I wrote today about the Critter Board DIY synth/controller board for CDMusic, but I’m even more excited about the Video Critter:
Video Critter DIY, open-source audio/visual electronics platform
US$74.95 buys you a fully customizable, programmable DIY board with video out. (There’s also a $45 “mini” board that looks equally tantalizing.) The video routines are already programmed into the board, so you can write really easy, higher-level video code to put stuff on the screen. Just as with the Critter Board, you can use C programming from any Linux/Mac/Windows computer.
Of course, it’d be great to go even further, and have a totally open-source video mixer / effects unit. It’d be pricey, I’d imagine, but imagine an Edirol V-4 you could program yourself. (Uh, Edirol — ever fancied getting into open source yourselves? After all, no one could compete with your sales and manufacturing volume. Yeah, I know — snowball’s chance of this happening — but I can dream.)
In the meantime, this is a brilliant way of creating some quick, retro-looking custom video effects, and it’ll be ideal for installation work. I have too many other toys to play with to pick one up for at least a couple of months, but if you get one, dear readers, send photos and video.
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Peter. It's really hard to focus on the way-too-many projects I currently have under way when you keep posting stuff like this.
Can you please try to constrain your posts to quoting press releases from major companies?
Thanks.
J
No, see, you put them all *together*.
Then you have like a giant video robot that reads sensor inputs to mix and control video you manipulate from a Nintendo DS and outputs custom visuals through LCDs in its eye sockets.
[…] Video Critter: Custom, DIY Video Synthesis [Create Digital Motion] […]
[…] The Video Critter hardware video synth kit seen here last year has been incarnated as a Cellular Automata kit from the good folks of MAKE Magazine. MAKE has been nice enough to do the scary bits for you: the board is assembled and programmed, so all you have to do is make a nifty case. […]
[…] Video Critter: Custom, DIY Video Synthesis […]
[…] […]
[…] The Critter and Guitari folks, whom we already loved dearly for their video synths and organs and DIY video kit, have built a shield for the Arduino adding on synth capabilities. -PK This is a board for making […]
[…] creation from the wizards at Critter and Guitari, the folks who brought us the brilliant DIY Video Critter custom video synth and other wonderful video creations. In an age when hardware has waned as video […]