I’ve wanted a simple, compact VGA mixer for as long as I’ve had a laptop. Something I could fit in the same case as the laptop, and something that wouldn’t render my precise computer imagery through the lens of a 1950’s television: a single pixel line should not end up blurred and flickery when projected on a screen. My need is for live video performance, but anybody who has had to put a powerpoint presentation through their laptop’s tv-out socket or seen the chaos caused by swapping cables in and out of computers in front of an audience should have an idea of just how useful such a thing could be.

With the commercial world still clinging to PAL and NTSC in 2009, may I present the *spark d-fuser project: a video processor and controller capable of handling all the resolutions a VJ might need, processed in 4:4:4 RGB VGA/DVI, that will fit in a 12" laptop case and still have space in there for its natural partner, the Matrox TripleHead2Go. And it won’t break the bank: £750 or so.

This has been possible due to an affordable video processor being released that has the technical capabilities - finally - although out of the box it has no considerations for live, hands-on use. I have put a load of those considerations into a controller you plug into the unit, the idea being you can arrive at the gig, switch to the appropriate video setting, watch your two computers pick up the new output resolution, and then relax knowing you can crossfade between them, and have a fade to black control downstream of your laptop’s output, on a solid signal to the projectors that won’t flicker as the inputs get replugged or computers reboot.

My work on D-Fuse’s new live performance Particle was predicated on having such a box: a laptop sprinkled with custom code was the only way to meet the creative brief, but connecting a single laptop direct to projectors for gigs that can stretch to audiences in the thousands simply wasn’t an option, and while the software based setup allows generation of the complete composition and so the whole show, we still wanted two setups to switch between, tag teaming to develop and pace the performance. So I developed the prototype in July 2009, it had its first public outing at London’s Electrovision event, and we have used it for all the Particle performances since then. Its real, it works.

What takes this beyond a personal project is that as of autumn 2009 I am organising a limited production run of the controllers along in tandem with a officially developed firmware revision for the video processor. I’ve had a lot of enquiries, and anecdotally the pent-up demand in the VJ world is there. The aim is to take that, and be able to facilitate not only a nice bit of crossfader hardware, but use it to get the manufacturer tweak the video processor to serves our needs better. So at the bottom of this page is a sign-up form, and here are the rest of the details.

• The *spark d-fuser brief

A controller with DJ style crossfader, ‘Fade to Black’ knob, and video format selector (see below).
A video processor with two DVI-I inputs and a single DVI-I output, capable of the video formats following. The output is locked to its own timebase, ensuring solid output regardless of inputs. The input’s EDID switches to the current video format so your laptop should automatically change to the current resolution. See the full-sized poster attached at the bottom of this page for how I envision it being used, which can be in concert with a Matrox TripleHead2Go to drive multiple screens.

640x480  | 50/60Hz | 
1024x768 | 50/60Hz |
1600x600 | 50/60Hz | Timed as per Matrox TripleHead2Go, Dual 800x600
2048x768 | 50/60Hz | Timed as per Matrox TripleHead2Go, Dual 1024x768
1920x480 | 50/60Hz | Timed as per Matrox TripleHead2Go, Triple 640x480
1920x1080 | 50/60Hz | ie. 1080P

For the D-Fuse performance Particle, we use the prototype combined with a Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital Edition, wired with DVI cables from Laptop to Processor to TripleHead2Go, and then use DVI-VGA dongles on the TripleHead’s output to feed VGA to the projectors. Note it doesn’t have to be all DVI, the processor will happily process VGA instead, just get yourself some adapters.

• The community angle

By aggregating our orders we can get something more refined than what is possible to any of us individually. Currently, there are a number of footnotes in the setup of the controller and processor. This is where the firmware revision comes in: the video processor as available to any of us presently works but there are a number of issues in terms of setup. They are resolvable, but it boils down to this: the larger bulk order that can be placed for the video processor, the more the manufacturer is willing to tweak the device. And beyond the “can the number of EDID slots be increased to handle six resolutions in both 50&60hz” kind of issues, I’m hoping we can get a bit more creative: ‘add’ as well as ‘over’ blend modes, for instance.

• My role

To be clear, I am approaching this as a community based project to get this out there, rather than becoming a consumer electronics company myself. I see the opportunity to join the dots between a community with pent up demand for such a device, a manufacturer of a product that would not sell to this community otherwise, and some small scale manufacturing and development to make it all happen.

