i.MX515 Project
Lighting, Sound and Video Show Control Systemin category Multimedia
proposed by sdirector on 8th November 2010
Project Proposal
I'm currently developing a system for controlling live event shows. Specifically, the system is designed to control lighting, sound and video in an integrated fashion. (Currently, the state of the art in the industry is for each of these disciplines to have their own control system with some capabilities for cross-communication/triggering) While being an integrated system designed from the ground up to do all three is interesting, we're also focusing on being highly-available and distributed, so that a set of designers and technicians can work at the same time on the same show.This is where the i.MX515 chip comes in. The design involves having one of more processing nodes throughout the production venue. Some will have lighting rigs attached to them, some will have video output, some sound- and some will likely be attached to custom control for things like motor control or sensor input devices. All of these will cross-communicate over the network - meaning that the system will assume there will at any time be N processing nodes, rather than one large multi-purpose monolithic (and catastrophically fallible) control machines over in the corner. That means that the nodes each need to be low-cost and low-footprint, but also able to do interesting things with video streams, files or feeds.
I'm working on the project with a fellow from the ITP program at NYU who is more involved with the input sensor and video processing side of things. I'm personally focused on the lighting, sound and video playback side. So I'd like to get my hands on units - two for each of us, so that we can ensure that the individual roles each work but also the cross communication and coordination works properly.
The entire project and stack is and will be open source.
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