I want my 4D films at home NOW : P (so how can we do it?)

[hifidelitygaming]

I've always been fascinated with the cutting edge of media... virtual reality, unique game interfaces, the motion chairs from D-box, amBX enhancements, the movie Earthquake introducing Sensurround and it's extreme bass beyond current THX theater specifications... whether from the past, present, or future, i'm always interested in what the cutting edge was at the time even if it's considered a dead or abandoned path now.

I also enjoy things like Fan edits of various movies - sometimes people can improve on what the original director did, sometimes not, but it's always interesting to see what they consider an improvement or to just get a different experience of the film.

One thing i was thinking the other day is why not come up with some kind of a "4D media player", or some set of extensions (to hopefully be adopted by maybe VLC Player or something else widely available) which would have special support for things which... are not standard? Basically put just a way of having a combination of time codes, and delays, and interfaces (some standard way to talk to other standards like DMX512 controllers, and perhaps totally custom software) and scripting (which might include things like combining data from more than one DVD player/image in realtime) to make it all possible.

To expand a little more, the time codes obviously keep it all synched together.

The delays are because some things, like a motion platform, might need to get signals well in advance of when the video or audio plays to synchronize properly.

Interfacing includes anything you want, if someone decides to take some classic hollywood movie and implement Smellovision, more power to them. I'd want it as open as possible, whether someone thinks the "add ons" are silly or good, whether they prefer one author's additions over another, it's all a free market of ideas and experiences. Both D-box codes if someone ever reverse engineers them, or homebrew motion platform codes could be supported at the least.

Scripting would be where the real magic happens though. Because the distribution of fan edits is currently a bit of a grey area, one could support something like having 2 (or more) DVD/bluray players to pull footage from, if a fanedit was made with footage from 2 movies or versions. Or you could have the primary movie, but then just have an "extra footage" directory containing all sequences which are spliced in on the fly to an existing movie. This would force one to own the movie (making piracy less likely) while letting the fan editors distribute their 'cutpacks' with less copyright risk in many instances, since it's not a whole movie at all. It would also be alot easier to store - I might have a dozen versions of Star Wars, but if all I had to store was the script files, each with certain cutpacks of alternate footage, I could have them all in less space than an image of the original DVD/bluray probably.

The scripting would hook into everything else and let you add anything you want - all the 4d film special effects anyone wants to rig up some controller for to their PC. Some people might recreate an experience they had elsewhere (i've heard of special 4D versions of Avatar that played in south korea for instance), others would come up with an original one. If properly worked out you could even 'transcode' effects that your own 4d theater might support that others dont - perhaps one user would have the LFE channel used to trigger motion chair rumble. Another person lacking the rumble but with an amazing infinite baffle subwoofer system, might use the motion code to trigger 8-12hz sounds added to the LFE of the movie during certain points for more emotional impact.

Such a setup would only work open source of course, because both the content creators and the people enjoying it would all be fans of the tech too far ahead of the curve to have much of anything standardized yet.


My main question is does anyone else think such a 4d media player would have merit, or does anyone else know enough about software coding (more than me, i'd love to author 4d enhancements for fans, but I couldn't make the player) to perhaps inspire interest in other circles like maybe where VLC works, to encourage the right type of code hooks and similar that would allow doing this in the not far off future?

[Basicam]

Yes there is merrit in extra data capability attached to movies, and games. Imagine vectoring data from a motion sensor or simulator transferred to a hydraulic actuated floor, (or lowrider); and the new air pulse used for physical impact when hit by ghosts or explosions; Behaviour modifiers strategically triggered to put people on edge in a horror movie, even when it's lame; airconditioning - humidifier - de-humidifiers connected to the movie, feeling cold dry desert nights to hot tropical monsoon. A person could really get freaked out.

After seeing futurama, smellovision is well within reach: cylinders of gasses, micro-meters and final mixers: modes are selected by scene, (eg beach, city, bakery, pine woodland, etc.) each light frequency gathered by the lens is assigned a % of X 'scent', so a treetop sky pan = eg. 80% ozone smell 20% pine scent mix; a pan at the local tip on a different mode = eg. 10% sulfur dioxide, 10% urea, 20% manure . . . you get the picture. Gas ratio based on the colour, or frequency electronically percieved, and calibrated for. OOh that Farnsworth!!!

[xhonzi]

Let's do this!

Also, find a Rock Band Stage kit- and you have a programmable fog machine with a strobe light and coloured LEDs. I helped crack the interface so you can use it however you want.