Dimi Posted February 26, 2015 Report Share Posted February 26, 2015 Hello, Our Sound and Light Partners are on the verge of buying a LED bulb curtain which can be set up as real 3D curtain My question: Is the new feature in Watchout 6 - Virtual Displays - capable of pixel mapping? Will this work via Artnet right out of Watchout? Will there be a limitation of Artnet Universes? thanks for answering Dimi 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Leong Posted February 27, 2015 Report Share Posted February 27, 2015 AFAIK, the adjective itself (aka 'virtual') should mean that no physical display is connected or 'can be connected' as output. So whether it can be pixel mapped is a moot point. In any case, WO5 can be pixel mapped, so there is no reason to lose it in WO6 since LED Displays are quite common. From what I know, pixel mapped merely means that you position your media in the stage window exactly matching the number of pixels of the LED Displays, or larger than that, but any excess of pixels in the media over and above the pixels in the LED Displays in the Stage Displays will not/can not be seen, and the rest remain black. If ever you scale the media to match the size/total pixels of the LED Displays, it would not be pixel mapped, and you lose sharpness/definition because your output pixels are being shared by adjacent LED pixels. Your other question: "Will this work via Artnet right out of Watchout? Will there be a limitation of Artnet Universes?" Not sure what you mean by this. But whatever exists in WO5 should exist in WO6. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Morgan Wong Posted February 28, 2015 Moderator Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 No. you still need some converter for pixel mapping. Watchout not support video to DMX convert. but you can control DMX channel & value through ArtNet. Universe is 1in and 1out. M. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator jfk Posted February 28, 2015 Moderator Report Share Posted February 28, 2015 Hello, Our Sound and Light Partners are on the verge of buying a LED bulb curtain which can be set up as real 3D curtain My question: Is the new feature in Watchout 6 - Virtual Displays - capable of pixel mapping? Will this work via Artnet right out of Watchout? Will there be a limitation of Artnet Universes? thanks for answering Dimi WATCHOUT visual output is not available in the form of ArtNet/DMX. PixelMapping in this context is a completely different meaning than the 3D object pixel mapping available in WATCHOUT 6. Pixel mapping in the DMX context is about mapping video pixel behavuor to DMX channels. "if all you have is a hammer, everything tends to look like a nail". 'DMX mapped video' sounds like a more accurate moniker for this. A DMX approach to transporting visual content is resolution limited by nature, so it tends to be on the wrong end of the spectrum of WATCHOUT strengths. I suspect there are devices that accept one of the standard progressive video signal formats, either digital - DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, HD-SDI, or analog - VGA and output video mapped to DMX. Not a crazy price to pay for WATCHOUT's production / animation tools more on this below ... No. you still need some converter for pixel mapping. Watchout not support video to DMX convert. but you can control DMX channel & value through ArtNet. Universe is 1in and 1out. M. In WATCHOUT To output DMX as a cue to an output device, you are limited to one universe., that is completely unrelated to DMX pixel mapping however. To receive DMX as an update to an input device, you are limited to one universe as well. To record DMX and play it back, pretty sure you can have 16 universes. A bit tedious, as you can only record one universe at a time. To record multiple universes you must make multiple passes. For its intended use, multiple recording passes at the completion of production is usually not such a big deal. End result is a 16 universe DMX "player" included for free in WATCHOUT. So that may be an interesting method to test for DMX mapped video playback in an installation. Use a third party video to DMX convertor during production, record it for installation playback without the converter. Recording universe sized chunks of video in multiple passes may be a video synchronization concern however 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimi Posted March 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2015 Thanks for the answers... I know about the possibilities of Watchout 5 (1 Universe in/out, DMX recording)... my questions where concerning version 6 and I guess Partner's will soon (or already have?) a beta and so I wanted to know if anyone could clarify "the Virtual display" feature a bit. I understand the new version will be out soon... and patience is advised. Unfortunately I need to know soon whether I can do this (drive the SGM LED bulbs as mentioned below) with the new version of Watchout or if I have to look for another hardware/software (Chamsys, Jands, PC with Arkaos...) that can bring (Multi)Display Video AND "DMX mapped Video" (to use that term) under one roof. I really love the simplicity of Watchout to do complex stuff in an easy fashion compared to others on the