• You want one yesterday

There is one remaining thing: testers. My prototype works for me, but that is a sample of one, and I know how the processor’s on-screen menu works. If you need one right here now, are willing to buy the parts upfront, and are not afraid of a soldering iron, get in touch.

• Where we are now

1. July’09 > D-Fuse and *spark have a prototype controller and video processor. Crossfade and Fade to Black work. Fader response time, video format and EDID control need some tweaking; the processor’s OSD is still needed.
2. September’09 > I have spoken with the video processor manufacturer about enhancing the model’s firmware.
3. October’09 > This page published, expression of interest form published.
4. March’10 > Shawn Bonkowski helping with hardware.
5. May’10 > Anton Marini aka Vade testing processor with pooled VJ kit from all over NYC
6. June’10 > Prototype in form of final unit working. PCB layout still not complete.
7. June’10 > Presentation, reveal of the latest prototype, and hands-on demo at Visual Berlin festival. See embedded video, or in HD at vimeo

Updates as they happen are in the diary with the dvi mixer tag.

• A final note

This is a personal project page about something I’ve made. I would like to be a catalyst to make some of the ideas on this page happen. I would like to put buyers in contact with sellers. Any contract and/or responsibility will be between them. I expressly disclaim all warranties of any kind. Nothing herein shall be deemed to create any partnership, agency or contract of any kind. I am not a shop, that poster is a bit of fun. You get the idea.

• And now you’ve read through to the bottom, here’s where to sign-up

*spark d-fuser expression of interest form | closed (see http://tobyz.net/project/dvi-mixer)

project | 2009 | downloads: spark-dvimixer-berlinprototype.jpg · spark-dvimixer-electrovision-jul09.JPG · spark-dvimixer-poster-v002.png

I’ve wanted a simple, compact VGA mixer for as long as I’ve had a laptop. Something I could fit in the same case as the laptop, and something that wouldn’t render my precise computer imagery through the lens of a 1950’s television: a single pixel line should not end up blurred and flickery when projected on a screen. My need is for live video performance, but anybody who has had to put a powerpoint presentation through their laptop’s tv-out socket or seen the chaos caused by swapping cables in and out of computers in front of an audience should have an idea of just how useful such a thing could be.

I wrote this in 2009, when I had cracked how to co-opt a new bit of AV industry kit into a laptop friendly HD mixer. I wanted to get it out to everybody else I knew who was in the same position as I’d been. In 2012, I finally got there: the *spark d-fuser, backed by trading entity Spark Live Ltd: http://sparklive.net/dfuser

For some at-the-time context, there’s a nice piece on Create Digital Motion reacting to the release announcement: The Era of Hardware Mixing for Laptops Cometh: SPARK D-FUSER Available. And rolling back to the beginning, you can see what I set out to do in the original version of this project page. The opening paragraph was taken from it, and over those pre-release years the page had ~30k reads, by far the most popular here.

The development of the project has made a fair few diary posts, notably the joy of getting the project out there: ripples around the internet; rebooting the project two years later: pcbs, parts, plans redux; and after the successful pre-order run, taking it retail: *spark d-fuser: to retail.

I have a talk about the whole journey. It’s pretty special, I think. It’s also long, but it’s exposing the detail that in part makes it. Anyway, I’d have loved to hear something like this when I was younger – a parable of you-can-do.

Kickstarter pitches are now part of maker culture, but when do you hear back from the other side?
How did an Arduino hack turn into £50k in pre-orders? How do you get an assembly line going if all you have is a laptop? Four production runs and a retail partnership later, what were the final accounts?
Join Toby Harris as he talks product and dissects a successful run of a maker business.
https://tobyz.net/project/taking-stock

Finally, as a follow-up to that talk and the discussion around a product being just a bunch of files made on your computer, here is a zip of what you’d need to make a Spark D-Fuser. Having spent the talk trying to give a very concrete answer to ‘what is a product?’, it’s my most tangible version of that.

project | 2012 | downloads: Spark-DFuser-Source.zip · cdm-dfuser-available.png

as a warm-up to d-fuse’s trip to brazil, we performed a test of the new live piece “particle” at electrovision. it definitely felt like a test, as things were plugged in and loaded up to be used in anger in for the first time, and while i wasn’t so happy creatively with the form this first rendition took, that is secondary to what happened there: the dvi-mixer i’ve been dreaming of for years - and that my work turning transforming d-fuse’s live shows has been predicated on - worked as simply and unobtrusively as it should. all the sophistication and craziness lives in the laptop, where we have creative control as far as we’re wishing to configure and code, and we have hardware reliabiliy to ensure we can a) guarantee solid output signal to the projectors no matter what is going on with the laptops and b) mix together and tag team the performance between two visuals laptops.

