Connecting multiple projectors to a laptop?

[imashination]

Depends, are you after small cheap and cheerful, or are you willing to spend proper money to get it done right for a paying audience? http://www.green-hippo.com/ make hardware and software systems which feed and control as many screens in sync as you like. Theatre-wise Ive now worked on a few stage shows where their gear is used to control 5-12 projectors to put backdrops up behind the actors.

[JuGGerNauTT]

Thanks for the link Mathew, I'll read more about this equipment tomorrow. From what I was informed from the client, he is willing to pay for all equipment that may be needed for this production, since it will be for paid audience and will take 8 months approx. for them to be ready to come out.

It's their first attempt for projecting motion graphics that travel from wall to wall with multiple projectors and that's why they asked us to do the research. I only hope we will be able to show them how all this comes together and how to operate it when we learn how to set it up.

If there is something from your experience you are willing to share with as to any pitfalls we may come accross please let me know :D

Thanks again for all your help :buttrock:

[olson]

Thanks for the link Mathew, I'll read more about this equipment tomorrow. From what I was informed from the client, he is willing to pay for all equipment that may be needed for this production, since it will be for paid audience and will take 8 months approx. for them to be ready to come out.

It's their first attempt for projecting motion graphics that travel from wall to wall with multiple projectors and that's why they asked us to do the research. I only hope we will be able to show them how all this comes together and how to operate it when we learn how to set it up.

If there is something from your experience you are willing to share with as to any pitfalls we may come accross please let me know :D

Thanks again for all your help :buttrock:

If you need a lot of displays, check out this.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity.aspx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Vf8R_gOec&feature=player_embedded

Six HD monitors per card, up to four cards in a system. They are out on the market right now for about $400 a card. Cheers!

[aglick]

You will have more options if you use full-sized PC(s) instead of laptops.

Sounds to me like you need to have multiple (more than 2) graphics outputs (heads) connected to the same computer. You will want to use multilpe GPUs -(or a multi-head GPU solution such as Eyefinity (http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity.aspx)

These options are impossible (or certainly impractical) with a laptop...

Adam
BOXXlabs

[imashination]

Well first of all I'd say dont run stuff from laptops, for the large part, theyre not designed for large scale continuous use, and id be very leery of running mission critical video from whats likely a tiny cheap 5400 rpm laptop drive. When the video stutters and lags behind the others, theyre gonna notice.

In general, your biggest problem will be fighting the lighting director to stop him flooding out your projections ;-) Whatever projector you use, it will always be too weak, no matter how much cash you throw at it, someone will always ask if it can be brighter.

Use a black stage and 75% grey walls, this will make managing bounced light far easier from what ive seen.

In general, add more contrast into the images than you think youll need. Subtle gradients and details will almost always be totally lost, dont expect to see wood grain for example, the stage lighting just wont allow for that sort of fidelity.

[rawshark]

You've got some good advice already, here's my 2 cents...I do a lot of work like this and use a program called Isadora (Troikatronix (http://www.troikatronix.com/isadora.html)) to run video - usually from desktop systems with multiple video cards and/or Matrox TripleHead2Go (http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/) boxes.

You can network the Isadora systems together to sync video between them, and have 1 control computer to run all the video from the 'slaves'.

This is a much cheaper solution than high end stuff like Watchout/Hippo etc, but obviously it's strength will depend what kind of hardware you have and what resolution of video you use.

You can run shows from laptops (also using Matrox TH2G for multiple outputs), although it's not recommended as mentioned before (heat being your main enemy)

..and yeah, as Imash said, hire a lighting designer who has experience working with projections!

[imashination]

..and yeah, as Imash said, hire a lighting designer who has experience working with projections!

Well its not even the experience thats a problem, to be honest youll have a hard time finding one anyway. Its finding one thats not pig headed and stuck in his ways. You need one that is open to new ideas and willing to pull back his lighting where needed. Lots of lighting directors see the lighting as their own piece of art and will do whatever they can to make that as good as it can be, to the detriment of the show as a whole.

The last guy we had was pretty decent, eg. on a scene where the actors go up on wire harnesses and start flying over london, he managed to match what we were doing in the video by projecting animated gobos down onto the stage to match, even down to the colour shifts between the warm lights and the cold blue night.

[JuGGerNauTT]

Thanks guys you've been great help so far. I'll have to invastigate and read more before I decide which proposal I shall make, mainly due to how efficient and easy the solution will be.

Hardware and software wise we'll have to be able to explain to people in the end, so gotta get busy reading!
I'll be sure to check back with you though :)

Adam, Aaron, Matthew, Luke thanks for helping out ! :beer:

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