The Power of Catalyst, Macbook Pro, and Mtron
I just finished a job where I ran a three screen show off of one laptop. The client was amazed, the content creators were amazed, and I was amazed (even though I knew theoretically it would work). The client hired me because I claimed I could hop on an airplane and with one carryon, perform and entire three projector show.
The content creator is a friend of mine and said he had a show where he was literally going to be running everything off of DVDs and MX50 switchers. The problem he said was that having everything mix right or start right wouldn't work. We changed the content a bit and made pieces that were three screens wide instead of three one screen wide pieces. Rendered everything out as 2400x600 AIC 30FPS.
I showed up with my 2nd Gen Macbook Pro, Triple Head 2 Go, and one Firewire box with a 64Gb Mtron disk. Litterally, that was it. I plugged in three DB-15 to 5-Wire BNC converters directly into the Triple Head and then a 5-Wire which ran straight to the projectors. No preview monitors, nothing else.
I used the laptop display to run the local Preset control and the Cue control with Catalyst. I was even running a Parallels Desktop Virtual Machine with XP so I could read my notes from MS OneNote at the same time. I was also jamming out to Hybrid on iTunes. All of this was on the same machine. In a few hours, I had built all eighty something of the cues and they ran fine. Even running iTiunes and Parallels XP, I was still running Catalyst like a champ. Was able to run two full layers of 2400x800 simultaneously and had no frame loss.
Everything worked perfect.
Of course I'm not stupid, I also had an 8-Core Mac Pro with the whole show backed up, hot, and ready for show time in case of problems. I also shut off iTunes and Parallels as well as blue tooth, wifi, yahoo messenger, iChat, Mail, and who knows what else at show time. The point is, I didn't have to. It worked and ran like a champ. I had no problems. The client was blown away, and so was I.
It may not sound like much in theory but this was monumental proof that a properly programmed and configured Catalyst system really does save time, money, and provide unparalleled enhancements beyond what any traditional video company would ever be able to offer.
