my 5W RRGBB projector

[Benm]

Wow, thats a mighty big build!

Must be an enourmous job to get everything aligned, its about 7 lasers all in all right?

 

[ElektroFreak]

So that's what lasershows have become now- a series of meaningless frames pasted together, with no stream of coherence (pardon the pun) or meaning whatsoever. On a few of them the frames aren't even beat-matched (oh, come on, even a DMX show card can manage better).

You could be forgiven if it were a live show- those frames would be pretty decent if it were pasted together at half a second's notice, in the middle of an event and never having heard the music before..

Funnily enough a DMX show card could probably achieve the same. Now, only thing here is, with the QM2K, you don't even need to paste the frames together. If I'm not mistaken, the LD2K does beat-matching automatically, and LiveQuick/LivePro does it even better.

Forgive me if I'm being a little too harsh here, but once upon a time, lasershows actually had meaning, and weren't just a series of frames mashed together.

Ever seen some of dsli_jon's Dark Side of the Moon shows? They actually had meaning. The show actually fit the music. Here's a link, if you haven't seen it already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_vbI_uq2rU

And given the equipment and software you have access to, we'd perhaps have reason to expect better.

Of course, for someone that's never seen a laser before, it'd be passable. But why compare with the lowest common denominator? It could be better. The means exist for it to be better. It should be better.

And of course, a sincere thanks to Pangolin, and their 'revolutionary' products which are solely responsible for this race to the bottom. Without Pangolin, who'd be able to get away with mashing up a bunch of frames together and passing it off as a lasershow?

You know, I actually agree with you on this mostly. I don't think that the shows that Flecom linked to are all that bad, I'm pretty sure that it was camera flicker causing things to seem out of sync. I use Pangolin myself, and I love it... HOWEVER there was a time when laser shows were almost magical, and the sync of a good planetarium show was part of the art and had a good deal to do with the overall experience. It's somewhat of a shame that there aren't more people in to those kinds of shows, with various grating, lumia and abstract effects plus beams. One of the issues is that a good beamtable system capable of planetarium-style shows is prohibitively expensive for many if not most, which has resulted in a tendency in recent years to fill stages predominantly with XY projectors. They give a great effect, especially when you've got several on a stage, but there haven't been as many good mirror shows around it seems like to me. In Europe especially you're hard pressed to find much more than a few XY projectors on stages, but fortunately there are a few folks left here in the US that mess with that stuff, including DLSI_jon.

 

[flecom]

Wow, thats a mighty big build!

Must be an enourmous job to get everything aligned, its about 7 lasers all in all right?

6

So that's what lasershows have become now- a series of meaningless frames pasted together, with no stream of coherence (pardon the pun) or meaning whatsoever. On a few of them the frames aren't even beat-matched (oh, come on, even a DMX show card can manage better).

You could be forgiven if it were a live show- those frames would be pretty decent if it were pasted together at half a second's notice, in the middle of an event and never having heard the music before..

Funnily enough a DMX show card could probably achieve the same. Now, only thing here is, with the QM2K, you don't even need to paste the frames together. If I'm not mistaken, the LD2K does beat-matching automatically, and LiveQuick/LivePro does it even better.

Forgive me if I'm being a little too harsh here, but once upon a time, lasershows actually had meaning, and weren't just a series of frames mashed together.

Ever seen some of dsli_jon's Dark Side of the Moon shows? They actually had meaning. The show actually fit the music. Here's a link, if you haven't seen it already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_vbI_uq2rU

And given the equipment and software you have access to, we'd perhaps have reason to expect better.

Of course, for someone that's never seen a laser before, it'd be passable. But why compare with the lowest common denominator? It could be better. The means exist for it to be better. It should be better.

And of course, a sincere thanks to Pangolin, and their 'revolutionary' products which are solely responsible for this race to the bottom. Without Pangolin, who'd be able to get away with mashing up a bunch of frames together and passing it off as a lasershow?

uh... ok... which show did you find so offensive?

