaying a single image with edge blending would want some physical overlap of the projected images while displaying a different image on each projector would not want any overlap. And since the TH2G does not address edge blending itself, that would also have to be handled by the video processing in the computer. Again, this suggests creating a single, edge blended image and then creating the multiple 'windows' for three images with all of the related image processing happening in the computer.

I believe that Isadora can address edge blending for three projectors and the 'windowing' but it will take some work and is probably going to represent a pretty heavy processing load.

Matrox is apparently no longer offering a version of the DH2G or TH2G with VGA outputs. The DE models that you noted have VGA and DVI-DL inputs but they have only DVI-I outputs so you would need a DVI-I to VGA adapter or cable for each display. The DPE models only support DisplayPort in and out.
 
Thanks for the info,
I have come up with a way to deal or not to have to deal with the edge blending, as I am going to use three separate RP screens and just deal with a 1' black bar between them. To force the magic of theater and that the mind will connect the images together for me.
I feel this will help me keep more of my hair and what little sanity I may have left.

It is my understanding that Isadora will help me keep track of the three different screens, trying to read more of the manual, and reading their help forums.

As of now, the images will all be stills, no video, as of yet... and Isadora will be the only thing the computer will have to deal with. Hopefully it wont be to taxing...

The DVI outputs of the TH2G kind of chap me as more adaptors I have to buy, but it is what it is.

Is there any other type of splitter box if you will that you might recommend keeping in mind I would like to stay under $500.00? for the box...

Again thanks,
Sean...
 
Scarrgo said:
Thanks for the info,
I have come up with a way to deal or not to have to deal with the edge blending, as I am going to use three separate RP screens and just deal with a 1' black bar between them. To force the magic of theater and that the mind will connect the images together for me.
I feel this will help me keep more of my hair and what little sanity I may have left.

It is my understanding that Isadora will help me keep track of the three different screens, trying to read more of the manual, and reading their help forums.

As of now, the images will all be stills, no video, as of yet... and Isadora will be the only thing the computer will have to deal with. Hopefully it wont be to taxing...

The DVI outputs of the TH2G kind of chap me as more adaptors I have to buy, but it is what it is.

Is there any other type of splitter box if you will that you might recommend keeping in mind I would like to stay under $500.00? for the box...

Again thanks,
Sean...
Click to expand...

Izzy will let you keep track of the separate screens.

Processor load shouldn't be an issue with only still content.

One more thing to keep track of but passive adapters are only a couple of bucks each on monoprice.

No there is no other type of splitter box you should be looking at with a less than $500 budget.
 
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