Qlab- using an ipad for Video output.

[Wes Lincoln R]

I am part of a very small, very new theatre company and we are trying to use new technologies on stage. ie. iPads. 

So I am trying to find a way to use the ipads as a screens for our show. 

Before I purchase AirDisplay. Is air display make my ipad an extension of my macbook screen? Is there any other way to set up cues on ipad. 

btw. I am not looking to control the show from the ipad. I am trying to use ipads as screens for Qlab.

I need this answered as soon as possible. 

Thanks so much. 

Wes

[Sean Dougall]

I’m afraid you’re not likely to get good performance that way. I don’t have any experience with AirDisplay, but I’ve found screensharing for video output is generally choppy and laggy at best (and at worst won’t work, and will just render black).

AirDisplay and other screensharing technologies generally take advantage of the fact that in typical desktop use, only a very small portion of the screen is normally changing at any time (e.g. the small rectangle around new characters as you type), so there are really very few pixels to send for each refresh. That’s not the case with video playback, where the entire frame changes on every refresh. Encoding and transmitting that entire frame of video is orders of magnitude more work.

If you can tolerate choppy rendering and potentially high latency in your use case, you might still be able to do some neat stuff with it. I certainly don’t want to discourage you from experimenting, but I wouldn’t expect the results to be smooth, particularly with multiple iPads connected to one computer.

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Sean Dougall
se...@figure53.com

[micpool]

Air Display (3) is probably your best option, and you can have a lot of fun experimenting with it!  Don't expect miracles though. It is reasonably stable but once you get beyond one screen it will get quite slow, even with still images.

Air Play is quite good at maintaining a display if a device is switched off or goes out of wifi range which is just as well. Qlab really doesn't like  the layout or number of displays changing while a workspace is open.

So you should get all your displays set up and arranged  before launching Qlab.

The main problem you are likely to encounter is that the order of the displays may change between uses, depending on what order you connect devices to Air display. This could make complicated set ups unworkable without very careful management of the connection process.

Attached are a couple of screenshots of a really stupidly large arrangement.

This used A MacBook Pro with a 27 inch monitor attached, 2 iPads, an iPhone5 and a mac mini running Air Display at the other end of the studio.

As you can see it does work,  and I created  a  7500x1600 5 screen surface.

This is beyond the limits of any sensible use. Start your experiment with one device and try adding devices as you develop techniques for your show.

Mic

[Angus Turner]

I'm not sure if such an app even exists, but the best way to do it I would imagine is to store the videos locally on the iPad and trigger via OSC or similar from QLab...

Thanks
Angus Turner
angus...@gmail.com

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[Rich Walsh]

http://www.marcotempest.com/screen/Public_MultiVid

Rich

[micpool]

Multivid is potentially a great program.

It is like StageCaller for video

It's true  strength is somewhat hidden in the descriptions of the app . It looks like it's prime purpose is to play video in sync on multiple devices, which it will do..

However using OSC you can trigger any video on any device asynchronously from Qlab

It's incredibly easy to get downloaded, configured and working but then you   come up against a lot of rough edges which makes it incredibly frustrating to use.

All the basics are there, file transfer, sandboxing, local and remote editing, playlists, end of clip behaviours. It just isn't finished as a tool for general use.

It's a great shame that the program can't be acquired by a company with the resources to make it the program all it should be,  and support it !! 

Mic

[micpool]

On Thursday, March 12, 2015 at 10:02:56 PM UTC, Rich Walsh wrote:

http://www.marcotempest.com/screen/Public_MultiVid

If anyone hasn't seen the 'cybermagic'  of Marco Tempest the videos are here:

http://marcotempest.com/screen/PublicMediaLibraryV3/language/en?selectedMediaType=AllVideo&timeRange=9999&mediaSearchText=&currentIndexMediaItems=1&currentIndexDocItems=1

He really is an immensely talented artist,

Mic

[Robin Oswald]

I have been using iVideoShow for two years now in a show where there are 4 iPhones and 1 iPad running 5 different Videos in sync.

The setup takes some time as you need to find the right latency for the audio to be perfectly in sync. But after that it has been running smoothly every time.

Of course with iVideoShow you have to have the video file already on the iPad. And you need one device to be the master.

Robin