additionally cant watch that youtube video in the US

and please note I did not make ANY of those shows except the portal one, and its MEANT to be slightly out of sync because thats how it was in the video game

also I would like to see a DMX card do raster frames like in the "Music" show

You know, I actually agree with you on this mostly. I don't think that the shows that Flecom linked to are all that bad, I'm pretty sure that it was camera flicker causing things to seem out of sync. I use Pangolin myself, and I love it... HOWEVER there was a time when laser shows were almost magical, and the sync of a good planetarium show was part of the art and had a good deal to do with the overall experience. It's somewhat of a shame that there aren't more people in to those kinds of shows, with various grating, lumia and abstract effects plus beams. One of the issues is that a good beamtable system capable of planetarium-style shows is prohibitively expensive for many if not most, which has resulted in a tendency in recent years to fill stages predominantly with XY projectors. They give a great effect, especially when you've got several on a stage, but there haven't been as many good mirror shows around it seems like to me. In Europe especially you're hard pressed to find much more than a few XY projectors on stages, but fortunately there are a few folks left here in the US that mess with that stuff, including DLSI_jon.

the irony of you guys complaining about these new shows is that the stairway to heaven show is like 25 years old and was created for the miami planetarium :na:

and if they seem out of sync (And some fo them are- pretty badly actually) its because my cellphone camera could not deal with the lasers and I cant find the charger for my crappy canon point and shoot

and I do have beam tables

 

[flecom]

and also unless you have used an analog console to do live shows, dont complain... they were truly a pain in the ass... and when you did find that awesome effect, there was no way to save it and recall it quickly later on...

unless you have $4k to blow on digisynth for awesome abstracts thats as good as they are going to get

 

[ElektroFreak]

er... I wasn't complaining about your show footage flecom. Please reread the first part of my post.

 

[flecom]

er... I wasn't complaining about your show footage flecom. Please reread the first part of my post.

ya I know, but you know, the magic and all that, yes, I appreciate it, a lot, I think laserium shows and all that are really, really cool... but ask Jon how much $$$ he makes off the laserium shows vs how much $$$ he makes off his laserscopes

I am working on an "old school" projector for the neat stuff (using a bunch of GM20's I got from jon and lumia wheels I got from david z) but this specific projector is meant to pay the bills... hence why I paid like $2000 for a box :yabbem:

 

[goninanbl00d]

Oh, I forgot you couldn't paste together double posts in a quote. I also wonder if the edit button works.

It wasn't one show in particular, instead, it was the fact that all the shows were a series of frames pasted together. No flow, no logic, no nothing.

I don't hate graphics. If you've seen Geetone's work with vector graphics then you'll see that graphics can have flow, and a show with graphics can have meaning.

Of course, a DMX card can't do rasters, and the vector graphics are often slightly crappier.

Having said that, going from a $50 to a $1500 piece of hardware, there should be some significant difference. Not just slightly-sharper-but-still-meaningless frames.

And before you ask, back when I had my projector going single-colour, I did run it from a DMX512 desk.

It's surprisingly what you can do with a few channel flash buttons and 24 faders.

 

[Things]

Having said that, going from a $50 to a $1500 piece of hardware, there should be some significant difference. Not just slightly-sharper-but-still-meaningless frames.

While the frames may look slightly better, it's up to the designer of the shows to make them look good. The hardware is capable of it, however most people (including myself definitely) find it extremely hard to create a good show. Graphics shows have to be done completely by hand (Imagine making your own cartoon on a sketch book, but out of vector art on a computer), and as such, take stupid amounts of time, and most people really don't have time to do that anymore, unless it's their fulltime job.

In which case, they'll probably want some kind of reward for all their hard work, and that's when you have to pay for shows.

Which is why you won't find stunning shows like you see in planetariums floating around on youtube done on some guys laser projector - Those shows were designed by people paid do it, on systems specifically designed for the planetarium.

Not saying there aren't any stunning graphics shows out there, I've seen many that are mind blowing that everyone with a LD2K system has access to.

 

[flecom]

Oh, I forgot you couldn't paste together double posts in a quote. I also wonder if the edit button works.

huh?

It wasn't one show in particular, instead, it was the fact that all the shows were a series of frames pasted together. No flow, no logic, no nothing.

I don't hate graphics. If you've seen Geetone's work with vector graphics then you'll see that graphics can have flow, and a show with graphics can have meaning.

Of course, a DMX card can't do rasters, and the vector graphics are often slightly crappier.

Having said that, going from a $50 to a $1500 piece of hardware, there should be some significant difference. Not just slightly-sharper-but-still-meaningless frames.

And before you ask, back when I had my projector going single-colour, I did run it from a DMX512 desk.

