Video Scratching Goes Mainstream

Boomzilla writes "Pioneer has released a digital audio and video turntable (the DVJ-X1), which allows you to manipulate and playback synchronized digital audio and video. You can manipulate DVD visuals in the same way as you would music i.e. real-time digital video scratches, loops and instant cues. The video and audio streams will stay in sync, even when they're being reversed and pitched. I guess this is the logical, commercialized version of that which has been done before. It's being shown at CES, and there are several pictures on the official Pioneer site."

Final scratch

[goombah99]

I like the Final Scratch approach. Just put a dummy encoded record on the turntable and then map any content (mp3) to it spatially. the perfect input device. [finalscratch.com]

Re:Final scratch

[nv5]

I like the FinalScratch approach, too - but it requires a computer. And there are surprisingly many people, who are more comfortable with dedicated hardware, like recording workstations, cd and dvd recorders etc.

So I think both approaches will be around for a while. By the way, I don't think FinalScratch can do video yet - or did I miss that on their site?

Re:Let's see it in action.

[FatalTourist]

Live video mixing is nothing new. I've seen several shows with crazy live video, usually smaller name groups in clubs. VJ Central [vjcentral.com] has reviews of many different pieces of software that allow live mixing. Most of them allow routing of MIDI control (keyboard, knobs, sliders) to the software.
This device is cool because it gives video mixing the same feel as a turntable. Maybe the VJ will take center stage now instead of being hidden in the back

Emergency Broadcast Network

[MalachiConstant]

While I have a generally low tolerance for "experimental" music, there's a band that used this kind of video mixing to make great music.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine went to a weird multimedia show at a club where they hung sheets up on the wall and did live video/music mixing. He bought their CD which had video mixes on it for about half the songs, I think.

Anyway they were called Emergency Broadcast Network. The album was Telecommunications Breakdown and it used clips from news broadcasts and infomercials. There's a very small clip from one of the songs one that album here [wired.com]. There also some better resolution clips of some of their other songs here [guerrillanews.com], and a better resolution download of "Rock This Base" here [edinburgh-east-ssp.org]. I don't think any of those sons are as good as the stuff on Telecommunications Breakdown, but check it out, I'm not sure if that album is still available anywhere right now.

Re:Emergency Broadcast Network! Remember them?

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

Their live show was one of the coolest I've ever seen. They had three huge video screens behind the stage playing sampled video, and this this weird podium thing that had two arms... On the front of the arms were TVs with yet more sampled video, and then later in the show, they arms spun around and had lasers or something on the other side.

Yeah, EBN [wired.com] were an amazing band pioneering all this kind of stuff, and still going sadly unrecognised to this day ( tip: Telecommunications Breakdown is probably one of the best albums of the 90's, and had all this k00l multimedia shit bundled with it too ).

The swinging apparatus you described was also at some points mounted on the station wagon - it can be seen configured like this in the documentary Sonic Outlaws [imdb.com], which is awesome, and first turned me on to EBN, Negativland and that style of music in general. Anyone with an interest in fair use rights should view this documentary, as it features extensive coverage of the Island Records / Negativland lawsuit.

YLFI

P.S. Am very jealous you were lucky enough to see them live.

Re:video scratching

[Anonymous Coward]

ok :))
its dj Q-bert not Quick, the rooster not the bunny, and he is considered the best DJ in the world which, when you know about is career, is very hard to argue with. ;)
Wavetwister was entirely made out of skratches, the sounds, soundtracks and dialogues, not the video, it is built like it but isn't. And, well, yeah, probably that being stoned would help endure it but even if I'm a skratch whore I didn't appreciate.

The fact that you know about this movie is interesting though, it's nice to see a non-skratcher being aware of it...

Re:Emergency Broadcast Network! Remember them?

[Joseph Vigneau]

I was bored one night when I was on the road in San Franciso, and I noticed that the Mozilla first anniversary party was happening at the Sound Factory. It was fairly ho-hum, but there I witnessed EBN. It (they?) was awesome. Very cool and innovative.. I'll have to get a DVD of one of their performances...