garageCube

[vanakaru]

I have had this problem lately. We have projectors set up by rental shops - different models, different companies. I have no reason to doubt their professionalism.
When I hook up my MBP 4.1 DVI to VGA and run Modul8 I follow these steps
1-hook up cables and detect displays and set the output matching projectors
2-start M8, go full screen
at this point weird things start to happen.
Sometimes if I have Advanced Output Setup active my output is trown off center (a lot off) but everything looks fine in preview window. I can not adjust the position really to get it right. If I turn off the advanced setup all is back to normal.
Sometimes is just the opposite - when Advanced is turned off my output is twice as large and could not be adjusted properly. When I turn Advanced on it works right.
Could you guys who designed this explain what happens the output when one uses Advanced and when not.
So could anybody explain how could I use clips made 1024x768 without using *normalize*.

[vanakaru]

After some experimentation I have come to this: some projectors do scale to fit to size some do not. So you never know how your M8 output should set up. That is unless somebody would explain how scaling, normalize and advanced setup work in M8.
This is all I can find in documentation

The normalize option is useful when you want the size of your media to be normalized to the size of the screen whatever is their original pixel size. By default, Modul8 respects the original size of the media.
When this option is selected, the original size is ignored, and the full screen size becomes the default size. Please note that you can continue to scale your media even with the normalize mode enabled.
rotation
Modul8 - Documentation V. 2.5 © Copyright 2008 GarageCUBE, Boris Edelstein – All rights reserved

1. How do you explain this: *The normalize option is useful when you want the size of your media to be normalized to the size of the screen whatever is their original pixel size. By default, Modul8 respects the original size of the media.*
what is the size of the screen - is it the size I choose in display preferences for the projector or is this the M8 virtual screen size 640x480. How does M8 respect the original size of my media - if my clip size is 1024x768 doesn't it downscale to 640x480 ALWAYS.
2. And this: *When this option is selected, the original size is ignored, and the full screen size becomes the default size*. Original size of what is ignored and becomes default size of what.
However I read this it does not say anything.
In one topic Sigma sais that M8 outputs 640x480 always and scales up or down. With this in mind how does M8 supports/respects the original size of media.

[ilan]

- Replace 'normalize' with 'conform'

- Modul8 does use 640x480 as default, and it does respect the original size of your media. Make yourself a file in Photoshop that is 1000 x 1000 pixels and import it. What do you see? Then click on Normalize. What do you see?

- If in the system prefs for output you set the res to 1024 x 768 and enable full screen without changing the output of Modul8 in the advanced output to 1024 x 768 then you will get 640 x 480 that scales to conform to the 1024 x 768 output. While this may appear confusing at first, and I agree that is currently not documented properly, (I had to test this myself) it does allow for flexibility.

Say your device does not support 640 x 480 and all of your media IS 640 x 480?

I hope this was fast enough Although I shudder to think what is so important that on the 31st of December you needed it so urgently :p

[vanakaru]

Thanks, Ilan.
You can guess I have a show tonight. We are doing simple mapping of a building, but we need to have full control over the output. Last night at rehearsal I was not able to understand why our projection was sometimes way too large, sometimes very small, sometimes off center.
Our setup is as follows
projector stack of 4 Christie LX1500 set output 1024x768 (60hz), all 4 lined up to get 60,000 anises total.
media made 1024x768
what would be the best way to set up M8. I prefer to use Advanced to get extra preview on main screen, but I can live without it as well.

[ilan]

You're welcome. I figured it was one of those urgent gig things.

I know how feel about the extra preview, but the advanced output is the only way to go with this.

I have spent quit a few frustrating moments getting pixel sizes right myself. I will much prefer if I could specify a pixel size for my default output without using advanced. I find the aspect ratio thing a bit annoying as well. I have seen a team member actually take out a calculator to figure out what this is in relation to pixel output. That aught to be done by the computer so we don't have to worry about that.

[paddyfree]

Re: Calculating pixel sizes above, I find this iphone app "Aspects" very handy.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aspects/id322381809?mt=8



hope this helps!

[vanakaru]

Well it all went OK. Only one of the projectors kept shutting down sometimes.
I did not bother to map everything too precisely - it was rather cold and we did not have enough time to re-develop the content. I just lined verticals up correctly and got pretty good mapping effect. This was city government project, so lots of uninteresting text had to be displayed.
http://vimeo.com/18360053
I think at the rehearsal after we had left the projector guys fixed something, because next day everything worked as it should.
But as I said I have run into this many times and I would like to be sure what i am doing and why. So few questions:
-Does it make sense to use larger media than M8 native 640x480? If we have more pixels per square do these get scaled smaller so making large projection look better-sharper?
-Is it better to use normalize to do scaling or make your media right size?
-Would it be better to let projector do scaling and how to get this done?
-How does M8 output (640x480) correlate to System settings display output options(1024x768 this case)?

[ilan]

- For me, making it the right size is best.

- I am not sure what you mean by 'scaling.' You can zoom the make the projected image larger but beyond that, projectors that do more then that are usually really expensive and it is a questionable practice given the problems you are trying to address here.

- If your projector is set to 1024x768 and Modul8 is set to 640x480 then Modul8 simply stretches to meet that res.

You could argue that this is less sharp and this is entirely up to your own perceptions and the perception level of your audience. It less technical question and more one of presentation, although clearly, bandwidth wise 1024 will be heavier then 640, and that is dependent on your hardware.

I would recommend doing a test, make some content at both those sizes, enable advanced output for the 1024 and judge for yourself what the differences are. See what the trade offs are.

I am curious, how many lumens was the projector you were using in the video link you have provided?

[vanakaru]

We had 4X Christie LX1500, each 15 000 ansi/lumens. So 60.000 total. Snow with city lights kills most of it as you can see on the video and clouds even more. After fireworks clouds dropped their snow and sky cleared and projection gained 25% lumens for sure.

I meant scaling in M8 Transform.

So if I make Advanced 1024x768 and my media is that same size Modul will put out 1024x768 without up or down scaling?

I think what confuses me is the blue rectangle in Advanced window that shows 640x480 and represents supposedly M8 default-native screen size and if anything larger than than needs to downscale in order to fit in output. But this is not the case always, is it.
And I can not test my real output beforehand - my test projector is cheap home thing and it seems that PRO equipment require more sophisticated knowledge what I throw at it.