"If you want what you are doing to trigger the laptop and than, in turn, trigger Vegas, that is a bit more complicated. You would have to have some sort of Midi in running from a sequencer and into the laptop to trigger whatever in on the timeline....and than have your signal going out to a video projector or plasmas displays or whatver you can afford."


This would be my goal..... I would like to have complete control over the video as I'm performing,,, Effects on the fly etc,,, Do you have any more insight on what type of hardware etc,, that I would need to create this type of enviorment? thanx again for your previous reply,,

I may be off, but you might want to make a search about VJing on Google. These guys are like DJs but with video and they probably use gear that's "customized" to make the job... and there must be a way to customize Vegas to do it, with the proper machine that being said.

If you're going to be applying effects on the fly, then I doubt Vegas is the right program - it will very likely slow down to a lower frame rate with some effects or combinations of effects, which will spoil the quality of the display.

You'd be better off with a Realtime hardware card such as Matrox X100 or similar, and this only works with Premiere...

Just a thought out of the blue... perhaps you could pre-make some MPEG 2 clips and make them into seprate chapters on 2 DVD's. You could use 2 DVD players and run them through a mixer and feed them into the projector. Not quite as easy as DJ'ing with audio CD's but higher quality than using the preview screen on a second monitor and taping that output.
I had an oppertunity recently to play my own DVD in an 1100 seat theater after hours. They had just gotten their projector and we were doing some comparisons. You had to stand closer than 20 feet from the screen to see even a hint of pixles. And it was brighter.

Perhaps pluggin the video into a Power Point presentation might be an easy way to get control over it. Still wouldn't help with FXs on the fly though.

"but higher quality than using the preview screen on a second monitor and taping that output." ( these are things I need to know,,,),

The creating of the video is one thing,
The awareness of the material,, the compatibility,and all the technical specifications are another,,,

I use acid pro ,,, soundforge and cd 5,,, for composing my music. I'm very much at ease with their interface .I'm aware if I out put a file in Mp3 format I'll lose quality or if I work in 24 bit mode I will have better quality but eat more cpu ,and so on and so on,,,, I'm somewhat new to video composition,, I lack in the knowledge of video terminology etc.. what hardware software graphics card etc... can produce a quality video that can be shown on a large screen
In the past when I'v experimented with demoing video programs,,,,I would have fun and create a video and say ,,Oh, this app is great and then send the file to a player and find that it lacks in quality,,,,, or that is limited to pixel size?? etc... I like the idea of creating two dvds',, Maybe I need to re-think my approach on my project and use more of a rehearsed method for performing ,,,, any more advice would be more than welcome ,,,thanx for the insight.............

I'm doing something somewhat similar to what you want to accomplish.

My band uses audio and video segues in our live performance. We shot and edited video specifically for the show, and also incorporated existing sound bites from our CD. We don't have a video crew so I needed to be able to control everything with the same MIDI controller that I use for my guitar rig. The pedalboard is a Behnringer FCB1010. It will send MIDI program change, continuous control, and (most importantly) MIDI notes. I layed all of my audio and video elements on a single Vegas timeline and separated them with markers. Then I rendered everything into one single AVI.

For the show itself, I lucked into a freebie Dell laptop that has a P3, 833 running WIN 2K. The laptop only has one USB port, so I picked up a cheap 2-port hub. I run the MIDI pedalboard in to a MidiMan 2X2, and that feeds one of the ports of the USB hub. I use a simple USB to analog audio converter to get clean stereo audio out of the laptop. For video out, I have two options depending on the situation. I can send video out thru firewire to my DAC2 convertor, or I can run a direct signal from the laptop to a video projector.

For the actual performance, I use SoundForge 5. I open the AVI file that contains all my audio and video elements. I convert the markers in to regions, and assign a MIDI note to trigger each separate element. I route the video to the external monitor, and the audio to the USB converter. Certain buttons on the FCB1010 are programmed to send a specific MIDI note. The MIDI notes correspond to specific regions on the SoundForge timeline. The regions are set to play to the end, then stop. As a safety measure, I program one of the pedalboard buttons to stop the playback (in case I hit the wrong sample). The laptop sits on top of my guitar rack, and the stereo audio is run through either a pair of direct boxes, or a small mixer.

There may be hardware/software solutions available that are specifically tailored to accomplish what I want...but they're probably WAY more expensive. I wanted to pull this all off using a doner laptop, and S.F. software (which I was already familiar with). The clips fire instantly...and that's with a relatively slow laptop HD.

You mentioned video effects in your live performance. I don't use them myself, but there may be a hardware solution available that offers MIDI control.

You can check out a lo-res version of the clip that we used to use to open our shows: http://www.illusionrock.com/moving_pictures.html

I hope some of that helps...

jp

I ckecked with a firend of mine who does midi programing for bands. He doesn't dp the video side but he does do midi and Vegas does Midi so....Try something like this - Do you play to/does your drummer play to a drum machine/click track? You can set a midi clock running and send an output to Vegas from the unit. So - here is the idea - you have set click track to edit too and you put together your piece. You can, and probably should, render out your project. Do this for as many songs as you want...naming all accordingly. You will need to se up your midi timecode in setting in Vegas and cut accorginldy beforehand. Now when you play live you just have to make sure you load up the right project in Vegas. What should happen is that the drum maching kicks in and starts sending that midi timecode and it hits Vegas and your video will trigger at the right time - in sync with what the dummer is playing to. As long as they are in time with the click track everyhting should be grooooovy bay-be. :)

Thanks so much for paving the road for me,, I new I could do it with my sf sony apps,,,,, now I just got to pull it off. As for the real time effects being triggered by a midi controller I've been demoing arkos vj and pilgrim R1.1, Thanx again,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

I was going to suggest arkaos http://www.arkaos.net/site/en/index.html

but you are already there. what are your impressions, I have never used it.

how about the korg entrancer?

http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?A_PROD_NO=KPE1