Learning Video Signals with the Mordax DATA oscilloscope

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We had been eyeing the Mordax DATA for a while, and finally pulled the trigger. It’s exciting to read every single output side-by-side on the Liquid TV. It feels like we essentially know nothing about this video synthesis (which is more or less true) all over again trying to understand it by waveform.

We’ll be posting example pictures pairing the DATA with the Liquid TV, and explaining the signal chain displayed. It’s helping us out a lot, and we figured it might make sense to other people even without seeing the display in person. We’d be excited to have anyone else’s oscilloscope demonstrations posted here too.

I’m sure a lot of people passing through already get it, but for new DATA users, here are some guidelines:

• The LZX system displays best in 0.5V resolution.
• At the lowest time resolution (50us), you can see about 15 scan lines at a time.
  • Works well with Range 4 Prismatic Ray
  • (525 lines make one frame every 1/30sec)
• If you want to approximate one frame as the width of your display, use 50ms time resolution.
  • Works well with Range 3 Prismatic Ray

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Prismatic Ray in Range 4 (Green), with Horizontal Sync from Visual Cortex (Yellow).

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Two Range 4 Prismatic Rays, one signal of higher amplitude (Red) subtracted from the other (Green) through the Bridge Mixer. The Green signal is displayed on Liquid TV.

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For a true check on learning, the student can solve this photo riddle which demonstrates a fundamental video synthesis topic.

• In what way can a single photo arise from the remaining two photos within the context of video synthesis?
• Familiarity with compositing helps a lot here:
  • The Art and Science of Digital Compositing
     

Difficulty: Easy

Easy: Some patch context is visible.
 

Answer (click to reveal):

• Signal One (Green): One vertical bar
• Signal Two (Red): Three vertical bars
• Signal Three (Blue): Two vertical bars
• Solution: Signal one minus signal two in Bridge Mixer.

 

Difficulty: Hard

Hard: No patch context visible.
 

Answer (click to reveal):

• Signal One (Green): One vertical bar
• Signal Two (Red): Three vertical bars
• Signal Three (Blue): Two vertical bars
• Solution: Signal one minus signal two in Bridge Mixer.

[48HourVideo]

Another riddle post. In what way can a single photo arise from the remaining two photos within the context of video synthesis?

Difficulty: Easy

Easy: Some patch context is visible.
 
Signal 1:

Signal 2:

Signal 3:

Answer (click to reveal):

• Signal One (Red): Two horizontal bars
• Signal Two (Blue): One narrow horizontal bar
• Signal Three (Green): One wide horizontal bar
• Solution: Signal Three minus Signal One in Bridge Mixer equals Signal Two.

 

Difficulty: Hard

Hard: No patch context visible.
 
Signal 1:

Signal 2:

Signal 3:

Answer (click to reveal):

• Signal One (Red): Two horizontal bars
• Signal Two (Blue): One narrow horizontal bar
• Signal Three (Green): One wide horizontal bar
• Solution: Signal Three minus Signal One in Bridge Mixer equals Signal Two.

[joem]

For the price of the Mordax Data, you could get a Rigol oscilloscope that has good enough bandwidth and resolution to see a single video line at a time. The Rigol would be better for DIY electronics, too. That said, the Mordax Data is a great tool for eurorack audio, and as you’ve shown, somewhat useful for video.

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Batumi quad-LFO waveforms for voltage control of Memory Palace:

• Quadrature mode
  
  
  
   
   
• Phase mode with sliders 2-4 @ 90, 180, 270
  
  
  
   
   
• Phase mode with sliders 2-4 @ 270, 180, 90
  
  

If you want to start Phase mode with quadrature-like spacing identical to quadrature mode (in order to produce a quadrature signal while modifying the phase of independent waves), start with sliders 2-4 @ 270, 180, and 90 respectively.