#62

Here’s what I’ve used regularly for day-to-day installations and experimentations:

The optoma’s are great if you don’t mind a bit of extra bulk. super cheap, great image and a good brightness for the cost.

Things to watch out for when buying a projector:

  • lux is not the same as lumens
  • lumens are measured differently by manufacturer and by light source (lots of low output LED cheapos falsely advertising that they are really bright)
  • 3000 (or more) lumens from a reputable manufacture is going to likely be bright enough if it’s in a dark room with the lights off. The brighter the better, get as high as you can afford. if you’ve got 3k to spend, you can likely get something much brighter than 3000-3500 lumens.
  • Resolution is decoupled from brightness but they both have an impact on image quality.
  • you might not need HD or 4k, it depends on how far folks are going to be viewing the projection from, think of this like the difference between a HiDPI / Retina Screen and a typical monitor, it’s basically the same. if you’re very close, you’ll see pixelation. but do you need to spend the money on the resolution since people will be close, or on the brightness since the projection will be huge?
  • throw distance is really important – how far back can the projector be placed. It might be worth looking at a short throw – check https://www.projectorcentral.com/projection-calculator-pro.cfm 's throw calculator to see how far back the projector will need to be. This may really factor into a performance setup if you’re setting up the projector yourself every time.

Let me know if you’ve got other questions, I’ve done A LOT of projection work interior, on custom screens and exterior onto buildings.

edit – this forum is a great place to look for projection related issues & questions: https://www.avsforum.com/forum/index.php

9 Likes
#63

Hi! Thanks for your response! I’ve been reading recently a lot about projectors, and always there is something missing from my ideal setup. When it’s not the lumens it’s the throw distance or resolution. The Sony VPL-PHZ10 seems to have a good balance between all those options and the price is bellow 3000$. Have you tried any laser projector in your installations?

#64

Seconding bmoren re throw distance.
Zoom lenses and lens shift range are important when you will be using the projector in multiple settings with little control.
Outdoor projection mapping really needs a bright projector. Even 3000 lumens was too weak for a test run I did last year outdoors in San Francisco - though this was in an area (near the freeway, lower potrero hill) that had a fair amount of light at night.

#65

I would like to start doing projection mappings using Touchdesigner, but just for testing indoors in controlled environment. So in case we do a show outdoors using projection mapping we will rent a bigger one.

#66

I’ve started playing out live with my eurorack setup, and started wondering about visualizations. I guess it’s best with a laptop, but not sure of software and how you would integrate this with my rack (for sync, and some control)

Just looking for any advice on this? Software to use? Modules for integrating? Any advice welcomed :slight_smile:

#67

Lumen is good software, and can take midi control.
For more processing of video material, try the Signal Culture apps..
The Vidiot from LZX is good and euro compatible but needs a camera and a monitor to be really exciting.

#68

Vizzie in Max is very easy and quick to get pretty awesome results. The workflow is very similar to modular.

#69

These are cool! Gonna keep an eye on this thread for more ideas :slight_smile:

#70

I got good results sending MIDI sequences from my octatrack to VDMX a few years ago.

I think if I was going for more custom stuff now, I’d probably look into some of the audio analysis in Processing or openFrameworks, but MIDI always gave me better results than audio on that front. Could do some cool logic routing/analysis in Max and send data out to p5/oF over osc.

#71

I’m guessing for most of these software suggestions, I’d need a CV to midi module, to send midi out to the computer?

Is this more usual than using audio to be analysed?

#72

I’ve seen both approaches used successfully separately and in tandem. Software such as VDMX, Resolume Arena, and TouchDesigner have capabilities both for realtime audio analysis as well as responding to MIDI/OSC input. What I would say from experience is that audio analysis techniques can be effective for more abstract, global changes/effects and MIDI input (based on CV or otherwise) is useful in creating very purposeful, targeted parameter changes in the system. This of course can get as complex and muddy as you have the time and energy for, but the main hurdle with audio analysis is calibration and dealing with very saturated sound input with a huge array of frequencies going on. It can get tricky to get specific audio events to do specific things, beyond targeting and filtering frequency bands.

#73

I’ve been using LumenApp for visuals on a Twitch sound / video show my kid and I do on a semi-regular basis, but had to figure out an alternative after I moved from OSX to Windows (Lumen is mac-only). Was introduced to Vizzie recently and had a pretty reasonable video synth setup in a few hours of off and on messing around. Really good stuff, with a little bit of Max knowhow you can do very clever things.

#75

Sorry to be ignorant, but how would you best integrate a modular with something like Vizzie? Is it best to send midi to it?

#76

I’m not sure what’s best, but I used the sound from my modular as a signal via adc~ and snapshot~ (I’m new to Max, so there might be better ways to do this)

Here’s a quick video I made this weekend when I got the system working, not a fantastic example, but you can see the video effect (solarizer) reacting to the sound from my modular.