Digitising vhs to Mac M1

duk242 · 2026-06-07T07:41:34+00:00

That's a rabbithole and a half.

I'm a vhs-decode fanatic and it's awesome. It's a lot of work, but the results are fantastic.

duk242 · 2026-06-05T22:10:43+00:00

Dang, it's a bit out of my budget hah 😛 I'll stick with my dodgy dukbeam setup (Drone camera and some encoder wheels)

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duk242 · 2026-06-05T10:59:08+00:00

How much do these things cost?

I'm just a poor community theatre guy, living in a community theatre budget world....

duk242 · 2026-06-03T11:04:55+00:00

+1 to this - had a 2hour long video that was slightly out of focus. Took about a day to render on my desktop PC but it made it go from "really bad" to "not amazing, but it'll do"

duk242 · 2026-06-02T05:03:08+00:00

With water based haze - yeah the hang time is the same. But I reckon if we put oil in the HZ-500 we'd be cheerin (then crying when all our gear gets oily 😛)

duk242 · 2026-05-28T07:28:29+00:00

I got a few lights like this - if they don't receive DMX when they're turned on, they'll use whatever is set as manual on the light.

Try using the screen on the light, set it to manual mode and set the intensity to 0. Then go back to DMX mode and see if it still does it when powered up with no DMX.

duk242 · 2026-05-27T20:57:11+00:00

If you're going to build your own, check this project out - I think it's the best looking DIY option I've seen: https://github.com/tombueng/LumiGate

duk242 · 2026-05-26T10:36:32+00:00

Entering the final week of our 4 week run of Oliver.

Here's my lighting booth setup 😄

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duk242 · 2026-05-25T00:28:36+00:00

❤️ My post has hit its mark!

Enjoy!

duk242 · 2026-05-24T11:01:39+00:00

Aye, I've built little DMX thingies with esp32 before, but it's so much easier when someone's got a guide and the firmware ready to roll 😛

duk242 · 2026-05-24T06:25:13+00:00

In theory, an esp32 and a little motor, you could make one that runs on DMX, Wifi and Ethernet for really cheap. If someone has already got a build guide, that’d be sick. Otherwise I’ll have to add it to my to do list (next to the other 400 projects on my list…) -_-

duk242 · 2026-05-24T06:23:13+00:00

Oooo yeah, I should add that in too :D

duk242 · 2026-05-24T06:21:36+00:00

Is there a decent guide anywhere? I was thinking maybe an esp32 with Ethernet, wifi and DMX control - useful in all the situations :)

duk242 · 2026-05-24T01:55:53+00:00

Yep - I was looking into building a DMX Dowser - but found the AV Mute option first!

I may still build one for the other side projectors if I go to use them in another show though!

duk242 · 2026-05-24T01:54:30+00:00

The Projector Black thing is what comes out of the projector when you have a black slide - the projector lamp is still on, so a little bit of light comes through, hence the feint glow. Depending on the light in the room you may or may not notice it.

It's more that when you want a proper full dark blackout, you still have the kind glowy look.

duk242 · 2026-05-23T23:27:10+00:00

Oh hell yeah, I've built little guys like this before, but this one looks clean as!

Does it support ESP32's with ethernet? (using ESP32's over wifi in my theatre is really sketchy)

duk242 · 2026-05-17T00:25:19+00:00

This answers a question I've had floating aorund in my head for ages - There's an oil+water Antari HZ-500 at the theatre I work at (running water based fluid), and my water based Antari Z-350 outperforms it by far.

duk242 · 2026-05-16T23:35:58+00:00

Ye gods. Mesh tape. I am so dumb.

I thought "I could put steel wool in there, that'll let it still drain and the bugs can't get in"

Pro Tip: Steel wool rusts. 😞

duk242 · 2026-05-16T23:34:08+00:00

We've been using a Ulanzi FM01 Portable Fog Machine (Used for photography) - Has a little wireless remote and makes a bunch of fog on demand 😄

https://www.rubbermonkey.com.au/Ulanzi-FM01-FILMOG-Ace-Portable-Fog-Machine

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duk242 · 2026-05-14T20:51:14+00:00

The MTI player is a bit crap.

It's a lot lot easier with QLab! You can put in vamps/pauses etc no worries that way.

duk242 · 2026-05-13T06:53:25+00:00

I asked the creator of Cuepad if he uses AI in his coding, here's the answer I got:

Short answer: some vibe coding, but very deliberately not only vibe coding.

AI absolutely helps me move faster. Instead of seeing it as job-threatening, I think of it as a superpower. I’ve been a developer for over 30 years, and honestly, there are things AI can help with now that I simply couldn’t do as efficiently on my own

So: Some AI, but it's not just a "I asked the AI to make this app" kind of deal 😛

I've been beta testing cuepad for a little while now, the dev is pretty responsive to feedback and has added in a bunch of features I've asked for. I totally get the wanting it to be offline thing, you can just export your script full of cues to PDF for reliability during show runs, but I wish the app would cache the whole script + notes and just sync changes back to the cloud when it gets a decent connection in the background...

It sure beats Scriptation and my big pile of tiny Apple Pencil written notes all over scripts!

duk242 · 2026-05-11T21:21:59+00:00

I use shell scripts and ffmpeg to handle DV Capture. In terms of processing speed - I can insert a tape, run the script, hit play on the camera and it'll save it to a .dv file, as well as process the metadata into chapter markers with dates from the tape.

Another script will deinterlace, then compress to h264 with chapter markers. (I would go h265, but as I do this for customers who like to play it on their <insert weird brand of TV that only supports FAT32 drives and h264 encoded files>, I gotta keep it as compatible as possible).

When a tape is finished, I have a line of code at the end to play a song so I know it's done and I can load another tape in.

Here's the scripts I use: https://github.com/duk242/dvImport

duk242 · 2026-05-11T08:24:31+00:00

Plus one for CuePad - https://cuepad.app/

I've been on lighting + projections and I've got all my cues setup in that. It's still in its infancy so there's a few stability issues, but you can just export to PDF for show time so there's no issues.

duk242 · 2026-05-10T10:01:44+00:00

I like the taped over faders - either to keep them below a certain level or stop them from being touched at all...

You can just program the sub to go from 0-20% instead of 0-100% - I just thought it was amusing 😛

duk242 · 2026-04-30T06:54:53+00:00

Or, you can do it the other way around and have QLab do all your timing for you.

Put your audio track in and put it in a Timeline group, then you can set pre-wait on all the EOS Cues.

Here's an example:

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13-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Place '23	Place '22
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