Projector festival films on memory sticks/cards

[Willy]

I remember BIAFF some years ago. The Belgian Urbain Appeltans won the "Daily Mail Trophy". However, he was very worried. His film was a 16:9 letterbox one. He wondered how it would be screened. Urbain didn't have any reason to be worried, but now we are 6 years later... Time passes very quickly.

Maybe it's interesting to know that the Belgian umbrella organisation CvB, which is similar to the IAC, has just bought a special machine now. It can show films on memory cards and sticks via a projector. I am not good at technical problems, but I am trying to translate the message that I have received :

"CvB thinks it is better not to put our head in the sand. After some time the tape will disappear. Therefore CvB has decided to buy a little machine. It is not bigger than a lunch box. Thanks to this machine films on memory cards or sticks can be projected at festivals. It is called MEDIATER. It has a hard disk of 1T. Also 2T exists, but that one is more expensive. It costs about 210 euros (£185). It gives the possibilty to store all films for festivals on this hard disk so that the competition can go on without changing cassettes and other formats. Of course friends must be found who are willing to store everything. It works with remote control. It can be placed next to the projector. No long wires are necessary. It means no loss of image quality."

I think that CvB is not the first organisation to use such a system. I remember that our Guernsey friends already stored the films in order to project them at their festival. The Guernsey Lily was a forerunner I think.

Forgive me if I have written any technical nonsense. I have only tried to translate the message that I have received from the chairman of our club who is also the man who operates the machines at our regional and national festivals. These are people that I respect very much. They must have iron nerves.

[Michael Slowe]

Sounds like a very good idea Willy. I store (archive) finished productions on drives like this but as files. I didn't know that you could just play these files without first importing them into a computer. No doubt we'll get some other (younger) technicians to put us right!

[Chrisbitz]

Does anyone have a link to mediater? I can't seem to find it - just some authoring software...

[Mike Shaw]

Do you mean this Chris - http://mediator-9.smartcode.com/
(With an 'o', not an 'e'e??)

If so, a far far* better program IMO is Opus (Illuminatus) Pro - which is what I use. The difference is, there is a free version of Mediator, whereas Opus costs a few hundred quidlets.

* far far far

[Willy]

Do you mean this Chris - http://mediator-9.smartcode.com/
(With an 'o', not an 'e'e??)
r

Yes, maybe it is MEDIATOR instead of MEDIATER. I'm trying to contact my chairman, who has informed me, to find a link on internet. As he has told us this machine also costs "only" 200 euros.

[Mike Shaw]

Ah no! Sorry Willy/Chris. The Mediator I listed here is a presentation authoring program - not a box thing at all. I should read things more carefully, methinks.

I'll go back to sleep...

[Willy]

Ah no! Sorry Willy/Chris. The Mediator I listed here is a presentation authoring program - not a box thing at all. I should read things more carefully, methinks.

I'll go back to sleep...

Hello my friends,
The chairman of my club is not at home yet, but an other clubmate, called Jean, could already give me a link to a machine which is similar to a MEDIATER or MEDIATOR. It's called LACIE. Jean has already used it with success. He told us in the club last week, but nobody believed him. I must admit that I listened to him with only one ear. It's because my technical knowledge is very poor. But, now I can show my respect to him by giving his link. Unfortunately the website is in Dutch. I can always try to translate it. Maybe you can find an English link to the same product.

It is : http://www.lacie.com/be/products/product.htm?pid=11389

Can you find it ?

[Dave Watterson]

English version is here http://www.lacie.com/ie/products/product.htm?pid=11076

Lacie is a well known brand of hard disks. I suspect many other hard disk manufacturers will have similar products.

The catch in these systems - as Willy's quote from CvB mentions is "Of course friends must be found who are willing to store everything." In other words the films have to be obtained in advance and fed into the disk storage system. With cassettes, DVDs and BluRay people can bring their films along moments before showing.

Dave

[col lamb]

The Lacie unit is a copy of the Western Digital WD TV HD player that has been around for a couple of years and also with their Media Hub.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/homeente ... iaplayers/

I can certainly recommend the WD unit as I have been using one since shortly after they became available, they are selling at about £70 and all you need to do is to put the movies on a memory stick or a portable hard drive and plug it in. It has HDMI output and it will play just about anything except AVI's. I have all Preston Movie Makers club made movies and the majority of members own movies on a hard drive in MPG or MP4 format so that they are very readily accessible. I have not shown a movie at the club on tape for two years, I always play them via the WD TV unit in full HD.

Since my purchase they have produced a version which is capable of being networked and also another with a hard disc which costs about £150 in the UK and it is this that is similar to the Lacie unit.

At PMM's competitions I take the WD TV unit along (another member as one also and he takes his just in case) and members can therefore bring their movies on a memory stick if they choose to do so.

There are quite a few solid state/hard drive players manufactured by others available but not all are HD, care has to be taken to get HD and also to verify the playback format as not all are versatile.

There was another option which Lacie used to make and that was called Screenplay HD and it came in 500Gb and 1TB versions. I have a 1Tb unit that is three years old which is my external backup device for my multimedia files. Unfortunately is is very fussy over what type of video file it will playback so I hope that their latest offering is more useful.

Solid state playback is definately the way to go.

[Dave Watterson]

Good point - films brought along on memory sticks could be presented immediately. Thanks Col.

Dave