LAS VEGAS – Top-ranking DJ Tiësto kicked off his current Kaleidoscope world tour last fall, with over 200 shows planned on five continents for an 18-month span. Unlimited Productions BV is producing the tour with visual content designed by Montreal-based Moment Factory. Tiësto has no set list – every show is different, and may contain a number of new songs which he has never played before. Unlimited Productions chose ArKaos MediaMaster for that reason: it can run pre-programmed content while still allowing live interaction with the music and the songs when needed.
Other factors in choosing the MediaMaster were reliability and portability, according to Koen De Puysseleir, light and set designer for Unlimited Productions.
"It had to be compact enough in order for us to bring it with us on any commercial flight as the distances between most of the shows are too big for shipping equipment with trucks," he noted. "The entire video control setup for the tour fits in my hand luggage in the plane. Not bad for two professional and reliable media servers plus controlling."
Unlimited Productions installed ArKaos MediaMaster on two MacBook Pro laptops running Snow Leopard, then programmed the entire video show on a ChamSys MQ100 Pro and played it back at the venues through a ChamSys MagicQ PC system with an extra wing.
"Moment Factory requested that we use a system that could handle Alpha Channels, audio-generated content and support custom effects – another challenge fulfilled by MediaMaster," Koen added.
Most of the shows have a central 6-by-6 meter screen and four 2-by-6 meter side screens filling the back of the stage, plus an additional 7-by-1 meter screen on the DJ booth. All cuts and mapping of the visuals were done within the content itself. One MacBook Pro, running MediaMaster, plays the content in its native resolution as one single image, which is sized to the 6-meter-high screens through a Folsom ImagePRO scan converter.
The second MacBook Pro triggers visuals on the DJ booth, making use of MediaMaster's built-in ability to scale and rotate visual layers, to add even more interactivity to the show.
"We've been pushing MediaMaster almost to its boundaries by running HD content on different layers while using ActionScript3 audio-generated content through a plug-in we wrote and some custom effects for use with the software's live camera input," said Koen.
"Working with Alpha Channels and the impressive audio-generated content that reacts exactly with the music is a real improvement to our show. The real-time effects give some very dynamic and exciting new ways to play back live cameras on the screens. But most important, MediaMaster is rock stable – at this point we have done about 50 shows and it has never failed on us."
For more information, please visit www.arkaos.net.
Photo by Unlimited Productions BV
