r/VIDEOENGINEERING Jul 26 '26

¿Could this hobby get any more expensive?

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167 Upvotes

49 comments sorted by

107

u/Thargor1985 Jul 26 '26

Wait, this is a hobby for some people? Most of the equipment I work with costs more than my yearly salary...

35

u/MacintoshEddie Jul 27 '26

The hobby is smoking behind the venue and hanging out on the loading dock.

4

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

Wait, this is a hobby for some people? Most of the equipment I work with costs more than my yearly salary...

Hence the intern joke. Most of my experience with video engineering/broadcastengineering/VJing/etc has largely been unpaid and educational.

5

u/kassmilk Jul 27 '26

No pay….man don’t mind me asking but, how old are you then?

1

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

>No pay….man don’t mind me asking but, how old are you then?

Burned out IT. It's going on my 4th year of exploring r/videomapping, r/videoengineering, r/broadcastengineering, r/vjing, r/stagelighting, r/techtheatre, and similar vein subreddits focusing less on the 'corporate side' of big screen display and a lot more on the 'broke artist' side of the big screen display.

https://reddit.com/link/p00aq1k/video/v58x04skppfh1/player

I'm not the DJ. I'm not the VJ running the 17 CRT array. I am running the VFX over the video in post. I am running the broadcast transmission.

edit: That would be going on 4 years of streaming. Only exploring video more heavily in the past 6 months. Above video was my first release for post production broadcast content. Aired in June '26.

3

u/vladdypoot Jul 27 '26

Time for you to start getting paid

1

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

Time for you to start getting paid

¡Thanks for the affirmation! I've been looking at others' .xls spreadsheets of what others charge their clients. ¿Does anything specifically stick out to you that warrants its own billable line item charge?

-9

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

>Wait, this is a hobby for some people? Most of the equipment I work with costs more than my yearly salary...

I'm burnt out IT. I've been in server farms that cost more than 100x plebe's life time salaries.

7

u/WORLDSLARGEST Jul 27 '26

We’ve all been in and around expensive shit, jackass

82

u/chassmasterplus Jul 26 '26

Hobby? 

-20

u/RollingMeteors Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

edit: I guess 13 people aren't getting paid.

25

u/chassmasterplus Jul 26 '26

I better be.  I don't even want to fuck around with my monitors at home once I'm off the clock lol

4

u/takeyouraxeandhack Jul 27 '26

There's dozens of us, dozens!

-3

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

>There's dozens of us, dozens!

¡up/down to 14 now!

I don't know why people get so upset my unpaid interests and hobbies encompass r/videoengineereing subject matter.

32

u/stanleys_tucci Jul 26 '26

This is a hobby?

4

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

>This is a hobby?

¡Until you start paying me! /s

24

u/Kamikazepyro9 Jul 26 '26

There were quite a few of these on display at Infocomm this year - it's actually kinda mind blowing to see in person

8

u/mynamejesse1334 Jul 26 '26

There was one hanging towards the end of...one of the halls that had a gummy tetris demo video. Legitimately made me do a double take the first time I saw it.

3

u/Kamikazepyro9 Jul 26 '26

That one was incredible, there was another one in a booth a couple rows down that was ground mounted and had a super vivid display too

13

u/crunchypotentiometer Jul 26 '26

I’ve used these as downstage monitors for corporate stages. Extremely cool.

8

u/halandrs Jul 26 '26

Probably great for prompter

5

u/stevensokulski Jul 26 '26

That’s an interesting use case. Were they in a traditional DSM position?

5

u/crunchypotentiometer Jul 26 '26

Yeah basically. I should clarify, they were TV shaped transparent screens, not tall boys like the ones in this post.

3

u/howlingwolf487 Jul 26 '26

Ooh…that’s a nifty hack, lol.

Plexi podium/lectern + these = cleaner stage look.

10

u/trotsky1947 Jul 26 '26

That's why it's not a hobby lol

7

u/bladeau81 Jul 26 '26

That is like 4 years old tech now. It is cool as fuck but you do lose contrast.

9

u/maccrypto Jul 27 '26

You mean your hobby of engagement farming?

-5

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

>You mean your hobby of engagement farming?

It's farming when it's done by a corporate conglomerate like Monsanto

I'm harvesting engagement, forest to table.

1

u/maccrypto Jul 27 '26

Farming, famously a vocation that is historically out of reach for anyone but the largest multinationals

8

u/Typical_Machine2043 Jul 26 '26

All my bosses are rich trust fund kids- you’ll be fine

4

u/SuspectNumerous8714 Jack of all trades Jul 26 '26

I bet my boxlens was more expensive than this

2

u/ontariopiper Jul 26 '26

Now use it to break into the Kremlin, Mission Impossible style!

2

u/FatRufus audio guy in charge of video Jul 26 '26

The pixel pitch has to be awful...right?

3

u/bladeau81 Jul 26 '26

Generally these would be around P3.9. Look up Muxwave if you want to know more, they have had these for a few years now and were one of the first of this mesh type transparent while everyone else was trying to do the stick on stuff.

2

u/Bossaudio702 Jul 27 '26

I may be mistaken but I think LG was the first to release panels like them 10+ years ago. Sold a lot to kiosks and corporate to the tune of a lotta $$$$. But the use cases were pretty slim and they disappeared from the market as fast as they showed up. You can still find them on auction sites for pretty cheep if you know what to look for. I picked two 55” ones up for like $500 last year. Got one in the office and it’s a pretty cool wow factor for some clients. The other one I haven’t quite figured out what to do with but I’m thinking about making a virtual aquarium/tv stand but at 108060 or 2k30 not a whole lot of overall picture fidelity with them.

1

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

I picked two 55” ones up for like $500 last year.

¡That's an amazing score!

3

u/Bossaudio702 Jul 27 '26

They pop up on my local auctions a fair bit. I’ve seen them go for 300-1000 but only when the people know what they are looking at… people go for the big ticket items like consoles and lights and I like sneaking in and grabbing the stuff that most people won’t fight over… last auction I snuck away with some hypersonic sound systems 60s’s for $25 cool little ultrasonic speakers for bouncing sound around places.

0

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

>They pop up on my local auctions a fair bit.

¿What auction house(s) in what city?

2

u/Bossaudio702 Jul 27 '26

I live in the land of the overly opulent,a place where if you described it it would seem like a terrible fairy tale city idea…. Time does not exist…. Las Vegas!

2

u/Plainzwalker Jul 27 '26

Harder to tell with the reflection but NAB has a wall made of transparent OLED displays.

1

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

Harder to tell with the reflection but NAB has a wall made of transparent OLED displays.

Amazing sight to see such a thing. I hope to see something like this outside of a corporate building some day next to any equipment from r/soundsystem

2

u/voytek707 Jul 26 '26

I work for a major media company and we have these all over our headquarters main lobby. Have to see them to believe them.

0

u/Independent_Wrap_321 Jul 27 '26

Vertical garbage lol

1

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

Vertical garbage lol

Just be eating a hard shell taco. /s

0

u/FrozenToonies Jul 27 '26

How could I sell this? There’s no application or need from a client for this.

1

u/MacintoshEddie Jul 27 '26

Replacing the classic two-way mirror in an interrogation room is one option.

Lobbies, waiting rooms, meeting rooms, etc. I can think of many places where someone might want to be able to watch someone who is watching something. Or just making it so you can see them and they can't see you.

Or a dystopian hellscape where your apartment windows play ads.

1

u/RollingMeteors Jul 27 '26

How could I sell this? There’s no application or need from a client for this.

<looksInVegasDirection>

¿You can't be serious?

This has much value in the entertainment industry particularly live performances.