SDI Record and Multi Mode playback

[richbell]

"Digital Lighting - Lighting's less offensive word for video."

Oh my.. High End's intention is to involve more lighting professionals in video. This has been happening in the background for many years. If I recall some of those that post on this forum have worked professionally with lighting for some time.

I for one am not scared of video (geez). However with Richard's help and the help of others including you Christian, High End is applying more lighting techniques to video. The end result is a sort of hybrid.

So... I guess we could call an LED wall behind a stage a "Digital Signage".

Anyway it is quite obvious that those of us that are into video (for what ever purpose) on a set or as part of a set are enjoying the advantage of being an advocate.

Richard Belliveau
Chief Technology Officer
High End Systems

[richbell]

"A typical 100 watt incandescent bulb has a luminous flux of about 1700 lumens"

OMG! What is that quote suppose to mean?

Richard.. have you only done video but never been involved in lighting optics?

Yes.. a 100 watt light bulb can be 1700 lumens when the light is captured by an integrating sphere!!!! However try to get that 1700 lumens through projection system optics and you will be lucky if you end up with 300 lumens.

An NOW.. We are going to talk about lumens:

First: What is the difference between 2.5K, 5K, 10K and 15K lumens?
Answer: Screen size

Second: What is the visual difference when you compare a projected image of the same size from a projector that is twice as bright as another?
Answer: You can see the difference but it does not look "twice as bright"

Third: If you have a background illumination of 1K lumens on a screen which
one will completely overshadow the 1K lumens? 5K, 10K or 15K?
Answer: None of them they are all contaminated

Fourth: What screen has a higher luminous measurement? A 300cm X 400cm
screen at 5K lumens or a 435cm x 580cm at 10K?
Answer: 300cm x 400cm at 5K lumens

Fifth: What produces a more stable light output over life? A xenon lamp
used with a 12K projector or a high pressure mercury used for a 5K
projector?
Answer: High pressure mercury lamps produce a more stable light output over
life. Xenon lamps can be 50% output within 500 hours. High pressure
mercury lamps can be 80% output at 500 hours.

Sixth: What is more expensive to own and operate? A single fixed projector
at 18K lumens or 4 automated DL-1 at 4500 lumens?
Answer: The single fixed projector at 18K lumens.

[richbell]

Jason.. you wrote
"For aerial effects, they are great, for anything else, they are not that great."

Huh?? The DL-1s looked good for aerial projections but you could not see them projected on a screen uhmm (fabric)? Think about that for a moment....

The only way a projector or light of ANY kind would look better projecting aerials but not good when projecting on a screen would be if the screens uhmm (fabric) were poorly suited.

This could have been fabric that only imaged a low portion of the light to the viewer.. like a net or dark fabric that absorbed light. Screen or scrim selection if very important.

Again.. if a DL-1 did not read on this "fabric" a 10k or 15K projector would have made very little difference. So check your fabric or check screen area (size).

To help promote understanding please go to:

http://www.highend.com/products/digi...hting/dl_1.asp

and click "DL1 in Action" there you will see actual shots of DL-1 in action on stage with many 1200 and 700 watt conventional movers. The answer to using video projection on stage is the proper set up of the stage and screens.

Richard Belliveau

[richbell]

Whew... !!

Thats all for now.. lets all work together.. we have the same goals.

Richard Belliveau

[samsc]

thankyou.

these issues need to be addressed to users
Im trying to explain what i and others have seen on shows.

our users dont have the benefit of research and development.
our users need to have these things addressed as part of the stage design problem.

They need clear guidance and demonstation.
They need to understand what a projector is and what it does, in a non-technical way.

I have had to deal with many such misunderstandings with Catalyst.

[samsc]

So... I guess we could call an LED wall behind a stage a "Digital Signage".

and guess what - i just had to directly compete with a company whose business is doing digital signs.

[litemover]

"Digital Lighting - Lighting's less offensive word for video."

Oh my.. High End's intention is to involve more lighting professionals in video. This has been happening in the background for many years. If I recall some of those that post on this forum have worked professionally with lighting for some time.

I for one am not scared of video (geez). However with Richard's help and the help of others including you Christian, High End is applying more lighting techniques to video. The end result is a sort of hybrid.

So... I guess we could call an LED wall behind a stage a "Digital Signage".

Anyway it is quite obvious that those of us that are into video (for what ever purpose) on a set or as part of a set are enjoying the advantage of being an advocate.

