Last night we went to move the Isadora control PC from the design desk in the house to it's new location for the run. This involved moving the PC, 4 flatpanel monitors, and 3 cat5 VGA extenders, and associated cabling, and adding a 4th cat5 VGA extender, and a PS/2 keyboard/mouse extender to remote the control monitor/keyboard/mouse to the lighting booth.
Up until now the control monitor was connected via DVI, and although we have a DVI extender, I was unable to get it to work, so we moved to plan B, which is a VGA extender.
The configuration is 4 VGA extenders connected to 4 outputs from the PC, with 3 local monitors (for the 3 projectors) connected to the loop outputs of the extenders. The 4th monitor is the control screen, and is located in the lighting booth. There is currently no local monitor for the control screen.
The control monitor was screen1 (1680x1050), and the three projectors were screens 2, 3, and 4 (800x600).
When I switched screen1 from DVI to VGA, the video output for screens 1 and 2 switched ports. If I started with a DVI monitor plugged in, it would always come up as screen1, but the moment I unplugged it, the desktop would move to screen2.
If I started with a local monitor plugged into the loop output of the screen1 VGA extender, the screen resolution would claim to be 1680x1050, but both the local monitor, and the remote monitor upstairs would be in pan-scan mode. The same thing occurred if there was no local monitor connected. I ended up starting the PC with the extender disconnected, and the local monitor plugged directly into the card, and after the PC was up, replugging the screen1 extender to the card, and plugging the monitor back to it's correct output (loop output from extender for screen2).
I hate chasing after monitors. I want them to stay where I set them. I want to be able to assign any output to any screen. In X11 under Unix/Linux this is not a problem, It's just a configuration file, but Microsoft seems to have this attitude of "We know what you need, better than you do, so you will do as we decide, and you don't get any input into the matter."
Did I mention that I hate Windows?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Dutchman
It was Monday, the 19th of May, 2008. I was working the day watch out of Lucie Stern Theatre, working on Project Dutchman. My partner is Chris Tani, My name is Bob.
West Bay Opera is doing a production of Wagner's Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman).
West Bay last performed this opera in 1988. I am the only longterm member of the technical staff who was around for that production. Our stage manager (Linda Apperson), and one of our crew members (John Amos) were also around for the 1988 production, but I am the only one who has been around for every production since 1984.
West Bay is the second oldest opera company in California, currently in our 52nd season, and I have been with the company for about 26 years. I am the Master Electrician, and have been in this position since 1984.
This opera has a bit of everything. A turntable, an elevator, scenic projection,,
wind, and musicians scattered into 3 locations in the theatre. There is also a ghost chorus singing from the lobby.
The orchestra pit at this theatre is small, as is the theatre (425 seats), so we place the brass section in the basement, and the percussion section in the scenery storage area behind the stage, and pipe them back into the theatre via microphones and speakers.
I'm not involved in the sound department, except as a consultant.
We are using 3 video projectors, with one projecting on a downstage scrim, and two projecting onto the upstage cyclorama. two projecting onto the upstage cyclorama. All three projectors are controlled from a single PC running a program called Isodora which allows us to manipulate digital video. The cueing is controlled from the lighting console using DMX512 and a box called a Keystroke, which outputs a key (or key sequence) when a DMX value is received.
We had to pull two of the houselights in order to rig a pipe over the house to mount the projector for the downstage scrim.
West Bay Opera is doing a production of Wagner's Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman).
West Bay last performed this opera in 1988. I am the only longterm member of the technical staff who was around for that production. Our stage manager (Linda Apperson), and one of our crew members (John Amos) were also around for the 1988 production, but I am the only one who has been around for every production since 1984.
West Bay is the second oldest opera company in California, currently in our 52nd season, and I have been with the company for about 26 years. I am the Master Electrician, and have been in this position since 1984.
This opera has a bit of everything. A turntable, an elevator, scenic projection,,
wind, and musicians scattered into 3 locations in the theatre. There is also a ghost chorus singing from the lobby.
The orchestra pit at this theatre is small, as is the theatre (425 seats), so we place the brass section in the basement, and the percussion section in the scenery storage area behind the stage, and pipe them back into the theatre via microphones and speakers.
I'm not involved in the sound department, except as a consultant.
We are using 3 video projectors, with one projecting on a downstage scrim, and two projecting onto the upstage cyclorama. two projecting onto the upstage cyclorama. All three projectors are controlled from a single PC running a program called Isodora which allows us to manipulate digital video. The cueing is controlled from the lighting console using DMX512 and a box called a Keystroke, which outputs a key (or key sequence) when a DMX value is received.
We had to pull two of the houselights in order to rig a pipe over the house to mount the projector for the downstage scrim.
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