Okay, okay, okay. I know y’all at LZX have a roadmap for future modules and no shortage of ideas. But maybe throwing some adtl. dreams into the pot could be helpful??? I dunno…
So I was watching @brownshoesonly’s really great recent visuals performance on YT and it just got me super jealous of the two projector action. And, sure, there are some existing hardware solutions for this kind of thing (if I recall correctly, he has said he was using dual Roland v-440HDs), but I don’t know that I would call any of them good or at least not easy (I certainly don’t want to lug around two huge mixers).
Thus, though I assume the economics of this would perhaps not make sense (?), I wonder if a module to perform this function could be developed? Like…
Three switch positions:
DUAL: provides two copies each of the frame split into left and right channels (dipswitch on board to select between cropping or stretching original aspect ratio)
X4: four identical copies of standard frame signal
QUAD: splits frame into four channels (1 is upper left, 2 upper right, 3 lower left, 4 lower right)
Haha. Yeah, I realize the size shown is totally unrealistic.
Also, at first was going to just render it with dual output only. And then saw that four would fit on the panel size and got greedy. Though even fitting a dual encoder on a board mounted to a 4hp panel seems unrealistic.
Definitely conceived in the realm of dream rather than foreseeable reality — not least because of the likely cost. (But maybe there’s a way to keep that reasonable?)
Huh. Guess I hadn’t searched Amazon for one of these in a while (or, at least, hadn’t used the correct search terms). Have y’all (or anyone here) used one of these cheap Chinese boxes? I assume, for SD signals, the likely low quality is reasonably acceptable.
And, I mean, I definitely have a bunch of dist. amps already. Was really just thinking of what features could be handy to have in an all-in-one solution.
…But, yeah, willing to admit all this kind of functionality probably makes more sense as an outboard box.
This is a cool idea! But to make it a EuroRack module in 4HP with skiff friendly mounting depths would be impossible. It’s more likely we’ll see something like this as a function of a larger system module with a digital core like TBC2 or Memory Palace with quad output encoders (at least 16HP-26HP.) Hardware wise, something like TBC2 but with a 1x decoder + 4x encoder configuration rather than a 2x decoder + 2x encoder configuration, that could do many scaling tricks like this, would be interesting.
this would be very interesting indeed! i’ve wanted to setup a 3 output system that would be able to process RGB channels individually so that you could combine them via projector placement for a little while now. Although since I finally put the order in for a chromagnon I bet that something like this could be achieved between structure, memory palace, chromagnon, visual cortex expander, and visual cortex. plenty of outputs in the system right now for that I think I’ll have to start considering how it would be done. That being said I would still love a simple solution for dual/quad setups without the extra boxes
Really cool idea @sean
I’ve just seen this thread now so hopefully it can be somewhat reawakened. #Syntonie has a module that will help with the first option, 4 cloned outs of the composite input.
Was just thinking something that smudges, basically. So I guess that is a low pass…? But with a high cutoff range, so it could go from almost no blurring to a lot (whereas an audio filter would already start with a lot of blurring at its highest frequencies).
Honestly, for whatever reason, learning about the electronics behind the scenes is like learning a new language for me (i.e. difficult and mind-numbing/not at all enjoyable). So I am left with passively suggesting things (throwing together a panel sketch is, conversely, super easy for me) — hoping someone might take the bait — as annoyingly non-DIY-spirit as that perhaps is. I dunno. We all have our limits.
And I actually do already have more than 3 ways to smear in my system but not 3 identical ways that can be precisely controlled to match, or not, by either pots or CV. In an ideal world I guess I would have the rack space and money to go for three Curtains (or whatever its successor is), but also often I just need a simple blur for which Curtain is overkill. So really the ideal for me would be to have one Curtain and then one module like this. Kind of like having a Staircase and Syntonie’s Quad Frequency Doubler.
But I have no doubt that someone with an understanding of how things actually work could likely make a much more interesting module than what I’ve proposed.
…I should add that I know you were responding to Robbertunist — but was just feeling a bit called out too! (Not because I think you were, but because of my own issues.) Frankly more than a little sad that I just can’t seem to wrap my poor brain around the electronics of all of this stuff.
Honestly I don’t think anyone should feel one iota of guilt about not wanting to DIY or figure out the electronics that drive this stuff.
It’s way more exciting to me that it’s a mish-mash of folks in the community here who are video artists, instrument makers, casual dabblers in either or anything in between.
Often some of the more interesting ideas come from system users rather than system designers so keep the suggestions coming–someone might just run with your idea and make it real!
It’s a very good idea and your faceplate looks great! Very easy to grasp the immediate function.
I might try simulating something. I think recalculating the R and C values for video rate would be pretty simple. Getting it to fully pass everything when you want the filter to “turn off” might be tough, but not impossible. I think the idea of independent RGB smudging could look pretty neat.
