ArKaos MediaMaster may be the latest baby in the ArKaos video software family but it carries in its DNA all the best features of its ancestors’ different evolutions. These evolutions have always been triggered by users requests, by the different experimentations we made and by the goals we wanted to reach in terms of performance..

A few years ago when we decided to rewrite our core Engine, our goal was to get the best out of current and future computer architecture. So we designed the Engine to allow very creative layer blending with HD video loops by balancing the load between multi-core CPU’s and GPU’s. This was MediaMaster 1.0, then version 1.2 added very cool frame blending and audio support.

So we’ve been mainly focusing our resources on the Engine fluidity to achieve an optimal pixel flow and did not spent too much time working on the interface functionalities. This does not mean we did not care about that aspect but we’ve been really too busy with our hands dirty with pixel processing in order to build a perfectly stable and fast Engine that would become a solid base for further features and developments.

But we’ve also been listening to users feedback from everywhere, whether it be online  - on the support portal, in the forums and on our social networks – whether it be in real life - at trade shows worldwide or through a round of meetings and design sessions with lighting designers and resellers that we organized in January.

In other words, we were virtually behind you – yes, you! :) – looking above your shoulder at how you’re working with MediaMaster and how you’ve been using ArKaos VJ DMX in the past so we can understand how to make future versions working exactly the way you like, the way you need.

That’s how we came to realize that a typical lighting designer needs something like a Swiss Army Knife for video. No gig is twice the same; some days you just need to do a little bit of MIDI triggering, other days you may want to use a few DMX sliders to automate a small theater play, and once in a while you have that big tour with some heavy automation through a huge lighting console. Sometimes you may even have to work on a small corporate event where you will just trigger video loops from your computer keyboard..

Well you can do this all with MediaMaster 2.0. and even better, for those of you who never do the “big tour with some heavy automation through a huge lighting console” stuff, it will come in two versions; the Express that will be something like a 8 tools Swiss Army Knife with just the essential and the Pro that will be more like the full-featured 12 tools Swiss Army Knife.

In MediaMaster 2.0 we’ve implemented a very efficient Simple Mode as default for the Express version (which, by the way, will also be available in the Pro version). This mode is based on presets, for example if you are doing LED Mapping over your video output you will be able to create a preset defining your LED wall and easily recall it for many cells. Later on, if you edit this preset you will see the modification applied instantly to all cells using it without the need to re-edit all your show.

The main advantages of this new Simple Mode over what you had in VJ DMX are:

• the preset system makes it very quick and easy to use
• it allows triggering visuals with DMX, MIDI and any computer keyboard
• it makes use of MediaMaster‘s advanced media management system
• it benefits from the performance of the new video Engine (frame blending, audio support, etc…
• 64 patches of 64 cells are available to store visuals and effects
• everything is saved into the Media folder (content, patch information, show setup, ..) making it easy to move your files between computers

We are now close to the final release and we expect to start some public beta testing in the days to come, so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, the Marketing is working on the official communication, writing the press release and all the stuff they have to do, which will include announcing prices and offers for VJ DMX users, but we can already announce that we will offer free upgrade to MediaMaster Pro 2.0 to all current MediaMaster 1.x users.

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Meanwhile we have released GrandVJ 1.2 and we took the time to include a special template for the Ohm64 in this release. As we did for the Akai APC40, this new dedicated template allows even more bidirectional communication between both products and takes advantage of all the control and feedback possibilities offered by the device.
It’s just like if your GrandVJ was made for your Ohm64.. and vice-versa :)

And thus, below is a new video from Livid showing their controller in action with GrandVJ:

If the consoles have changed the club continues to trust the 3 ArKaos media servers installed by Sebastien to display visuals on the LEDs of the DJ / LJ booth and on the various Plasma screens around the place. And apparently, Nicolas Bailly put these to a good use: here’s a video from a light show he set up at the club on Pryda’s track “Miami to Atlanta”.

Nicolas also has a very interesting blog (in French) about lighting design, check it out if you want to know more about him.

And guess what? Setup was easy as 1,2,3 and it works great, just like with his Block he tested a few days ago.

As soon as we can get our hands on these cool toys we will prepare a nice little mapping template to include with the next release of GrandVJ.

“Now in the latest beta Arkaos GrandVJ add MIDI output and after never using it I was able to make a quick demo to show you how easy it is. They also have OSC support, which is really nice to see. This works the same on the Ohm64 and Block as shown in the video below.” (Read more..)

