X-Media

The interface spans every screen in the control room and you arrange it yourself: split each screen into zones and place the views you need, layers, FX, preview, control. One layout per use, and you switch between them.

• A layer applies to surfaces and fixtures.
• An FX applies to layers, surfaces and fixtures.
• Each layer, like each FX, also picks the Mapper layout it applies in.

That is the strength of this compositing: you blend layers sitting on different mappings, in whatever order you want. FX can also be phase-shifted across space, in 2D following a mapping layout, or in 3D.

The Player switches between two states, A and B:

• Layers and FX: each one is set in A, in B, or in both.
• Transitions: your choice, and even phase-shifted across space, in 2D or 3D. The switch travels across surfaces and fixtures instead of happening everywhere at the same instant.

• Tempo: layers and FX sync to the BPM, with a Master Beat. Sources: MIDI Clock, Ableton Link, Pioneer TCNet, audio beat detection or manual tap.
• Timecode: layers can follow an LTC, MTC, Art-Net TC, Pioneer TCNet or SDI TC source.

Player layouts display the timecode and tempo sources, with their status.

Up to 255 animated masks, 8 steps each:

• Template: a mask is drawn on a canvas, a surface, a fixture, or even an image.
• Target: it applies to a layer as well as to surfaces or fixtures.
• Morphing: from one step to the next, shapes morph, even with a different number of points.
• Animation: FX carry the masks, so their animations follow the beat and phase-shift in 2D or 3D.

Up to 255 texts, with font import, into which you can insert countdowns. The FX system takes care of displaying them:

• Ready-made animations: scrolls, wave, typewriter, glitch…
• Style: outline, glow and shadow.
• Cylindrical walls: animated text goes all the way round, the seam is invisible.

Up to 256 scene shots store states of the Player: you prepare the show without a desk. Sent over DMX, those states are then quickly picked up at the desk.

• For the operator: as soon as they touch a value on an element they control in X-Media, that element’s information shows up in their desk, over NDI.
• For the stage manager: each layer playing a media can appear in Media Monitor, with the countdown of the running media, over NDI or on a physical output through the Mapper’s static canvas.

A project holds several canvases, of two types:

• Dynamic: it goes through the Player’s compositing and feeds the outputs to the rig, video and pixel mapping alike. It holds the video outputs, fixtures, surfaces, masks and slices.
• Static: outside compositing, it serves preview and monitoring (desk info, Media Monitor, NDI streams), video only, with the full power of the Mapper: scaling, warping, colour, masks.

Export: the canvas layout exports as a test chart, ready to hand to the designers.

Slices: they pick from the surfaces and land in the outputs.

• Warp, linear or Bézier, on input as on output, 4-corner perspective.
• Blending of projectors through soft-edge (width, power, gamma), at slice level.
• Colour: correction per slice (brightness, contrast, saturation, RGB).
• Masks at every stage: on one surface or several at once, on a slice, or on an output, then shared by all its slices.

Outputs: physical or virtual (Spout, NDI, internal loopback), plus one preview output per canvas for previsualisation. Each output exports as a test chart, for the video technicians.

Lights are mapped in the same canvas as video:

• MVR: automatic 3D placement and patch.
• Fixture editor: you build your fixtures, or GDTF import builds them for you, from a file or straight from GDTF Share by signing in to your account.
• Multi-instance: multi-instance lights are supported.
• Free placement: no grid imposed, the fixture sits as it is rigged.

Sub-fixtures: a light with two LED rings splits into two sub-fixtures. In the Player, you drive the whole light or each ring, and you can send one media to one ring and another to the second.

• LED wall: tile types, pitch and physical dimensions; the wall’s 3D dimensions are computed for you, and outlines handle every wall: triangular, cylinder, circle.
• Screen: displays and projectors, with a physical size in metres for the 3D. A Screen can represent the image of several projectors: slices pick each one’s share from it, and blending happens at their level.
• PIP: a surface that does not show in 3D and is composited on top of another, with its own blend mode.

Test patterns: generated automatically tile by tile, with a unique name per tile; they flag a size that does not match the pitch.

A dedicated curvature editor, with the wall’s profile seen from above:

• Hinges: on the joins between tiles, and at free positions within the tile (for example 0.25, 0.75); the tile splits into unequal parts and the wall folds exactly there.
• Curvature: horizontal or vertical axis, angle per tile or radius, symmetry, closed ring for cylinders.
• Measurements: total angle, radius, chord and depth of the selection, shown live.

The 3D follows the curve as it is rigged.

3D serves the live preview, not automatic mapping. MVR goes both ways:

• Import: it aligns all the 3D on the reference project and brings the patch of lights and LED strips.
• Export: it carries every surface, with its UV mapping matched to the preview output.

Preview output: one per canvas, as a physical or virtual stream (NDI, Spout), to your show previsualisation software. In the visualiser, a single stream feeds every surface of the MVR, and everything lines up.

For each output in the project, you pick in one click the machine that shows it, and how: a display in fullscreen or in a window, NDI, Spout or SDI.

By default, the Primary sends all the DMX and the other machines stay quiet:

• Split: you share the universes between machines for large pixel mappings, each one computes only its own.
• Backup: silent while its target is alive, it sends if the machine goes down or its DMX network card fails.
• Check: a universe sent by two machines is flagged.

For each protocol, you pick each machine’s network card, pinned by its MAC address, or you switch it off:

• Lighting: Art-Net, sACN, pixel mapper DMX.
• Sync: Ableton Link, Pioneer TCNet.
• Control and video: OSC, and NDI to switch on.