market (Hippo, Pandora, Wings to name a few - the GUIs are terrible (overloaded) and compared to Watchout unusable or at least you need a lot more time) Virtual Display Output via Artnet over multiple Universes (to drive something like this - http://de.sgmlight.com/products/lb-100/c-23/p-149 would be really nice... Does anyone know a way to route one output in Watchout to another software that can make the conversion to Artnet? Is there something like "Syphon" on Macs for Windows? I don't want to use another hardware to convert my DVI to ARTNET (e.g. a PC with DVI capture card and Arkaos where the pixel mapper converts the signal to a few dozen universes) thanks 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Leong Posted March 2, 2015 Report Share Posted March 2, 2015 I'm not in the position to answer the other questions you have, except for "Syphon for Windows". It is called "Spout for Windows", but in beta mode I think. I have not tried it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Morgan Wong Posted March 2, 2015 Moderator Report Share Posted March 2, 2015 Thanks for the answers... I know about the possibilities of Watchout 5 (1 Universe in/out, DMX recording)... my questions where concerning version 6 and I guess Partner's will soon (or already have?) a beta and so I wanted to know if anyone could clarify "the Virtual display" feature a bit. I understand the new version will be out soon... and patience is advised. Unfortunately I need to know soon whether I can do this (drive the SGM LED bulbs as mentioned below) with the new version of Watchout or if I have to look for another hardware/software (Chamsys, Jands, PC with Arkaos...) that can bring (Multi)Display Video AND "DMX mapped Video" (to use that term) under one roof. I really love the simplicity of Watchout to do complex stuff in an easy fashion compared to others on the market (Hippo, Pandora, Wings to name a few - the GUIs are terrible (overloaded) and compared to Watchout unusable or at least you need a lot more time) Virtual Display Output via Artnet over multiple Universes (to drive something like this - http://de.sgmlight.com/products/lb-100/c-23/p-149 would be really nice... Does anyone know a way to route one output in Watchout to another software that can make the conversion to Artnet? Is there something like "Syphon" on Macs for Windows? I don't want to use another hardware to convert my DVI to ARTNET (e.g. a PC with DVI capture card and Arkaos where the pixel mapper converts the signal to a few dozen universes) thanks simple answer is NO. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator jfk Posted March 2, 2015 Moderator Report Share Posted March 2, 2015 Virtual Displays in WATCHOUT 6 A virtual display is a display area in the stage window that is not assigned to any output directly. Instead, the virtual display area in the stage also appears in the media item list. The virtual area's media item can then be mapped to a real output by placing the virtual display media item on a timeline and positioning it on the stage on a real output, as desired. Virtual displays must be used in conjunction with display devices that can remap portions of the received display signal to different real display areas. for example An LED signboard that is 7680 pixels wide by 270 pixels high (many sports stadiums contain such long ribbons of LED display on the soffets bewteen seating levels, for example). Using virtual displays, the 7680 x 270 information can be output on one 1920x1080 output. You would define four 1920x270 virtual displays and place them side by side on the stage. You would then take four 1920x270 virtual display's media items, place them on a timeline and place their 1920x270 rectangles on the real 1920x1080 display rectangle, stacked one on top of the other. LED signboards that are commonly configured as long ribbons typically connect via a processor that can then strip out the four 1920x270 areas and re-assemble them as 7680 x 270. Hope this helps. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
makkot Posted March 3, 2015 Report Share Posted March 3, 2015 So in a few words VIRTUAL DISPLAYS is just a mere help to fix media positions related to a defined setup where a single output is splitted between different hardwares... something that has been always doable by using some placeholders and pre compositions later on right ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dataton Partner Walter Posted March 3, 2015 Dataton Partner Report Share Posted March 3, 2015 Cheap solution (but incredibly solid, easy to use and easily combined with Watchout via midi or artnet : Madrix. Works like a charm!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Fahl Posted March 3, 2015 Report Share Posted March 3, 2015 Nope. It's hard to describe. Even after seeing it, many have trouble grasping what it is and how it is used. It's an "internal display", where the resulting pixels also appear as a medium. It can be used like any other image, either mapped onto a real display or for texturing onto 3D objects. I'll try to put together a video demo to show what it is and how it can be used soon. Mike 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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