London-based, French-born VJ and artist Pikilipita doesn’t touch laptops. He shows up at live visual gigs toting game systems. Having built mobile projects for the Game Boy Advanced and Linux-based GamePark GP2X, he’s now got a new machine: a Barbie-pink PlayStation 2.
Novelty this may be, but don’t think that PS24VJ can’t hack it as a real VJ app, allowing you to leave the laptop at home:
- Plays footages compressed with the Kouky video codec v16
- Supports two video layers
- Supports alpha channel
- Special effects and filters
- PAL video out signal
And because it supports up to two PlayStation controller inputs, two people can play at once. (One of the big problems with computers, I think, is that they’re entirely restricted to single-user metaphors.) Each VJ controls one video layer at a time.
Pikilipita is happy to share his creation with you, too, for a donation of whatever you think is appropriate. PS2 games don’t even require hacked systems, either, unlike DS or PSP homebrew software (which has proven a major pain for the homebrew music scene).
Pikilipita points CDM to the PSD2DEV network for more on how to develop for the system. I’m surprised at how well-documented this is:
PS2DEV PS2 Page (loaders, development toolchain, tutorials, sample code, demos)
What do you need to run them? He writes:
My systems works on any regular playstation 2, you don’t need a modified one. All you need is a special DVD called “swap magic 3.6” (http://www.swapmagic3.com) to force booting on the USB port and that’s it!
On the USB port of the console, you insert a memory stick containing the software and the footages you want to use.
Movies of the PS24VJ in action are available on his site:
http://pikilipita.com/vj/flv-player.php?mov=18
http://pikilipita.com/vj/flv-player.php?mov=17
Overview sheet:
http://www.pikilipita.com/vj/ps24vj/PS24VJ-sheet-1.01.pdf
User’s manual:
http://www.pikilipita.com/vj/ps24vj/PS24VJ-manual-1.00.pdf
If you’re near London, you can catch PS4VJ live at the AV Social. I’m super jealous:
British Film Institute AV Social
