Posted: Sat 15 Jul 2006, 0:28 Post subject: DVD player time display issue
Hello,
I have a project in which I need musicians to follow the counter on the DVD player. I need to give the musicians a count in of at least 4 seconds and the counter must start at 0 seconds.
At the moment I can think of two possibilities to achieve this.
a) to have the DVD player count in to 0 seconds from approx. -5 seconds.
b) to have a way of resetting the DVD player's time display partway through a track e.g. after an initial 5 second period of black screen. (Seconds 0 - 5 are black then the time resets and starts again at 0 seconds when the visuals for the work begin.)
I haven't found a way of actually doing it yet so would appreciate some help and advice.
Joined: 04 Feb 2003 Posts: 587 Location: Lisboa, Portugal
Posted: Tue 18 Jul 2006, 2:33 Post subject:
Why can't the musicians simply start when the counter reaches 5...?
Consumer DVD players are pretty limited (for example, you don't get separate "video out" and "monitor out" signals, so you can't have one output with a timer display and one without). There's no real guarantee that a video will take precisely X seconds to start playing (so having a 5-second "intro" video before the main one can be risky, if you need absolute precision), and there's no standard "resettable" timer, like you have on videotape players.
One solution would be to use two players with an external synchroniser (ex., a Technovision), where one player has a video of a timer (that you can edit any way you want), while the other shows the "real" video. You do need players that can accept an external controller, though.
I've worked on quite a few videos for live concerts, and most of the time I prefer to sync the video to the audio, rather than the other way around (i.e., the video operator starts / pauses / changes the speed of the video to match the music).
The reason for the lack of flexibility with the timings is because the score has already been written and is in rehearsal.
I think that the easiest solution is going to be putting everything back by 1 minute.
If I were to use to two displays (one with timecode) I would do it all in Max/MSP/Jitter and have it as a DVD to archive the work etc. This would be the easiest solution at this stage but we don't have a good enough guarantee that the hardware available at the gig will be good enough or suitable for this. It also makes performances a little cumbersone compared to only requiring a dvd player.
Thanks a lot for your advice.
It would have been perfect if this could have been possible by using the DVD counter but it seems not. Too bad.
Joined: 04 Feb 2003 Posts: 587 Location: Lisboa, Portugal
Posted: Tue 18 Jul 2006, 22:47 Post subject:
Rees Archibald wrote:
The reason for the lack of flexibility with the timings is because the score has already been written and is in rehearsal.
Yes, that is the case in most situations, and it's usually easier to make the video length match the music than the other way around (especially in my case - most of the stuff I've done for live performances was for operas and classical music; you try asking Rossini or Prokofiev to change the music to match your video ).
After you have a video that more or less matches the music, you just need some way to adjust playback speed (or pause at some key moments), to keep things in sync. Very good solists will play within 1% of the "official" speed, but more often than not you're looking at an error of up to 15%, for an orchestra. Maybe 5% if they're all top-notch virtuosos, but even 5% can be very noticeable.
I usually make the videos slightly on the short side, and include one or two places where a pause or a change in speed won't be noticeable. And whoever is controlling the video needs to know the music, of course.
I normally do this with video files or a tape player (ex., DVCAM), though; I don't know any DVD player with decent control over playback speed.
P.S. - Don't get me started on equipment availability at concerts; I've had to "rescue" a couple by running home to get my own stuff because the company "responsible" (and I use the term very loosely) for the video projection didn't have any backups...
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