US Legal Audience Scanning Effect

[drm916]

I tried this out a few days ago. Its a great effect. I am glad I found this thread. My projector isn't even a "nice" projector. So I can only imagine how great it would be with a nice one.

[Photonbeam]

Bill I don't suppose there's any way to make beams brighter is there?

I'm guessing if it was possible you'd have probably tried it, but it seems fans, tunnels, sheets etc (the things that are normally dim are bright and beams which are normally bright, are dim). It's almost as if the emulator is the antithesis of a laser projector.

I find it a little strange that a sheet can be bright but if you take away 99% of that sheet to leave just a beam, it appears so much dimmer.

That's the difference between vector and raster scanning. With a vector laser projector, if you draw a large circle (cone) with 5 watts and close it down to a dot, you have a 5 watt beam. With a raster scanning video projector (even if it uses lasers) the total light is spread out over the entire screen, whether the pixels are on or off - there is only so much light per pixel - and it's not much.

[White-Light]

That's the difference between vector and raster scanning. With a vector laser projector, if you draw a large circle (cone) with 5 watts and close it down to a dot, you have a 5 watt beam. With a raster scanning video projector (even if it uses lasers) the total light is spread out over the entire screen, whether the pixels are on or off - there is only so much light per pixel - and it's not much.

That makes sense. So I guess with a video projector it's not scanned then but just masked (sorry for the lack of knowledge but I know zip about video projector internals beyond understanding the spec differences).

[Photonbeam]

That makes sense. So I guess with a video projector it's not scanned then but just masked (sorry for the lack of knowledge but I know zip about video projector internals beyond understanding the spec differences).

That's exactly right. All the available light of the video raster projector is spread out over the entire screen. You're just turning off the areas you want "dark". Another big difference (and benefit) of vector scanning is the infinite contrast ratio. With raster projectors, black areas will still have some light.

[TechJunkie]

I didn't know how to respond to TechJunkie earlier in the thread

Dont mind me, I'm mentally challenged, and a certified lunatic with delusions of self grandeur. There is no right and wrong reply for me. Note the Curly avatar.

Please carry on.

[ClearBlu]

Right,got to chime in here. Laserelectronics have been doing this for years with their V3d software and I've personally used it with two Christie projectors to great effect, get a demo off their website or hit Clive up on here.
The obvious benefit is the masking on V3d and the effect that has in a dark club. Ilda files no problem.

[Pangolin]

Bill I don't suppose there's any way to make beams brighter is there?

I think there is. I've got some ideas I'd like to try, but just haven't had a chance to code them yet. So many things to do and so little time...

Right,got to chime in here. Laserelectronics have been doing this for years

There's always some hazard to claiming who was first at anything. After all, it is impossible to know what someone else is doing "in the lab" in a diagonal corner of the earth. With that having been said, I can prove that Pangolin did experimentation on this along with Barney Kaelin during the time of his US patents 4,974,957, 6,079,833 and 6,435,682 (before 1990 -- hard to believe 24 years have already passed...). Back then we were using specialized projectors whose color saturation and contrast level were enhanced, specially for military "war room" installations.

Maybe a decade later, when High End systems came out with their "Catalyst" media server, they too played around with this idea (with great hopes of market acceptance) and I heard rumors that they tried to patent it.

Even when we were playing with it at Barney's shop, I felt it was a semi-obvious idea (think about what you saw in a movie theater back when smoking was allowed), and was surprised that others weren't already doing it.

Personally, I don't consider the idea of projecting laser-like imagery through a video projector to be brilliant or non-obvious. However, what we did was take this idea several steps further, by adding specialized treatment to how the video images are created, and then by incorporating this in our software in a way that makes it easy to use and where there is nearly nothing new to learn in order to get the most out of it. BEYOND also supports an unlimited number of EmuLaser outputs, so if you have a multi-output video card, or desktop computer into which multiple video cards can be placed, then you can have several video projectors with which to use this technique.

Bill

[ClearBlu]

Bill,you should sit down with Clive @ Laserelectronics or have a look at V3d, as all the shortcomings have been ironed out years ago. Output is variable and colours can be changed,it'll handle . Avi and other formats. And the clever thing is the masking and colouration. How have you got around this Bill? As you know colours on the grid are effectively used as a 'shutter' for blanking idle input and the standard is using dark pixel mapping. I'm curious. How you've got round it.
I too went down the High End Route and have 2 DL1's that still occasionally see the 'light' of day. I also have Beyond so I'll give it a shot when I've got some time.
Using high end projectors certainly makes a difference to the 'mimic' of crowd scanning but for it to be effective you need a reasonably high output to cut it.
I'm sure I've got some picture's somewhere from a job a decade ago (with a Coherent Sabre and two Christie mm4 L's with 10k lumens o/put) It does work and could be the answer for the Draconian laws in the US.

[White-Light]

Pity Epson don't make a UB series projector with 8 or 10K lumens.

Clear I see the DL1 has 5K lumens but a relatively low contrast ratio: http://www.highend.com/pub/products/...docs/DL1DS.pdf

Wondering how you found the blacks.

[ClearBlu]

With V3d the masking was spot on, I'm sure if Clive is around he'll explain how he managed it, there was no ghosting or leakage on the blackout in between frames or when no image was on which made it really an obvious choice. The demo is on their website www.laserelectronicsltd.org.UK.
Or pm Clive on here, I've used them for over 15 years and never had anything but free advice and help from either Clive or Kevin.
It works well and I'm surprised non of the US guys have looked at the option.
I'm busy shouting at Beyond at the moment but I will dig out the pictures.
Imagine dual video cards and multiple rgb's with safe audience scanning - the possibilities are endless
;-)