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Wednesday

Spear Morgan is a small software development company, with a strong, ongoing background in video control for live events, including trade shows, concerts, live television and corporate events.

Our flagship software is Fresco, which has been used to control video switching and playback on hundreds of events since it's introduction in 1997. The current version uses TCP/IP and Midi to control a wide range of devices using plug-ins.

Also, working closely with clients, we create custom applications for specific control needs.

Meanwhile, we have a few irons in the fire. We're working with Synchromesh LLC on a startling new video playback system, we have a new control system on the drawing board, and we have a new version of Fresco in a prototype form that has direct control of Barco Encore processors.

Bespoke

Over the years, we've made a lot of custom control applications ('bespoke' is British for custom made or commissioned, deriving from tailors).

We've used a number of tools to do this, including Javascript & html, Real Basic, C and C++. We always strive to make cross platform solutions, because we're primarily a Mac house, and hey, if you enjoy editing registry items and removing trojans, then who are we to stop you. That's included Linux for the last few years - it's a great show-site platform, partly because it is less common (no-one knows where solitaire is).

For a while we called this the '2K' range, since we could keep to total cost in the $2000-$3000 range. We're on the 3K range now.



Kerplunk PDF Print E-mail
Written by Bruce Wheaton   
Sunday, 06 December 2009 11:56

Kerplunk was a program to drive a system of Bill Bell's 'Lightsticks', an early LED project, that used fast eye motion to create floating images, and also featured some whimsical animations that worked on a stick by stick basis (apparently). It was created under contract for Creative Technology.

Bill Bell's Site

Spear Morgan reverse engineered the system, with the help of Bill Bell and the original source code. The system consisted of a PowerMac with three custom NuBus cards and a program written in Forth. We repackaged the LightSticks from an 'Art Install' to a rentable road package, which involved case design, ruggedizing, connector and cable reconfiguration, and re-implementing the software as a flexible cue based system, using C and QuickTime. The program could also be run on another machine in a visualizer mode. We created an open protocol to trigger image playback on the 'sticks, but primary control was from Fresco.

The repackaged system performed well on many live corporate events, parties etc. Bill's version can still be found, for instance in the San Francisco Exploratorium.

 

 
PresetManager PDF Print E-mail
Written by Bruce Wheaton   
Wednesday, 04 February 2009 10:01

PresetManager is an elegant addition to Barco Encore Controllers, adding a page of presets to trigger. Each preset in the grid has a name and can be color-coded. And there's minimal configuration to do - it just works.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 04 February 2009 10:12
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Overture PDF Print E-mail
Written by Bruce Wheaton   
Thursday, 29 January 2009 11:08

Now known as Encore OC, Overture was an application we designed for Barco to control Encore processors directly, without a console. 

Last Updated on Wednesday, 04 February 2009 10:08
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AHD Projector Control PDF Print E-mail
Written by Bruce Wheaton   
Thursday, 29 January 2009 10:29

Made for American High Definition and Sweetwater, this clean app controls batches of projectors from single buttons. The user can make a simple cue to mute and unmute projectors at the same time.

Last Updated on Thursday, 29 January 2009 11:13
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Simple Spyder Control PDF Print E-mail
Written by Bruce Wheaton   
Thursday, 29 January 2009 10:18
Made for Cisco's demo department, this simple app links numeric keypad presses to Spyder script triggers. That lets them use a PC remote control to trigger Spyder.
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