If you’re a visualist, working with digital video, then shit is in the process of becoming real.
Toby*Spark initially announced the “*Spark D-Fuser” Sub-$1000 DVI mixer project 8 months ago, and followed up with some more specifics. If you Follow Toby on Twitter then you will have seen some sporadic details and titillating photos appear over the intervening months.
Now, of course, VisualBerlin Festival is happening, and it’s an auspicious time for an announcement:
*spark d-fuser: dvi mixer project presentation [2010] from toby*spark on Vimeo.
Toby’s presentation is a beautiful enunciation of why this kind of hardware is important and useful, as well as how it came to be. It’s a great 30 minutes of viewing, but if you’re at work and don’t have that kind of time, here’s the executive summary:
Locked In Functionality
- Commercial-quality hardware (Toby has a masters in product design, so this isn’t just a DIY looking box)
- Two channels of DVI input
- Plug and Play setup – common resolutions work straight away
- Crossfade between channels, fade to black knob, tap (“take”, or “cut”) buttons
- Resoutions: 640×480-1920×1080, up to Triple Head at 640×480
- Sends sync to projector, no matter what the inputs are doing: No more “Searching for input” showing up on your screens
Possible Extra Awesomeness
These extra bits aren’t set in stone, but are high on Toby’s feature list for the first public release of the mixer:
- Crossfader curve control between Alpha and Additive blend
- Additive blend mode
- Custom firmware for the video processor to make it more VJ-friendly
- D-Fusers to be chained with ethernet for more screens, Master/Slave control
- OSC control via ethernet
- OLED screen and menu control
- Open Source Software powered by Arduino – control software will be community editable!
- Community-built software updates should allow the box to be compatible with higher-end models of the video processor for greater numbers of inputs and different capabilities
Pricing/Availability: US$1000/£750 is the intended price point. Available soon.
If you haven’t already, check out the product page, and hit the expression of interest form so Toby knows how many of these things he should be making!