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!

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.

As a part of their creation process they make a very advanced use of ArKaos software’s blend and mask modes to map visuals on onto architecture or objects.

They have once again caught our attention with one of their latest installations, a stunning visual show in Breda’s cathedral. It’s a beautiful mix of painting projection, light sculpture, perfect mapping and great music made by a team of very experienced professionals..

But enough words, have a look at the video; it’s really worth watching to the end!

Credits goes to Yannick Jacquet (Legoman), Joanie Lemercier (crustea), Romain Tardy (Aalto) and Olivier Ratsi (Emovie) from ANTIVJ. Original music is by Thomas Vaquié, played on organ by Gerard Maters and the lighting design is by Giacinto Caponio.

Finally, we couldn’t resist adding another video to this post; the TV report from Dutch television where you can see the ANTIVJ team interviewed while setting up the show and explaining their background and how they evolved to this concept (the presentation is in Dutch but the interviews are in English). It also briefly shows some of ANTIVJ’s other very interesting realizations.

For more, be sure to check out Crustea’s YouTube Channel, ANTIVJ on Vimeo and the ANTIVJ Blog.