i am working on getting this out to the vj world for a limited run, and a full announce will follow. it will cost somewhere in the range of a $1000 - £1000 , input and output VGA and DVI, and allow you to do what nothing else will: dualhead at 1600x600, triplehead at 1920x480, HD at 1920x1080@60Hz. it is based on a conference bit of kit that i have developed a controller for, and that i hope to get some extra vj-love put into its firmware. the trick to both those goals is to aggregate our demand into one order big enough for a production run of the controller to be made and for it to be worthwhile for the developers of the conference kit to spend some time enhancing it for our uses. so expect a full announcement once everything is locked down and orders can be taken.

diary | 18 jul 2009 | tagged: dvi-mixer · dfuse · *spark · vj · electrovision · particle

well… the word is officially out, and rippling around the internet. never seen so many twitter mentions or positive adjectives next to my name - which is nice - but the real deal is are there enough people out there who want one to make a limited production run from the prototype: its not about interest, it will be about orders. http://tobyz.net/project/dvi-mixer

is amazed from this example of userGeneratedProduct: 1° #DVI #Mixer supporting Matrox/Hd. @tobyspark http://tinyurl.com/yfnt4vh Support!

• Davide Gomba, http://twitter.com/VonGomben/status/5041067954

Nice! Compact DVI mixer. http://sparkav.co.uk/dvimixer (via @tobyspark + @_vade ) Make sure to read the direct impetus for its creation!

• Andrew Lovett-Barron, http://twitter.com/ReadyWater/status/5025800435

the amazing @tobyspark has put together the first affordable DVI mixer. you know you all want one! sign up for it now!

• jasper cook, http://twitter.com/VJzoo/status/5010721582

yes you, person who has repeatedly complained about the lack of “affordable” or “digital” mixers, you’re about to get both. So head on over to the *Spark D-Fuser project page, read all of the juicy details, and then hit Toby’s expression of interest form.

• jaymis, http://createdigitalmotion.com/2009/10/20/community-led-entry-to-the-digital-video-mixer-era-spark-d-fuser-approaches/

So now it is here. Not quite. Its really up to you now to go over to his page and put your money where it counts and order one of these things, custom built just for you. Your support will drive this device into demand.

• ilan katin, http://www.modul8.us/2009/10/dvi-mixer-finally-someone-has-done-it.html

diary | 21 oct 2009 | tagged: vj · video-out · dvi-mixer

here’s an update on the dvi-mixer project; i’ve been through the replies to the expression of interest, am working on some things that have come up, and here are a load of answers to common questions that came up.

CONTROLLER

Tap buttons: This is something a fair few people have asked for, and yes, I’m planning on adding this in.

Some kind of switch to route A or B to the output: Apart from temporary overrides of the tap buttons, the crossfader will be the only control for this. Its the hardware angle of just knowing that whatever the crossfader is set to, is what is actually happening. That said, I understand the concern of guaranteeing a solid output of A or B, not a flickering mostly A and a bit of B, and there’s already some logic in there to only start crossfading after a certain movement away from the extremes.

DJ-style faders: A single crossfader is all the control an over/normal or multiply blend mode needs. When you have additive mixing, you might want the A and B levels to be more than simply what is on either side of the crossfader’s knob. I’m thinking about this, DJ-style faders is probably overkill (expense, signal noise, break-ability and loss of simplicity of control surface), a fader curve setting at the back alongside the resolution setting is what I’m preferring at the moment.

Still button: I’m in the fence but looking into this. Displaying a preloaded still is possible, but then why not just full-screen an image on your laptop? A button to hammer on each channel while mixing live is probably not doable with the hardware as-is. We’ll see.

Single controller, multiple processors: This would fit what I want to do with a v2 controller.

Ethernet / OSC / Midi interface: This would fit what I want to do with a v2 controller.

Fader response time: Currently, this isn’t as I’d like it. Its been fine for D-Fuse or *spark use, but a scratch mixer it isn’t. Talking to the manufacturer turned up a technique that I hope should sort the communication side, and we should be shipping with a crossfader with much better electro-mechanical qualities. Regardless, there’ll be a demonstration video showing exactly the kind of response the shipping models will have before taking anybody’s money.

