WHICH DAC? Blah blah blah....

[White-Light]

It is kind of a bummer to buy a piece of hardware and find out that - in spite of interest from developers - that I cannot use it with ANYTHING except Pangolin software. Again, I am very new to projectors so I am sure it makes good sense from Pangolins perspective and I am not criticizing Pangolin since I do not understand the business models of the projector software companies.

It's not just Pangolin. Most of the professional manufacturers are using their own DAC's and file formats to prevent file sharing and other software being used.

I believe there is a possibility of an SDK but its just a low priority at a time when I understand there's a lot of high priority stuff going on.

Not in any way trying to put you off buying another DAC or going over to open source software but I'm just wondering what QS can't do that you want to do for parties and Halloween as its ideal for that?

VLJ is an absolute killer feature for parties, it can run in both the workspace and effects or both simultaneously and I've yet to see anything in any other software that comes close. As for Halloween, there are lots of Halloween files, the chance to trace more and a timeline you can create shows on, so I'm kind of struggling to see what's missing?

There's a VLJ tutorial here:

https://vimeo.com/19288816

If you compare QS to other professional companies software packages (as opposed to open source), you'll find it's one of the most powerful on the market for live play and one of the most comprehensive when it comes to features and included cue material. It's only limitation is in ultimate creation power but then again you don't get a Ferrari for Ford Fiesta money.

Tracing wise you seem have abandoned it and yet you can trace some very complex stuff. I traced a lot of logos before discovering that UK copyright didn't allow for fair usage and so abandoned the idea of giving away a logo pack.

There are a few people on here who underestimate what QS or the user can do with a bit of practice.

Here's a couple of actual QS traces in the preview window - these ones are too complex to display at a decent frame rate, but no-one can ever accuse them of being a poor or simple trace and they were difficult subjects as you'll see from the line complexity. The most I've done to any of these is tidy them a bit and I have no artistic skills what so ever. At school I drew a dog and the teacher told me it was a very nice cow - that's the level of my artistic skill!:

[JohnYayas]

I am sure QuickShow is nice but there is life out there outside of Pangolin. There is nothing wrong with having different software packages so that you can use their shows. And, some people just like to tinker around and want programmatic access to their projector. I don't know why Pangolin refuses to release SDKs for their DACs. Even the LD2000 is not really open. I have asked about it and Bill refused to let me use it saying that it is against their license agreement to use it in a product that would be considered competitive. But, I assume there is some business reason for it so I don't really have much to say about it. But, that still leaves people out in the cold if they want programmatic or more content so there is no choice other than buy DACs from different manufacturers.

[dzodzo]

compared having moncha dac to fb3, i have now with etherdream 2 DACs that i can use with LSX, so i can display 2 timelines in one software, with fb3 i wouldn't be able to connect it to LSX, so that's a small advantage (although i don't have money for secondary timeline projectors )

[White-Light]

But you don't need 2 time lines if you have projection zones as you can assign different tracks within the one time line to different zones and different zones to different projectors.

Don't get me wrong here, I am defending Pangolin on one level as I don't think Tom has perhaps explored QS as much as he thinks he has. QS is very shallow at 1st glance because a lot of the power is in the detail, however, on the other hand I am in no way rubbishing LSX or other open source software. It's as I said elsewhere, horses for courses.

[dzodzo]

i didn't know that QS has the capability, projection zones are mentioned in features but not assigning different tracks to different projectors
but anyway you need 2 DACs to be able to play 2 different frames on different projectors with one software, or is QS somehow able to address projectors connected in serial via one DAC? that would be cool although i can imagine driving only 2-3 projectors like this due to latency

[tsteele93]

White-Light, I agre with you that I can do much of what I want with QS. I guess the roadblock I am running up against is the fun-factor of being able to create something and sharing it with the community here.

For instance, it is kind of a bummer for me to take badgers cartoon file, tweak it and maybe improve a character here or there and then not be able to give back by sharing the tweaked version of that character with the community.

Also, I feel like laser cam is pretty awesome (I haven't used it yet, but swamidogs video and some of the others look pretty wicked) as a way to make a show that isn't just a canned set of animations that came with the QS package. I would think that is what sets shows apart and that most of us, even at the hobbyist level, would aspire to create is something different than he graphics that came on the SD card with our projector or with QS.

I do freely admit to being a noob and I haven't explored the depths of QS. That is why I am asking questions. But I have run into some limitations pretty quickly.

I was just VERY surprised that a file that I loaded from an ild format could not be saved back into that format.

I appreciate your patience with me and I really don't mean to bash QS or Pangolin. I just think it is interesting coming in from editing audio, pictures and video with some pre-conceived notions of how it will work based on those experiences and being quite surprised at how hard all of these companies are working to wall us in instead of working to let us create and share...

They are practically selling Dr. Lava's software for him...

[White-Light]

White-Light, I agree with you that I can do much of what I want with QS. I guess the roadblock I am running up against is the fun-factor of being able to create something and sharing it with the community here.

For instance, it is kind of a bummer for me to take badgers cartoon file, tweak it and maybe improve a character here or there and then not be able to give back by sharing the tweaked version of that character with the community.