Vickie Claiborne

The September 2009 issue of PLSN features a long article about MediaMaster and the ArKaos Media Servers written by Vickie Claiborne, lighting designer, programmer and training specialist for consoles and media servers.

For those who never heard about Vickie, here are some highlights about her background and experience; Vickie has been developing training programs recognized worldwide for lighting control consoles and digital media systems. She has created and maintained a consistent training curriculum for many products from leading manufacturers, including Maxxyz, grandMa, ChamSys, Wholehog2 and Wholehog3.

Over the years she has been actively working as consultant for many leading industry names such as High End Systems, Martin or PRG. Claiborne’s programming experience includes the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony as well as numerous live concerts, broadcast events, and corporate industrials.

And last but not least, Vickie is the Lighting Programmer from the Emmy Award winning lighting team for CNN 2008 Presidential Debates.

In her article, after briefly presenting ArKaos she writes about the MediaMaster software itself and the ArKaos Media Servers, explaining the main features and detailing what’s new in version 1.1., finally concluding with the following:

Easy to Use
What has impressed me about MediaMaster from the first time I opened the application up to today is how user friendly and intuitive the application is.  Any programmer with a basic idea of how to select a fixture and manipulate a channel can very quickly build a great look.  Give that same programmer an hour or two with the software, and they can build many complicated looking images that would take hours in a video rendering software application.  I specifically like that the software runs on just about any current Mac or PC, and that ArKaos now has a hardware solution for pro touring applications.

ArKaos MediaMaster is a powerful, easy-to-use and downloadable media server at an amazingly affordable price.  The software has been completely redesigned so that lighting designers and productions of all sizes can utilize the power and flexibility of this media server when looking to incorporate video into a show.

Vickie clearly highlights in her conclusion the most important aspects we like to put forward about our products: ease of use, performance and affordability.

We at ArKaos have always had the feeling that our show and lighting products are not known enough in the USA, and with such an article from someone like Vickie this is clearly starting to change!

For further information about Vickie you may visit her website at vickieclaiborne.com.

Designed specifically with the show and lighting market in mind, MediaMaster 1.1 now comes with improved frame blending support allowing extremely smooth video playback even at slow speeds and software genlock making it possible to play several HD movies at up to 60 fps without dropping a single frame.

Other new developments include higher possible output resolution (up to 4096 px), Alpha Channel from source, support for grandMA’s MA-eDMX protocol, improved SoftEdge blending and more..

If you want all the details, we’ve got a nice Press Release for you. And if you just want to use it, it’s here and it’s a free upgrade for MediaMaster 1.0 users.

Finally – in order to make this announcement a little more attractive – here’s a QuickTime with some extracts from the Australian Idol TV show, they’re already using MediaMaster 1.1 running on 2 MacPro servers to drive the visuals on the stage. It’s a compilation of videos found on sharing web sites (hence the quality..)

MediaMaster has become a very popular media server software for TV stages because of its handy content library system that can accomodate up to 60.000 visuals and because it’s a very easy solution to have the control on both the visuals from the walls and all the lighting equipment from a single DMX console.

They have setup a very creative system to trigger visuals involving a NuVJ, a video camera, a MediaMaster controlled from a GrandMA console and.. a custom controller made of a simple plexiglass panel with duct tape, the so-called “PixelFucker controller”..

Philipp from LoopLight explains his creation:

Installation schema

I have setup ArKaos MediaMaster, ArKaos NuVJ and grandMA ultralight in one network session. The headlights were Jarag-5 in a matrix with par30 and 52 Movinglights with CMY. I made a led mapping patch in MediaMaster to control both the Jarags and the CMY of the movinglights.

MediaMaster was fed with two input streams:

The first input came from a camera filming a plexiglass panel divided in two areas, the left side was for Jarag and the right side for the CMY.

The second input was fed with the output of a NuVJ that I used to trigger SD Clips.

In MediaMaster I scaled my live input from the camera to match only the left part of the plexiglass and configured different effects like Edge detect, Greyscale and Contrast so that, by moving my hand vertically and horizontally in front of the camera (behind the left part of the plexiglass that I was using as guide), I could dynamically create visuals in combination with the SD Clips played by the NuVJ.

For the CMY, I prepared four large Colourwheels in different bright colours so just by moving them in the right half of the plexiglass I could change all CMY in the moving lights.

As you can see it’s a great example of creative processing involving video, lighting and a good dose of creativity.. And that’s exactly what the guys from LoopLight are known for!