PROCESSOR

Higher resolutions: The hardware can only go so high. There is a bandwidth limit and a line length limit, so while it can do 1920x1200, it can’t do 2400x600 which is actually fewer pixels. I’d love it to be otherwise, I have a major project that really needs that Triplehead at 800x600, let alone the requests for 3072 x 768 I’ve had! Still, triple 640x480, dual 1024x768 and straight 1920x1080 are such a leap from 720x576. Addressing this seems the obvious next step for a version two of the processor.

Different resolutions: The twelve timings I settled on (six resolutions at 50 or 60Hz) were what seemed the most useful in my experience of AV work. Now bear with me: the processor has stored many more resolutions, but to get the plug’n’play ability I want the EDID info transmitted on the inputs needs to match. The tweaked firmware should increase the number of EDID memories, but this isn’t finite and we might not even get twelve. So as shipped, I haven’t had feedback that changes what the six common resolutions would be. The good news is that they should be reassignable, the bad news is that it won’t be trivial - lots of fiddling at your end.

Dual-link DVI: See above, the unit cannot process dual-link resolutions. There is a bonus here in that single link DVI cables are nicer, they should bend easier and weigh a good chunk less than dual-link ones. The dual-link cables I have are the single thing I really don’t like about the setup.

DVI-I sockets: You get DVI-D and VGA in the same socket, done right. Mix and match DVI or VGA inputs or output. EDID transmitted on the inputs that can be independent of what the output is doing.

Additive blend mode: The good news is that this should be happening! This is supercool, a great win. Also I’d had a blind-spot in not asking for multiply as well, so thanks to the feedback this is on the list as well: in terms of implementation, they’re pretty much equivalent, so the omens are good.

Photoshop-style blend modes: No chance. From my personal perspective, this is where you want to be doing stuff in software, the mixer is there to guarantee your signal to the projector, to give a hardware controlled fade to black, to allow seamless switching between between laptops outputting an image already fully composited in the modern vj app of your choice.

Audio In/Out: I’m not touching audio for a load of reasons, but would like to make a v2 controller that is controllable externally, so you could link an audio mixer with this via Midi / OSC for instance.

Split/Preview output: Its just two in, one-out. If you want to split anything, you’ll need separate DAs. Typically for me this is downstream of my TripleHead anyway, splitting the three VGA projector feeds to have a monitor preview of each.

TripleHead: Any TripleHead is separate to this. Bring your own if you want to use one in conjunction with the mixer. I’ve tested with a TH2Go Digital Edition only.

Latency: As per the fader response time, there’ll be a demonstration video showing exactly the kind of response the shipping models will have before taking anybody’s money. While we’re at it, the processing is in 24bit 4:4:4, so there should be no quality loss because of the mixing.

Internal power supply: It sucks, but its an external power supply for both the processor and controller I’m afraid. I did work through an all-in-one version, but the cons outweigh the pros.

THE SWEDES WON’T BUY A PIG IN A SACK

What a great saying; hat tip to Mikael. Once I have a processor running the tweaked firmware, and a controller representative of what will ship, I’ll make a video to show it all in action, and have the purchasing terms all laid out. And hopefully, you won’t just have my word to take for it… more to come soon.

diary | 11 nov 2009 | tagged: vj · video-out · dvi-mixer

its been quite some time since november and nothing visible has been happening. this is a quick post to say that stuff is happening behind the scenes, albeit with lots of delays caused by my spare time being completely out of sync with people i’ve been trying to get things going with. but now the momentum is back, and here shawn bonkowski and i are choosing sliders from the seemingly limitless selection on offer.
being trained in product design and loving this book, i’d have said i have a fair understanding of how much work it can take to transform a prototype into something suitable for manufacture and the real world. but i have to admit, this has taken far far longer than i expected. though now, i think, i can say that the controller is falling into place: still far from having a final, manufacturable, design, but the road to get there is clear and doable.

diary | 22 mar 2010 | tagged: vj · video-out · dvi-mixer

another work-in-progress update for the *spark d-fuser aka dvi mixer project: here we have the v1 pcb design, parts specified, plans drawn, and – with shawn multimeter in hand – the leg-work translating that into something that works. the real announcement here, though, is this: i will be presenting the project in full in berlin on the 12th june, so expect to know a lot more about what, when and how around then.

