projection shutter / dowser recommendations

[dan howarth]

hi folks

any recommendations on projection dowser / shutter control systems ?? i'm looking at DMX units, @ $250 to $500 each. 

i also noted the DIY version .. just wondering what people are using. thanks. 

--

dan howarth

520 955 9434

[aloha.taboo]

I've heard good things about the ProDowser http://www.bakerwood.com/ProDowser.html

Also, the Flapper MKII http://response-box.com/gear/video-projector-shutters/shutter-1/

[dan howarth]

... nice yes thanks -- these are the exact two i was just looking at ... 

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[Salvador Avila]

Can I sugest the blacky!

http://www.theblacky.net/technology.htm

Salvador Bettencourt Avila // +44 7876 453 668 // m...@salvadoravila.co.uk

[ra byn (robin)]

If you don't want to spend much money,

Find an old CDROM drive with a working tray, land two wires on the tray
open / close button & extend to control location. Add an old PC 12vdc /
5vdc(not sure which one) PSU (found at any thrift store) to power the
drive. Press the remote button to open & close the tray. Tray open =
blocked.

For more Qlab friendly control, add a MIDI to contact closure option like
one of these,

http://highlyliquid.com/midi-decoders/

Cheaper & less complicated:

One fellow at a local theater has a rope @ FOH, pulleys along the ceiling
& a weighted & guided block in front of the projector on the ceiling. When
there is about to be
projections, he just pulls the rope up & hooks it on the wall behind him.
When done, he lowers it. It works fine.

Different DIY for different budgets.

ra byn

[fnmc...@yahoo.com]

Would projecting black work for you? Often times there's a "black" screen image."

Sent from my iPhone

[dan howarth]

that's a great question --- i always try to have a BLACK layer at the bottom of the projector ... however: 

projecting "black" is never going to be enough ...... any projector that outputs light will therefore NOT be true-black -- 

there's still a GREY that comes through as the projector attempts to "project darkness" .. light is light .. can't project black. 

the best method seems to be shuttering or dowsing the projector's output until it is needed, then opening that shutter to allow the projection. 

the grey light that shines through is distractingly evident .. to minimize that grey light with a motorized shutter would be ideal. 

[Chris Neumeyer]

Been using ProDowser for several seasons. Very happy with it!

And, as a back up, I usually set the desk top of the projecting
display to a black image. Just in case we have to do a full "ESC"
stop. And it's one less image to deal with.

Cheers
Chris

[dan howarth]

additionally -- anyone have thoughts or observations on the inclusion of a shutter-system within these quality modern projectors ?? ie 

the built-in shuttering system .. some models have this .. 

my main problem here is that typically an OSD has to pop-up to trigger the shuttering system -- or at least some sort of display will 

flash that says "SHUTTER ON" or something ---- really can't be having that. 

any thoughts ??

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[Chris Eschweiler]

Some projectors are controllable over IP.  Using a web browser, you can type in the IP address of a projector and get an interface that will allow you to trigger the shutter as well as all the other settings.

This capability is becoming more common. Something to think about when selecting a projector.

[M. Florian Staab]

I just recently worked with projectors with internal shutters. They were Panasonics. The shutter worked just fine, and didn't display anything on the screen, I assume that's an option you can set.

You can trigger the internal shutters via ethernet from QLab with a little applescript and your web-browser. Works fine, except that every time you trigger the shutter, it brings your web-browser to the front before you can get back to QLab. Was not very helpful for me, but works in theory.

We ended up using scrollers with a blackout gel in them as our shutters, DMX controlled.

Cheers,

-Staab

[Tim Long]

Hi all,

Another +1 for the ProDowser. We use this all the time. As our lens is fairly big, we had to extend the flap with blackwrap. But it still works great.

We have a Panasonic D5500. It has an internal shutter which does pretty well but we still do the shutter in front of it anyway. You can also control it from a network, which is really handy.

I've also done the CD-ROM method.

You can also use a hobby servo with appropriate PWM control.

The biggest gotcha with DMX controlled shutters is cooperation with lighting. It gets accidentally programmed into cues (or not) which can make for some interesting run throughs. Submasters (and inhibitive submasters) are your friends in this regard. Thankfully, lighting and I get along great. They don't mind that I turn on the board so I can open the shutter to check the video long before they show up.

Tim

-- "Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." -- Mark Twain

[dan howarth]

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Tim Long <tim...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 Another +1 for the ProDowser. We use this all the time. As our lens is fairly big, we had to extend the flap with blackwrap. But it still works great.

 The biggest gotcha with DMX controlled shutters is cooperation with lighting. It gets accidentally programmed into cues (or not) which can make for some interesting run throughs. Submasters (and inhibitive submasters) are your friends in this regard. Thankfully, lighting and I get along great. They don't mind that I turn on the board so I can open the shutter to check the video long before they show up.

great to hear positive replies. thanks for the blackwrap tip. i am planning to get DMX Assistant and trigger it from Qlab ... it's to be a small local DMX system with just the shutters. no need to get involved in the house DMX system until the projectors move. 

[Rich Walsh]

On 20 Feb 2012, at 22:47, M. Florian Staab wrote:

> You can trigger the internal shutters via ethernet from QLab with a little applescript and your web-browser. Works fine, except that every time you trigger the shutter, it brings your web-browser to the front before you can get back to QLab.