Richard Belliveau
Chief Technology Officer
High End Systems

No Doubt about that, Richard. But whichever way we look at it, it's still video. Made by a lighting company or not, it's very obviously Video. Calling it "Digital Lighting" just makes the video people who usually do this and the producers/directors who advocate the old ways such as Profile, think lighting people have come up with a term that they can use to sneak around and take control instead of just announce it honestly.

There are a few directors and producers who won't even consider it because they don't think lighting people should be doing video. On the other hand, there are a few that think it's great and what they love about it is the flexibility to change things on the spot. As I've stated before, I've been asked on many occasions "how is this lighting?" I always try to respond honestly and simply say it's not. Nothing more to say.

Let me tell you a little story, Richard, that you may find interesting and pertain to what I'm saying. This last weekend I received a frantic call from Ecuador, it was the Director for Miss Universe telling me that the content for Gloria Estefan was totally botched and needed to be completely replaced. He had so wished that they had used Catalyst for the job but they went with Profile instead because of the politics involved. Long story shorter, He asked me to produce the content to be played on Profile for the Gloria Estefan performances because the producers hated it. I agreed to do it. I did it in AE and FCP and sent it via Satellite to Ecuador to Dbeta and played back on Profile. In no way was Catalyst involved. It was just video being replaced by video.

The end of this story was that the producers were so incredibly happy with 'the Video' that I sent them that now they want to come down to my house to check out Catalyst to use for video as an alternative to Profile because Profile can't make radical changes to a whole song within a few minutes. No mention of Digital Lighting is ever made. I stopped using that term soon after I first hear it because it's not straight forward and it does sound sneaky as if it were something else than video.

The editing of this show took me in excess of 22 hrs, 9 hrs of rendering, and 2 hours of mastering and checking, not to mention the time it took for my wife to take the masters up to LA to get Sat fed to Ecuador. A process that would have normally taken me no more than an hour tops with Catalyst. And now they know...

If you market it as video that it controlled by lighting and has the same flexibility and power as lighting does with regards to immediately being able to change the look, you will have much better results because people will know what it is and they will love it because it's video that is way more flexible than the current TV based video servers out there. That would certainly help my cause. There are still video people who come up to me saying "what is this catalyst thing?". I still get calls from producers who say "so explain to me what Catalyst is, is it some lighting thing or is it video" I think the term "Digital Lighting" is so off the mark that it confuses people.

As a major proponent of this technology, the two main selling points for me have been 1) The incredible flexibility to be able to change the video as fast as I'm able to change the lighting, which is fast in comparison to the old way - having to spend all night re-editing a piece, master it to dbeta and test it (A real pain in the ass), and 2) the complete integration of video with the lighting to create a merged cohesive environment driven by 1 vision rather than a multitude of chefs in the kitchen baking up their own cakes.

Best,
Christian

[litemover]

"Digital Lighting - Lighting's less offensive word for video."
Anyway it is quite obvious that those of us that are into video (for what ever purpose) on a set or as part of a set are enjoying the advantage of being an advocate.

Richard Belliveau
Chief Technology Officer
High End Systems

BTW Richard,

It's been a fight and an uphill one for me. The advantages haven't yet paid off for me although I have faith that they will someday soon and that is what keeps me being an advocate. I've made both friends and enemies by being an advocate but I strongly believe that the artistic aspect of this will outweigh the naysayers anticatalyst mafia tactics and one day they won't be a problem for me.

Nevertheless, it has been a fun and interesting albeit a difficult path to walk.

Christian

[litemover]

Jason.. you wrote
"For aerial effects, they are great, for anything else, they are not that great."

Huh?? The DL-1s looked good for aerial projections but you could not see them projected on a screen uhmm (fabric)? Think about that for a moment....

The only way a projector or light of ANY kind would look better projecting aerials but not good when projecting on a screen would be if the screens uhmm (fabric) were poorly suited.

This could have been fabric that only imaged a low portion of the light to the viewer.. like a net or dark fabric that absorbed light. Screen or scrim selection if very important.

Again.. if a DL-1 did not read on this "fabric" a 10k or 15K projector would have made very little difference. So check your fabric or check screen area (size).

To help promote understanding please go to:

http://www.highend.com/products/digi...hting/dl_1.asp

and click "DL1 in Action" there you will see actual shots of DL-1 in action on stage with many 1200 and 700 watt conventional movers. The answer to using video projection on stage is the proper set up of the stage and screens.

Richard Belliveau

Hehe Richard,

When the DL-2 comes out, hopefully you won't have to spend so much energy explaining all of this.

