Noob needs 3 things...

[White-Light]

The microphone is needed for the feature in Quickshow called Virtual Laser Jockey.

The microphone is needed for all audio feedback currently. However any laptop with a built in web cam (which is most laptops these days, also has a hidden built in microphone that will suffice). You need do nothing, QS will usually find the microphone without any user intervention.

[White-Light]

Cheers Brad
As you can tell it is not cheap and very labour intensive.

Holy shite!!

That stuff's expensive. I've just been having a look on Lucid. Inflatable shapes start at like £180 each and go up to the mid £300's. Heaven knows what the custom options cost.

Here was me thinking £30 for an inflatable..

[Bradfo69]

As much as it pains me the ball is rolling and the money has to be spent.

Spoken like a true budding laserist. My hero!

[Fish323]

I got the Pangolin today I had to go to the depo to pick it up. Freezing on the bike in weather like this.
I'll let you know how it goes. I am having to use it on an old Win 7 laptop which doesn't have the muscle for the job, my other Win 7 is being fixed (awaiting for a part from China apparently) and it doesn't seem to work on win 8. So at the moment as I don't have a mic yet I can't use it via sound control.
Initial thoughts on this are wow!!! This is going to be REALLY good fun! I had a go at playing with it and then connected up the laser. No problem at all worked a treat!
Whitelight that isn't an inflatable, it just looks like one. I won't be using inflatables, they are expensive and not easy to customise. When you think what Argos or B&Q charge for Christmas inflatables the prices charged by the party sellers are nuts!
Thank you everyone for all your help so far
Now for the hazer.

Spoken like a true budding laserist. My hero!

[norty303]

Fish, now is a good time to acqauint yourself with Pangolin email address.
If you have ANY problem with QS/FB3 (such as Win8 installation) contact them via the contact form on their webpage.
You will usually get a response very quickly, often from Bill Benner himself, or Justin, or Alexey the developer.
They like to hear about stuff, particularly stuff that others might also be encountering.

For what its worth, I run QS, LivePro and Beyond all on a Core2Duo 2Ghz on WinXP with 2GB RAM, with 3 FB3's, so you should have ample power in your Win7 box.

[Fish323]

Cheers Norty, you're right it seems to be ok. This is a Vista computer with a 7 upgrade. When I installed the software it said there was insufficient memory but you're right it seems to be running great.

[Bradfo69]

I'm very happy to see you jumped right into getting Quickshow. I think you will be very pleased and it will serve you well. Worth the bike ride!

One of the things you may want to now check out is the Pangolin show portal where there are all sorts of shows available to download for free. Many are for LD2000 or Beyond so, be sure you're looking at shows created for Quickshow. They're usually a quick download. What you will have to obtain on your own though, is the music as Pangolin doesn't have the rights to distribute that along with the shows. Always double check the notes section so you can hopefully get the right version of the song.

It's www.pangolinshows.com You'll need to set up a user name and password but, there is a wealth of shows there. Each one will also have it's own video preview.

[Fish323]

Cheers that was exactly what I was looking for. What I need to do is to figure out how to save my own shows for use later on. There is something on there called CueMania 1.0 for Live Pro, can I use it for Quickshow?
Thanks again to you all and Whitelight, you demo really helped get me started on Quickshow.

I'm very happy to see you jumped right into getting Quickshow. I think you will be very pleased and it will serve you well. Worth the bike ride!

One of the things you may want to now check out is the Pangolin show portal where there are all sorts of shows available to download for free. Many are for LD2000 or Beyond so, be sure you're looking at shows created for Quickshow. They're usually a quick download. What you will have to obtain on your own though, is the music as Pangolin doesn't have the rights to distribute that along with the shows. Always double check the notes section so you can hopefully get the right version of the song.

It's www.pangolinshows.com You'll need to set up a user name and password but, there is a wealth of shows there. Each one will also have it's own video preview.

[Bradfo69]

Well... no and yes. Live Pro is an add on program that can be purchased and can be used with either an FB3 or with a QM2000. You can often find it on sale for around $350 - particularly around the holidays. It will become tied to the serial number of your FB3. Live Pro is a MUCH more sophisticated program for live performances. While fairly simple to use, it has a pretty fair learning curve because it does SO much. CueMania is a bunch of pre-made cues that can be inserted into Live Pro.

Stick to learning Quickshow and getting your hazer for right now. LivePro is a bit further down the road and not something you need to jump into at this point. Maybe next Christmas time depending on how you take to this and, if you really even decide you need it. Based on what you're planning to do with lasers, I don't really don't think you need to spend the money.

[Fish323]

Cheers, I just bought the Fogtec Eclipse for £249. It's got a 1 year warranty so we'll see how it goes.
http://www.whybuynew.co.uk/smoke-haz...e-hazer-_1.htm
I'm not going to spend any more money on lasers and accessories in the near future. The £ has just dropped 10% against the Thai Baht in the last few weeks which is a disaster for me. I might go to the warehouse this Saturday for a dry run to see how it looks in a big open space. I might talk the organiser into letting me do a run. If I succeed I won't get much money but it will be something.