You don't have to use a browser to visit a url via AppleScript. You should read this thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/qlab/browse_thread/thread/d882f2a86a51fcd2

Or, you could add "tell me to activate" to the end of your script…

Rich

[dan howarth]

that's great rich thanks --- 

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[Joe H]

We had the issue of coordinating DMX with lighting be a problem one
too many times, so we designed and built our own MIDI dowsers to keep
everything in the sound world and controlled by QLab (or Watchout)
without having to use DMXIS or anything like that (which requires
separate DMXIS software to be running).

We made both "master" models with a servo and multiple XLR servo
control outputs, and cheaper, simpler slave models with just servos -
the slaves cost only about $20 in parts, the masters about $80.

The big expensive DMX dowsers we already had are nice, but the MIDI
ones work just as well and cost a fraction as much, are more flexible,
and once again are, you know, MIDI.

Joe Huppert
Sound and Video Supervisor
La Jolla Playhouse

[Sander Loonen]

Hi Rich,

that is the elegant solution.

However, Apple removed the URL Access Scripting from Lion.

the only way to do this now is through CURL scripting...

ciao

Sander

[Douglas Heriot]

Hi Dan,

I’m the guy that created DMX Assistant. It should be a good solution
if you get a DMX controlled and want to trigger it with QLab via MIDI
without getting lighting consoles involved.
Feel free to ask me any questions about how to get that all set up!

Douglas

dou...@douglasheriot.com
http://douglasheriot.com/

[Rich Walsh]

On 21 Feb 2012, at 09:52, Sander Loonen wrote:

However, Apple removed the URL Access Scripting from Lion.

the only way to do this now is through CURL scripting...

Does this work (I don't have a projector to test it with)?

set userAction to item 1 of {"pow_on", "pow_off", "shutter_on", "shutter_off"} -- Use this to pick an action

set userAddress to "192.168.10.201" -- Use this to set the projector's address

set downloadedFile to quoted form of ((POSIX path of (path to temporary items)) & "Projector control.html")

try

do shell script "curl --connect-timeout 5 'http://user1:panasonic@" & userAddress & "/cgi-bin/proj_ctl.cgi?key=" & userAction & "&lang=e&osd=on' -o " & downloadedFile

end try

It's possibly slightly more elegant than url access scripting, but I don't fully understand all curl's options…

I can't work out a way of getting the script not to wait for the response from the "do shell script", so I've tried to give it a 5s timeout.

Rich

[Emery Roth III]

On Feb 21, 2012, at 11:36 AM, Rich Walsh wrote:

It's possibly slightly more elegant than url access scripting, but I don't fully understand all curl's options…

I can't work out a way of getting the script not to wait for the response from the "do shell script", so I've tried to give it a 5s timeout.

Rich

I have done the IP controlled dowser several times, and each time I end up going back to using and appleScript cue to trigger it through safari with a delayed appleScript to bring qlab back to the front.  The issue i had with the URL access scripting was that if the IP of the projector wasn’t found Qlab will hang until it either times out, or you force quit.  When the show I programmed transferred from my theatre to another, and they swapped a spare projector in mid run the show appeared to crash and the engineer had no idea why.  Using safari makes it a little more obvious what is going on, and when things are going wrong.  I've never had any problems running safari in the background.  Maybe your 5s timeout will fix that issue, i'll have to try that next time I need to program our shutters. 

--E

[Rich Walsh]

On 23 Feb 2012, at 20:38, Emery Roth III wrote:

> I have done the IP controlled dowser several times, and each time I end up going back to using and appleScript cue to trigger it through safari with a delayed appleScript to bring qlab back to the front. The issue i had with the URL access scripting was that if the IP of the projector wasn’t found Qlab will hang until it either times out, or you force quit. When the show I programmed transferred from my theatre to another, and they swapped a spare projector in mid run the show appeared to crash and the engineer had no idea why. Using safari makes it a little more obvious what is going on, and when things are going wrong. I've never had any problems running safari in the background. Maybe your 5s timeout will fix that issue, i'll have to try that next time I need to program our shutters.

Just for clarity, "URL access scripting" is the method that was available pre-Lion; I posted a proposal that uses a shell script instead. It was easy to protect the URL access scripting from missing projectors and timeouts by adding "ignoring application responses" and "with timeout" clauses; it wouldn't be too hard to add error reporting too so that you knew if/why the script had failed. By contrast, I can't work out how to prevent AppleScript from waiting for a shell script to complete…

Rich

[talkingtobrian]

[talkingtobrian]

actually, with just a little extra code, you could have qlab reclaim focus and be in front.  I just looked at the script i wrote for a show this spring, and didn't see that written.  but I know you can do it.  I think for us it wasn't an issue because we already had a web browser up in the background from preshow/soundcheck. so if we hit a hotkey or a cue that opened/closed the shutter, it didn't make the browser pull focus on the desktop.

it worked well in our show, except it was a very complicated show (or got very complicated, from initial tech to opening, as the entire design changed in that time). So between missing writing a cue or whatever during the process, and overall video problems relating to GPU overhead with our mac pro and HDCP errors, we went with DMX dowsers and gave control to lighting. but it does work, though fading is not possible.  on or off, those are your options with the built-in shutters.