If you sign up to Pangolin Show Space you can share it back to all of the QS users here and across the world and you can also download their shared content.

Also, I feel like laser cam is pretty awesome (I haven't used it yet, but swamidogs video and some of the others look pretty wicked) as a way to make a show that isn't just a canned set of animations that came with the QS package. I would think that is what sets shows apart and that most of us, even at the hobbyist level, would aspire to create is something different than he graphics that came on the SD card with our projector or with QS.

Well I can't disagree that Lasercam is impressive. However you can animate manually in QS and fairly quickly. If you create 2 frames a start frame and an end frame and then enter into QS the number of frames required and click animate, it will automatically create all the intermediate frames. eg if you want 40 frames, you provide the 1st one and the end one and click animate and it will fill in the other 38! It's not always perfect but small aberrations you can often get away with due to the frame rate. Anything else can be edited if you so desire. It's only if the intermediate frames are so bad as to be unusable and the amount of work in altering them too great have you failed.

What's more you can animate again with the same project so create another frame after the current animation and another end frame and animate again.

As for cues or frames, you can trace characters, you can draw characters and you can import ILD characters, so there are plenty of options other than being stuck with the supplied frames. Google has a huge database of images just waiting to be traced (although for legal reasons, understand I'm not encouraging you to infringe copyright images here).

I do freely admit to being a noob and I haven't explored the depths of QS. That is why I am asking questions. But I have run into some limitations pretty quickly.

There are limitations in every programme. LSX is very good at creating abstracts and powerful for the price. However, some would say its much harder to use and learn that QS as a lot of it is mathematical. QS is very good on ease of use and simple live control which is why some professional users such as Norty use it for their professional display businesses. Beyond on the other hand has been kept relatively simple but very powerful for creation except in the 3D programme which although simple by 3D standards is relatively complex simply because 3D drawing is complex. For drawing, you won't find another package on the market with as powerful a built in 3D programme, (the 2D programme is still under development), but it's expensive as you observed.

Fiesta has a very simple live control system, much simpler and it appears less powerful than QS from what I've seen, but then again it has more creation power.

Every package has its advantages and disadvantages. As said before, horses for courses.

I was just VERY surprised that a file that I loaded from an ild format could not be saved back into that format.

At a guess this is because to add in saving to ild would cause problems in distinguishing between files imported in ild and edited and files edited from the workspace when it came to saving time and I have no doubt a lot of this is to do with workspace cue protection. The QS workspace was produced professionally by Derek Garbo of Canada and no doubt there was some re-enumeration involved so I expect that having commissioned and bought the cues, Pangolin want to protect their IP just as many other companies restrict their workspaces now to their own proprietary formats.

I appreciate your patience with me and I really don't mean to bash QS or Pangolin. I just think it is interesting coming in from editing audio, pictures and video with some pre-conceived notions of how it will work based on those experiences and being quite surprised at how hard all of these companies are working to wall us in instead of working to let us create and share...

They are practically selling Dr. Lava's software for him...

Well again we're back to those horses. If commercial companies put their best features in their $500 packages, then no-one would have any reason to buy their top level software and again every package has advantages and disadvantages. It all comes down to you in deciding in what features your priorities lie.

[swamidog]

this would be easily solved by embedding a "do not export" flag in the headers of any content owned/licensed by pangolin.

QS doesn't export to ILDA because pangolin doesn't want their 600$ package to reduce sales of their 1500$+ dollar package.

personally, i find this incredulous. imagine buying photoshop elements only to discover it won't save industry standard jpgs

At a guess this is because to add in saving to ild would cause problems in distinguishing between files imported in ild and edited and files edited from the workspace when it came to saving time and I have no doubt a lot of this is to do with workspace cue protection. The QS workspace was produced professionally by Derek Garbo of Canada and no doubt there was some re-enumeration involved so I expect that having commissioned and bought the cues, Pangolin want to protect their IP just as many other companies restrict their workspaces now to their own proprietary formats.

[james]

If you get an 8 channel sound card (made for Dolby 7.1) then you have 8 channels of 16-bits at 48KHz. That is exactly equivalent to an ADAT machine.

Some pro audio sound cards can do 96KHz.

Modified ADAT machines are still in use today at many planetarium type laser shows. Some of the more famous laser artists sell their shows either as ADAT tapes or wave transcription of them.

The output of any laser DAC can be recorded as multi channel (DC coupled) digital audio. That's what it is!

It is also possible to skip the proprietary laser DAC and ADAT and go straight from a set of 3D, color vector art frames to wave in software.

That's what LaserBoy does (plus a whole lot more).

With a LaserBoy DAC you also have the advantage of being able to splice all the laser control signals plus stereo audio into a single wave file. Double click on that and you have a full color show with sound!

I guess you could say I'm biased. Or maybe I just see the common denominator in all of this.

James.

[dzodzo]

...Pangolin want to protect their IP just as many other companies restrict their workspaces now to their own proprietary formats.

i had a quick look at Moncha workspace and it seems like ordinary XML structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Moncha>
<Workspace>

however there seem to be some binary files that form animated frames in the workspace but not all of them (probably those created in MonchaDraw, those can't be even saved to .ILD as well)