lumens vs Watts?

[swamidog]

i'm surprised it's not commonplace. it wouldn't be complicated.

Was someone making a hardware box to convert ILDA to video? I vaguely remembering sending them an email and not getting a response

[White-Light]

Was someone making a hardware box to convert ILDA to video? I vaguely remembering sending them an email and not getting a response

No need for normal video (unsure of Emulaser output but presume its the same as sent over a video channel - I would presume from an internal video conversion via the emulator).

Anyway, when I asked the German Pangolin Show guy about normal video, he replied you send it out via HDMI or USB from the PC to the projector. It doesn't go out of the ILDA output via the DAC.

BTW this is an interesting discussion from another point of view. Light Converse uses Lumens instead of Watts and from memory I believe 1W = 2,500 lumens according to the creator. However, it does depend on scan angle and my usual setting for my simulations is actually 40,000 lumen @ 5M @ 45 degrees. I reckon that's pretty close to what I observe from a couple of watts of laser.

[polishedball]

No need for normal video (unsure of Emulaser output but presume its the same as sent over a video channel - I would presume from an internal video conversion via the emulator).

Anyway, when I asked the German Pangolin Show guy about normal video, he replied you send it out via HDMI or USB from the PC to the projector. It doesn't go out of the ILDA output via the DAC.

BTW this is an interesting discussion from another point of view. Light Converse uses Lumens instead of Watts and from memory I believe 1W = 2,500 lumens according to the creator. However, it does depend on scan angle and my usual setting for my simulations is actually 40,000 lumen @ 5M @ 45 degrees. I reckon that's pretty close to what I observe from a couple of watts of laser.

Not sure what you meant but some live outside of the exclusively pangolin world (i use there products plus others) and would want a universal solution hence ilda in ilda + composite or hdmi output.

[White-Light]

Not sure what you meant but some live outside of the exclusively pangolin world (i use there products plus others) and would want a universal solution hence ilda in ilda + composite or hdmi output.

Ah OK. I'm not sure how you could replicate this in a non Pangolin environment.

I guess a good starting point would checking to see if this a patented feature.

[polishedball]

Ah OK. I'm not sure how you could replicate this in a non Pangolin environment.

I guess a good starting point would checking to see if this a patented feature.

This site is the first that popped up, will see what there cost is for the pro. http://vectorvga.com/ a few others out there as well.

[laserist]

Okay, I understand.

Right now I'm interested in this: if there are bright video projectors which can do what 1W laser projectors can, and even more, and don't cost much more, why use <1W laser projectors at all? There must be more reasons to this other than longer distances.

A laser projector can produce imagery that ranges from below the threshold of vision to blinding - no video projector remotely has that dynamic range. (Nor for that matter do cameras but that's a different thread...) For a video projector to equal a laser projector in at least one case it would need the collimation of your laser and the ability to produce a single pixel as bright as your static beam. The first would be impressive; the second would be really impressive... I've been schlepping a couple of very special Zeiss Video projectors around the country lately. They're designed specifically for planetariums - 2.5 million to 1 native contrast and 1/4 million dollars each - pretty much whenever you look for a cheaper solution - well, you don't always get what you pay for, but you rarely get more...

[laserist]

Are you talking about brightness? Or how different in brightness can different points be at the same time?
If you mean the first, then that's different from what m0f said.
If it's the second, then I can say most <1W projections I've seen didn't have much difference across points, or so it seemed to my eyes.

I'd suggest the <1 watt projections you've seen are a subset of what can be done with <1W

[norty303]

A 1W projector doing targeted beams is going to be crapping all over a video projector trying to the same thing. Seriously no comparison.

Regarding the non Pangolin folks, there are at least 2 other solutions to doing laser content over video projectors that I know of, I think one may even be free

[norty303]

Check out V3D from Laser Electronics as one of the alternative options I mentioned earlier. Been around for years

[White-Light]

In my experience non of the free video screen capture tools are very good, at least the ones I've tried.

I've used Camstudio and I found that it starts to time slip the audio after a minute or two with the result that the audio and video go out of sync on anything but the very shortest clips.

The best low cost tool for video capture I've found is FRAPS but its designed for gaming not screen capture. I've held a licence for years and its superb in results. However, being designed for gaming means that unless your programme is using OPEN GL or DirectX to generate its graphical content, you may find that it won't capture.

Camtasia Studio is the best software I know of screen capture as its used by many companies to record on screen walk throughs / tutorial videos etc but it costs a fortune!

However, I am left wondering if laser actually has much of a future.

I don't know if anyone on here have used their projectors for audience effects and therefore can comment on how realistic they look but at least one video:



Appears to suggest that DLP can look very much like laser.

Now whether or not this has been manipulated in anyway and so whether or not it looks this good in real life, I don't know.

However, I am left wondering if the future for smaller venues at least isn't cheap Chinese projectors supplying hot beams and maybe some liquid skies (maybe a new liquid sky projection Zone) and a DLP projector strapped to the top of the laser to give the appearance of the same point source providing all the other effects.

It would be interesting to hear people's experience of affordable DLP used in this way.