It's surprisingly what you can do with a few channel flash buttons and 24 faders.

ok, thats all fine and good but this thread is about my laser PROJECTOR, not my laser shows, which those are not even my shows (except for the Portal one, which if you played the game its not just meaningless frames... or well, they kind of are I guess, but they are the meaningless frames from the game so you would have to take that up with Valve)

I just recorded the shows so people could get an idea of what the projector can do... I don't have any amazing planetarium style shows because they dont pay the bills

 

[flecom]

Please direct all complaints to:

Melody

Harry de Boer
DTL Lasertechnology
Watermolendijk 2
9482 TD Tynaarlo
The Netherlands
Tel : + 31(0)592 530920
Fax: + 31(0)592 530929
Email: dtlinfo@dtllaser.nl
Web : lasershow | lasertruck | projectiebol| DTL lasershows voor binnen- en buitenpresentaties. DTL Lasertechnology multimediatruck

Elevation

LFI International
13221 SE 26th Street, Suite H
Bellevue, WA 98005 USA
Phone: +1-425-644-2777
E-mail: contact@lfiinternational.com
http://www.lfiinternational.com/

Sabre Dance

LFI International
13221 SE 26th Street, Suite H
Bellevue, WA 98005 USA
Phone: +1-425-644-2777
E-mail: contact@lfiinternational.com
http://www.lfiinternational.com/

"Music"

Audio Visual Imagineering
8440 Tradeport Drive, Suite 109
Orlando, FL 32827 USA
Phone: +1-407-859-8166
E-mail: joanne@av-imagineering.com
Audio Visual Imagineering

Stairway to Heaven

3G Productions
East Coast Control Systems
P.O. Box 486
347 Bigler Road
Bigler, Pennsylvania 16825
(814) 857-5420
FAX (814) 857- 5422
jon@eastcoastcontrol.com
ECCS Home Page2

Kryptonite

Audio Visual Imagineering
8440 Tradeport Drive, Suite 109
Orlando, FL 32827 USA
Phone: +1-407-859-8166
E-mail: joanne@av-imagineering.com
Audio Visual Imagineering

Portal Still Alive

Myself

Gradient Moby

Lawrence Ryan
LM Productions
LH Mouse
No.2 Church Street
Seaford, East Sussex BN25 1HD
+44 01323 890752 tel
+44 01323 898311 fax
LM Productions, Immersive video, Laser Shows, The Stratosphere, Multimedia, Event Services
lawrence@lasermagic.com

 

[millirad]

How much does the mechanical framework change position/drift with changes in temp? Does it stay in alignment with +/- 10 degrees F changes. Or do the optics have to be aligned again ? I'm wondering if that is an issue at all. +1 for the design/build.

 

[flecom]

How much does the mechanical framework change position/drift with changes in temp? Does it stay in alignment with +/- 10 degrees F changes. Or do the optics have to be aligned again ? I'm wondering if that is an issue at all. +1 for the design/build.

it could be an issue, but most of the kinematic mounts are 100TPI screws, so they stay pretty solid... additionally some of the kinematic mounts have locking rings (the brass rings on the mounts holding the dichros) so that helps also

the lasers themselves could drift I guess but it has not been noticable

its also been moved around a lot in the car and such and has kept its alignment so I am pretty happy

 

[jeffd]

Deflection of a material due to temperature change brings back memories from my mechanics of materials class haha!

I really doubt that whatever change of temperature that might occur in the projector would cause any significant deflection in the framework/mounts. I could do some quick calculations if you wanted to be sure!

Also, what a beautiful projector!

 

[b34npour]

This is quite a setup. Thoroughly enjoyed perusing this, thanks.

 

[paulzimm]

So that's what lasershows have become now- a series of meaningless frames pasted together, with no stream of coherence (pardon the pun) or meaning whatsoever.

I am just about to purchase the BEYOND version 1.0 special but you can do some really amazing stuff with QuickShow. I created the following show in just a couple of hours (the day of the event lol) and it was my first real graphic show in front of over a thousand people. This is my first projector custom built with the software for just over $1500. I think my little show has a "stream of coherence"

LINK: SFRCNA XVII Opening Laser Show - YouTube
* My video camera does record laser shows well - does not "flash" at all in person.

This show was created for the "South Florida Region of Narcotics Anonymous" (SFRCNA 17) and was projected at about 50' high on a white wall in the grand ballroom at the beginning of the SFRCNA convention. The crowd was BLOWN away! I still have people coming up to me asking how I did it lol.

PS - How the heck do you embed YouTube videos into vBulletin using BB code? I Googled and tried several different methods but none worked.