MOTUnation.com

I have written music on DP8 for electronic soundtrack, live musicians & one hour long silent movie which will be performed live. The music is written like a movie score, with precise visual & musical synced events. Now I need to have everything in sync with the best possible visual quality. Is the .mov (converted from the original DVD) running inside my DP sequence of enough quality to be projected on a movie theater screen ? If yes, how can I give the video signal from DP to the projector of the theater ? If not, the theater will play the movie from their DVD player. But how can my DP seq. be in sync with the external DVD ? Is there synchronizable DVD players ? Or a solution with another Mac running the movie, synced to my Mac ?
Thanks for your ideas !

If you can output to a Firewire video device such as a Canopus, that should be able to send a signal to other players and projectors. Whether or not it's "good enough" depends on what you're projecting to and the quality of the initial image.

What's the film? Where are you screening it? I do a lot of that kind of work in silent film screenings but don't use a sequencer: everything is played live. All sync (even in 2+ hour screenings) is done with visual cues from the film and accurate tempo memory. Often, I'm playing to 35mm prints that both run at different speeds from the DVD I scored to and, sometimes, even have different edits (which we don't get to see until the day of the screening sometimes). But that's my nightmare.

Your problem is easily solved as long as you can snag a good Firewire video device to stream to. There should be little to no degradation in image quality. I'd be sure to use a fast computer and ONLY have DP running. Turn off everything else including wifi and other network access.

One word of advice: once you're all set with hardware, run the video outputted to the device(s) many times to test it.

I can think of a few other options but they would involve an operator/engineer on your Mac (adjusting tempo as needed) and possibly some kind of SMPTE machine sync. It all depends on what's available to you and how much you can afford to throw at the problem.

After re-reding your post, another consideration is the length of the cable carrying the signal. Even powerpoint presentations get wonky in the best of theaters. Often it's a problem with the signal being compromised along a long stretch of cable. That part is above my pay grade and I leave it to theater staff to deal with. Again, I don't have to sync to picture with a sequencer. If I did, I'd break up my cues into segments that could start and stop with an operator just running DP. That may well be your best bet if the signal strength or other technology issues become problematic.

The easiest way is to just make the projector a second monitor for the laptop (or computer) that is running DP. Put the movie window on that second monitor and make full screen. All will play in sync as intended. If they can input DVD player signal...they can input a secondary computer mojito signal...most likely HDMI. The quality of the .mov file will only be as good as the source it was made from. If that is DVD...then that is the quality you will get. Still should use H.264 codec for encoding.

Thanks a lot for your help guys ! In the meantime I found what I think is the easiest solution : Apple TV ! With this black box I can have 2 separate screens, the 2nd where I put the DP video in full screen (& removing the 2nd menu in Mission Control). I connect my Macbook Air to ethernet to Apple TV which sends HDMI to the projector. Ethernet can have long cables.
Creating new music on these silent movies is very inspiring ! I'm working on a great Japanese movie from 1926, "A Page of Madness" by Teinosuke Kinugasa with scenario by Yasunari Kawabata. The music is for string quartet, koto, ac. bass, el. gtr (me), plus Nils Petter Molvaer (tp) & Jan Bang (live sampling). The laptop will play some electronic grooves & abstract soundscapes (very Reaktor-produced). Performance in Lyon, France on may 2, 2015 - I guess far from where you are if you're in the US

Sounds awesome!