OK, I've just had it confirmed that a new deck is coming out in the next few months...

Is it a record deck? (hardly in 2003)

Is it a CD deck ? (not exactly)

Is it Henry, the mild mannered Janitor...??? could be.... (but no)...


Its a DVD player for DJ's. But as its currently in Pioneers Top Secret Research and Development HQ (The Red Lion @ Cricklewood ), and judging by the constantly postponed launch dates of the last "innovative" bit of kit, the DMP-555 cd-deck, I wouldnt hold your breath for a successful 2003 launch.

Features are sketchy at the moment but varispeed playback is certainly on it...the big hurdle for them currently is getting the video image to stay in sync with the audio track....so if you see them demoing one ever, using only instrumental tunes, you know why...

Plus...how many tunes have you seen released on DVD? Not many yet? Well, "Promo Only" will be providing music videos on DVD for the unit...and Promo Only are such, lovely, talkative people....

As for a model number...its only a guess, but I think that DVDJ-1000 wouldnt be far off.

They are trying to keep it really hushed up...they may not even have it ready for Plasa...so BE SURE to tell everyone you know in the meantime, and if they havent got a prototype, or even leaflets of it at Plasa...be sure to ask every member of the Pioneer stand team about it, in a really loud voice...(Free megaphone rentals from me.... ). If we can burst their bubble on the hush hush, then we might be nudge their price down a few hundred quid - thereby meaning you only need a 2nd mortgage, not a 3rd one too.

Just one thing? how many of us would lug around video gear eg: TV's or projectors to make use of DVD video's? OK, I know the Karaoke Jocks have video equipment, but im not sure that theres gonna be a huge market base for these.

There now...thats me unhitching myself from the garden fence...gossip over. Anyone else got gossip? You can trust me, I'm a patient.

I would be intrested i think its the next logical step in djing a good lcd projector is no bigger then a effect light and could replace light screens. I still think its a long way off!

QUOTE (Dj_Kray @ Jul 4 2003, 01:40 AM)

I would be intrested i think its the next logical step in djing a good lcd projector is no bigger then a effect light and could replace light screens. I still think its a long way off!

Not that far of if you can afford the projector, Promo Only does monthly DVD releases with 35 song & Original Artits video on the dvd, they also do best of, from the 80's to chart video on dvd .

Do any of you use a projector setup at your disco ?

I used to offer "Video Discos" back in the 80's, and even though I only charged about 20% more for video disco's, and marketed them really heavily...they never really took off.

I used two rear projection screens, a citronic video switcher, 3 video recorders (2 for playing) one for fast forwarding or rewinding. Light levels were a real problem, as was getting the video screens up high enough so as not to have them blocked out by peoples heads, and with enough clear space between the screen and the projector...we're rarely given enough space for audio normally are we.

The advantage was...there were lots of "decent" (and some indecent) Pop music video's back then....Anyone remember "Sabrina: Boys boys boys...." ???

Yes i remember that vid she was in the pool and kept playing with her bikini

Projector technology has really progressed in the last few years im thinking about getting 1 i might wait and see what happens with the whole music on video thing i could be the thing to get me back to buying cd singles if they added the music vid to all singles

The "best" current projectors still work on a 1.5 ratio for picture spread EG: If the projector is 1.5 feet away from the screen, you will get a 1ft wide image. 3ft away, and you'll get a 2ft wide picture (but slightly dimmer), 4.5ft away and you'll get a 3ft picture (but dimmer still) 6ft away and you'll get a 4ft wide picture.

I'm not sure if the formats used for video clips on CD singles will work with the DVD-deck, it would be handy if it could cope with a number of different DJ-friendly formats though, such as CD+G (karaoke discs), VCD, audio CD etc.

oh and what about Duran Duran "girls on film" video....

Hi gary the one I have been looking at gives projection size as

Image Size 0.8 m - 6.5 m
Projection Distance 1.5 m - 9.8 m

which is giving a larger useable size if the rear projection screen cant be placed to far away due to space available.

But i would like opinions of anybody who does use one , karaoke or disco as we do both it would make us diff to other shows in my area , they may be in common use in the South , but I have yet to see anyone in my area using one for Karaoke or Disco

Its not common to see projectors down here ive never seen 1 yet thats why i want 1

One thing to be aware of, if anyone was looking/thinking of using CRT (Catho Ray Tube) Projectors (Identifable normally by having 3 lens on the front) these can be "damaged" by the magnetic pull generated by high power speakers.

Commonly, we would set up the Video Disco as a normal Disco, but with the CRT based projection off to one side or the other (normally a couple of feet away from the speakers). Over a couple of months, we noticed that the convergence* was being magnetically pulled off.

*convergence is where the 3 different colours that a CRT TV/projector generates, mix together to make other colours: EG: A red line, shown over the top of a Blue line, shows a purple line....or all three colours (Red, Green, Blue) shown/mixed together produce white. When speakers, or other strong magnetic forces influence "convergence" the three images (from the red, gree, and blue) lens, dont sit on top on each other exactly. In really bad cases, you get what almost looks like one of those 3D pictures that you wear the red/green googles for...

Luckily, I was repairing projection TV's/Projectors back then (Oh! thats handy!) so I had the right tools, pattern generators etc to keep re-adjusting the convergence (took about 2 hours each time).

LCD projectors "shouldnt" suffer from convergence issues.

QUOTE

But i would like opinions of anybody who does use one , karaoke or disco as we do both

Once I used one which was a ploy to get me to buy one, but this was the problem

QUOTE

peoples heads,

& the funny rabbit, people do with there fingers.

never bought one but my BIL did which was quite costly!

Ohh a quick point... my mate bought a £650 LCD projector from Sharp its a CVX-10 (or something like that )

The bulbs last about 1000 hours...in fact, they last exactly 1000 hours...theres a sneaky timer inside that refuses to "go on" until you replace the bulb.

The bulbs are £250 each... Thats 25p per hours usage... or 2p of bulb usage per video/song....so, if doing a video disco using the above Pioneer gadget (2004? 2005?), be sure to change loads.... just to cover bulb wear. For a 5 hour Video gig, you'd need to buy a new bulb every 50 gigs. And will you be carrying (dropping? ) a spare bulb with you...???

I've gone off the idea in the last 2 sentences...

Me thinks that this is gonna be an install/club toy, and I suspect that its gonna be priced accordingly...out of the pocket money of us mere individuals. That also means that the club Video Operators wont be able to have one at home to practice video mixing skills on. Shame.