http://festival.visualberlin.org/day-program/
http://festival.visualberlin.org/news/spark-dvi-mixer-coming-to-berlin/

diary | 28 may 2010 | tagged: vj · video-out · visual berlin · dvi-mixer

a night tweaking firmware, a morning visiting the laser cutter workshop, some black vinyl, and the first ‘manufacturable’ prototype is born. huzzah: and promptly off to berlin…

diary | 08 jun 2010 | tagged: vj · dvi-mixer

having spent most of my time since arriving in berlin behind a laptop screen, it was time to unveil effort #1: a dvi mixer project presentation, keynote document with i’s dotted and t’s crossed. more importantly, for the swedes won’t buy a pig in a sack, the presentation was followed by a demo of - and hands on with - the new *spark d-fuser prototype.

thanks to prack for the photo, although i do look like a muppet…

diary | 11 jun 2010 | tagged: *spark · vj · visual berlin · dvi-mixer · talk

it’s been two and a half years since the magic week of going from idea to breaking a working dvi mixer package and the ensuing dreams of getting it out there for everybody. problem is, thats still in dream territory: where’s the manufacturable hardware or website buy-button?

by june 2010 there was a v1 and things were looking good. it had taken far longer than seemed necessary… but that turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. this was a year ago, and this slightly less. so what has been happening? long story short, the software^[1] had been waiting for hardware that was perpetually “almost” there. if you’re time-constrained, don’t work with someone else who is also time-constrained; doubly so if you’re entirely relying on them. if you don’t have the skills to make you the master of your own destiny, get on with getting them.

getting on with getting them, for the past two months i’ve been working away and what you see above is an extract from my first PCB design, a from-scratch reworking of what a d-fuser PCB needs to be. i’ve just sent it out to be manufactured and all-importantly assembled up (data sheets and making up eagle library parts may no longer scare me, but soldering 0.5mm pitch FFCs does). if it doesn’t work its because of the design, and that i can work with – and now have some guru backup.

all of which means it’s as if it’s may 2010 again: we’re in “pcbs, parts, plans” territory, complete with corresponding announcement: i will be presenting the work-in-progress at dorkbot london #78^[2]. the difference is, this time i know the whole widget, its entirely down to me, and i’ve even secured a little start-up funding to expedite this prototyping.

diary | 19 feb 2012 | tagged: video-out · embedded · dvi-mixer · vj · dorkbot

package was waiting for me, opened the box: two assembled pcbs, all looking as they should.

to my utter amazement, the electronics all work out: once the pinouts were updated in the mBed firmware, its talking RS232 to the video processor without drama or debugging. to my double amazement, after a quick primer on SPI and decyphering the oled’s datasheet, a test program incants the screen into life, and some time after that the random pixels of an uninitialised buffer have turned to a pattern of my coding. some image editing and two processing sketches later, i have the byte sequences to display a full screen image and typeset my choice of pixel font. the test program fleshed out and re-rolled as a library, and we have the above sight. given the delays the screen has caused since 2009, its so satisfying having this work as per the data sheet, as per design, out of the box; and not even relying on other people’s voodoo: my library, from scratch.

of course, things are never quite that simple. the electronics check out, but the physical fit requires some rejigging – note to self: order the enclosure in advance next time, no matter how well dimensioned its spec drawing may seem. a millimetre here, and a millimetre there has now forced a complete re-layout of the PCB.

aaaand: the ultimate irony? the physical fit issues weren’t just components hitting case internals. what you can’t see in the photo are 40 jumper wires coming out of the mBed’s socket on the PCB leading to a displaced mBed sat in a prototyping block. for all of the correct design and manufacture, these assemblies are compromised by a square peg (mBed pins) not fitting into a round hole (a quirk of the socket strip i spec’d). tssssch!

diary | 04 mar 2012 | tagged: embedded · dvi-mixer · vj

for a few fractions of a millimetre here and there, this is pretty much a whole new pcb design. it also meant no magnetically isolated ethernet jacks (the mag in magjack should really be magic instead/), which puts you on a path of doing that isolation your own circuitry, and that… that can put you on the path of feature creep.

yep, feature creep it has, and with that more delay. but for a very good end: that ethernet jack can now do more than ethernet…

diary | 23 apr 2012 | tagged: embedded · dvi-mixer · vj

huzzah: cash to prototype the mixer.