I can see where you are coming from as I understand the circumstances under which a DL1 can look good projected on a screen. It does take circumstances however as opposed to putting a mirror on a lighting 28sx which most people don't understand. Things like Screen material, ambient light, throw, maximum levels adjustment in your imagery, etc... A lot of people that I know see it marketed more as a regular lighting fixture with video for gobos and they misunderstand it when it doesn't look that great next to a hundred mac 2k washes. It's a specialized fixture and I'm glad that you have posted some sort of guide to getting the most out of it but this should have been done much earlier, like before you came back, not your fault.

Nevertheless, even in the projector world, brightness is a selling factor, circumstances or not. The DL-1 lays within the PowerPoint or corporate presentation projector class, which is great if you don't need more punch. People will say what they see, lighting or video engineers alike, even Highend engineers. I myself have always thought that the fixture has a place in the industry, but it has gotten a bad wrap for its lack of punch. I think again that this is a marketing mistake and could have been avoided had it been prefaced by more facts about the circumstances under which the DL-1 shines best. If you think about all the disappointed people that have used the fixture in their tour that were never made aware of the environment and circumstances that the fixture best shines in, you would understand what I mean. Marketing strategy. A similar parallel could be drawn to the Hog 3, bad marketing - telling everyone in the beginning that it was very close to being finished, etc... Convincing a lot of underdeveloped consoles to be sold... All mistakes that have cost Highend a lot of money and even worse, trust.

So now you're back at highend having to clean up that mess and try to convince all of those dissapointed people that if you would have done x than your result would have been much better. I can't imagine what your day must be like. I really wish you the best of luck and I for one am looking forward to the right show to come along for me to use them so i can send you some good press and pictures. The only time I used them, all I had was a wood surface to use them on, hardly a projection surface but they were actually punchier than I thought they were gonna be. I knew though that they would've worked well on the right surface.

I still loved the idea of the orbital mirror heads on the lightning sx, barcos, and christies. They really were cool cept for the erector set that you had to put together around the unit.

I like to see this place as a wealth of information and experiences from the users of Catalyst that everyone can learn from. Bleasedale has done a fabulous job providing an informative place where people can be honest about their experiences/suggestions and get listened to. It has proven to be very useful because he has listened to everyone's suggestions and has in turn improved the software because of them.

It would be nice to see the same thing with the Hog 3. A mutually beneficial situation like this is invaluable to both the user and the developer.

Good job, R. Bleasedale.

Christian

[richbell]

" If you think about all the disappointed people"

Huh? What? Huh? Not the story of the users coming into HES. I appreciate very much what you have done for Catalyst but truly your experience with the DL-1 itself is very limited. We had one job together I believe where DL-1s were an afterthought (not your fault) and they were used shining on some dark oak. Almost every major lighting designer today that has used them has been VERY happy. Just a few includes:
Jim Tetlow
http://www.highend.com/news_events/n...asp?news_id=97
Marc Brickman
http://www.highend.com/news_events/n...asp?news_id=87
Andrew Dunning
http://www.landrudesign.com/

Again whether you use an 18k projector or a 5K projector is based upon screen size. Most designers are opting to use multiple projectors with multiple servers.. such as 4 DL-1 with two Catalyst servers instead of one 18K projector. This gives much more creative flexibility. AND.. YES.. I would not have thought that moving a conventional video image (not graphics) would have been something that special. But I have personally found that moving a conventional video image and ALLOWING it to distort to acute or obtuse angles is very creative. Not all images need to look "video". This is in part the reason for "digital lighting".

I used to think that it was important to keystone correct when moving an image.. not anymore depending on the look you want. I used to think that moving a video image might look cheap.. not anymore.. when a video image is moved from one location to another depending on the programming and the emotion involved it can be very powerful to the audience.

NOW.. as far as the Catalyst being involved with Digital Lighting advertising... I could try to change that.. after all it is a video server.. but then it is controlled by a LIGHTING desk. Maybe HES should advertise with "VidLighting" or something.. water under the bridge.

Christian as you know I really appreciate your creativity and work..(very much) but one day with the right application you will program a show with multiple DL-1s or something similar. You can then choreograph movement, movement crossfade, moveable scrims and screens, fades and video editing all at once. HES will be there for you.

For me the art of digital lighting involves the best of straight and technical video with the creative aspects of lighting. Three pixels.. thousands of pixels.. out of focus.. soft edge.. keystoned.. inverted and inside out.


Richard Belliveau