Charlie is the guy with the funny colorful hood, of course we spotted the GrandVJ software interface on his laptop, with the Korg Nano’s..

So we sent him a little message to know more about him; read the full post for his explanations below the video.

Charlie explains:

The visual mix on the Samsung LCD screen on the desk was made with GrandVJ, of course I re-embedded the mix on the screen when rendering the final video to get a better image quality than what you get when filming a screen.

It only took me two takes of live mix on the 2 minutes music track from Zôl to get the result you see on the screen and actually I bought GrandVJ just the day before! Now I really intend to continue to use it..

In the past I have used ArKaos VJ MIDI then tried some other VJing software but I’ve never been really satisfied.. But when I tested GrandVJ that was all I was looking for. It’s fun, efficient, easy to use, adaptable, perfect when you need to be reactive and play instinctively.. And most importantly, it’s stable; no sudden crash!

My usual setup is very basic, I like to play quick with raw content, I prefer spending more time to prepare my loops, to film them and invent them than to configure software and controllers..

I’m using NanoPAD and NanoKEY controllers from Korg, with 24 loops per bank. I use the NanoKEY for opacity and as for the effects I’m mainly using Zoom Bass at the moment because I found it great to give the tempo a kick when it’s getting down after a speedy one hour mix!

I’ll definitely take some more time to dig GrandVJ and its functionalities but as it is I’m really glad I found such a great tool.

If you like it, keep an eye on Charlie Mars’ creations for more stuff like this, now that he’s getting used to GrandVJ :)

He can be found on his own web site but also on Vimeo, YouTube, DailyMotion and MySpace.

Back in March we featured a show report on the ArKaos web site about the installation made by lighting designer Sebastien Jurkowski at the Zouk Club in Kuala Lumpur.

This impressive setup in a not less impressive venue was the very first time our brand new media server software ArKaos MediaMaster was used in a Club installation and it proved to be a very good and reliable solution since it is now the subject of a 3 pages article and interview in mondo*dr magazine, the international publication for technology in entertainment.

Here is a short video clip from the installation in the main room at Zouk Club, read further below for some interesting parts of the article.

If you’re into clubbing installations be sure to read the full article with all technical details and illustrated with pictures. It is available in the digital version of the July/August edition of mondo*dr at page 54.

The article explains how the club has been refurbished from four rooms to 6 rooms with different music content to suit local clubbing conditions and gather a more sophisticated crowd. Whilst much of the audio system is a reconfiguration of the pre-existing, Sebastien has put a huge effort on the lighting part by bringing together video and lighting technologies to create an impressively immersive whole.

The main Zouk room features a serie of LED screens combining to form a 20 x 1.5m video wall, while the upstairs VIP room (overlooking the mainroom) has its own set of LED walls and Plasma screens . They all display visual content sent from a single ArKaos MediaMaster controlled by a Chamsys MagicQ desk which also controls Kinetic lighting from a Martin Pro rig.

“I first used ArKaos VJ DMX in the Mix Club“ explains Jurkowski. “It was controlled by the MagicQ from Chamsys. Having used it for two years, I realized how powerful these two tools were when working together”. Sebastien was so impressed that he actually joined the ArKaos team for a year, working with us to develop MediaMaster, our next generation media server software.

“Because of my nightclub background I wanted something funky, powerful, easy to use, and with lots of Audio generated visuals, audio triggered, text and bass reactive effects. They created MediaMaster which is controllable by DMX and also the GrandVJ software which is geared more for the Pure VJ acts,” he continues.

“The result of having this groundbreaking software in a club like Zouk which is equipped with LED walls, plasma TVs, and a whole array of lighting effects is quite astonishing. When the DJ plays the music (anything from trance to techno to house and even hip hop), it quite literally makes the visuals on the LEDs and plasmas plus the lighting effects bounce to the beat” (…)

In yet another room, Barsonic, an intimate space for Electro-Indie music has been created: A DJ booth, slashed with light (provided by an embedded LED rope) pulses colour in time to Elation Octostrip LEDs positioned around the room. A Martin Pro LightJockey controls PR Lighting and Martin Pro fixtures whilst MIDI real time video mixing is made possible by Arkaos’ GrandVJ.

With the Stylish VIP venue Aristo, a plush party pad Velvet, and the airy Terrace Bar to complete the line-up, Zouk has once again secured its place at the top of the KL club scene.