diary | 25 apr 2012 | tagged: qmat · dvi-mixer

after being one of the forces behind qmedia’s inaugural open studios last year, this year i was playing behind-the-scenes fixer, and with things fixed was able to get a few hours hacking on the dvi mixer before the show wrapped. even better, having established last year the reward of documentation, there was now a film crew looking intrigued and asking me to explain my research…

diary | 01 jun 2012 | tagged: qmedia open studios · qmat · vj · dvi-mixer

in which i set out my stall, hawking the wares and ideas that have helped make my ‘post-vj’ life. half an hour, somewhat off the cuff, and probably ill-advised in parts. the bulk of the talk covers some of the backroom work and event life of the dvi mixer hardware and screenrunner software projects, but contextualised by how i. vjs should work towards exploiting the liveness possible in their practice, ii. which should lead to a more rewarding, less clichéd life, iii. and one more profitable and sustainable.

diary | 02 jun 2012 | tagged: titler · dvi-mixer · *spark · vj · live performers meeting · talk

file under ‘so glad this worked first time, because if it hadn’t i wouldn’t have known where to start’.

as alluded to in the last mixer dev post, the ethernet jack wasn’t just an ethernet jack any more. my first pcb design had the ethernet jack as a ‘magjack’, which has the electrical isolation to protect the circuit from rogue cabling within the jack and was simply a case of leading the signals from the mbed to the jack. however, all the magjacks i could find could not in the end fit within the final tolerances of pcb position and case height, so i had to move to using a discrete isolation chip and a low-profile RJ45 socket. and at that point, the now plain RJ45 socket was suitable for direct connection of DMX - there’s a standard RJ45 pin mapping as well as the XLR type normally seen. so version two of the pcb, in addition to the physical fit issues, had two subcircuits for ethernet and RS485 leading to the socket, carefully electrically isolated and switched.

however, the assember did a snafu and a wrong part was fitted to power the RS485 subcircuit, and it blew on my attaching power. the advantage of it being a subcircuit is that it didn’t take anything down with it, so with an otherwise operational board, the DMX side was sidelined. some months later now the reworking has finally been done, so i made up some RJ45-XLR DMX patch cables, linked in a contributed DMX library from the mbed repository, worked it into the controller’s code, borrowed some DMX gateway hardware… and it just worked! fabulous.

diary | 20 jul 2012 | tagged: i/o · dvi-mixer · vj

things are building to a crescendo. as promised the software that runs the controller will be open-source, and so here it is being released.

http://mbed.org/users/tobyspark/code/SPK-DVIMXR/

notably -

• the main controller code at v18: http://mbed.org/users/tobyspark/code/SPK-DVIMXR/file/d46cc49f0f37/main.cpp
• library for communicating with TV-One units: http://mbed.org/users/tobyspark/code/SPK-TVOne/
• library for driving the OLED display used: http://mbed.org/users/tobyspark/code/spk_oled_ssd1305/

i’ve also been corralling the OSC code available for mbed into a library: http://mbed.org/users/tobyspark/code/OSC/

for history’s sake, and perhaps it will help any hackers, attached is a zip of the arduino code i had before the leap to mbed was made, v07 to today’s v18. none of the interface goodness, but has got the fast serial communication technique i came to along with keying etc.

diary | 02 aug 2012 | tagged: code · release · dvi-mixer · vj | downloads: spk_dvimxr_v07_arduino_final.zip

drawings do not a mixer make, but in their finality for production and retail they make things that much closer.

diary | 06 aug 2012 | tagged: dvi-mixer · vj

i’m super happy to announce that the site through which i’ll be detailing and selling the *spark d-fuser mixer will be going live next friday, then will start taking orders for a week starting the friday after that, and on the first september the manufacture run will start. huzzah!

diary | 10 aug 2012 | tagged: dvi-mixer · vj

“The *spark d-fuser lets you cross-fade between laptops. It’s compact, affordable and — after quite some time(!) — I’m now ready to make the manufacturing run. So this is the final prototype, and with this I’m making this video to demonstrate the features and functionality so you can decide whether you want to have one yourself. If you do, you need to order now so that it can go and be made as part of that manufacture run.”

https://vimeo.com/tobyspark/sparkdfuserdemo

the video doesn’t look like the above, but thats how i remember it: a huge amount of faff to get the point of being able to knock out not far off a one-take wonder. you can probably see the time in keynote presenters display, i’m not sure i want to: the afternoon turned to evening and then night, and i ended up returning home when the tube had started up again. note to self: start in a studio instead of trying to transform the office most of the bits and bobs were already in. at least the night allowed me to hijack a reception area, even if it meant ripping up half the floor to find the cabling.

diary | 18 aug 2012 | tagged: video-out · dvi-mixer · vj