For this guest tutorial we're joined by Toby Harris, creator of the *spark d-fuser video mixer which is now available for retail purchase for the first time ever. More about the history of the development of the mixer can be found in our blog post on Toby's collaboration with D-Fuse and further discussion is on the Vidvox forums.
In this video Toby demonstrates the basic capabilities of the mixer and then covers how to use the OSC output option to adjust the audio levels in VDMX and Ableton Live running on each of the laptops feeding into the mixer for A/V mixing with DVI sources, and a quick look into the setup of a D-Fuse live cinema piece.
The *spark d-fuser is a very different take on a hardware video mixer design, where video means VGA, DVI, or HDMI at all sorts of resolutions, rather than NTSC, PAL or widescreen HD. That makes it a particularly useful tool for VJs and other visual artists looking to use computer software for live video performance and projection mapping. More videos describing how to use the video mixer can be found on vimeo or company website: http://sparklive.net/dfuser/
Some of the more noteworthy features for VDMX users and other Mac VJs include:
- Crossfade between laptops with compositing control from flat blend to full additive.
- Mix and then output through hardware like Matrox TripleHead2Go and DataPath X4.
- Full-quality, pixel-for-pixel from VDMX canvas to stage.
- Integrate mixer with lighting or audio equipment via OSC or DMX.