Practical Octavio Usage:Backyard Cinema

My mate Lachy and I have been wanting to find a use for the old projector my uncle gave me for a while now. In the end we decided to invite some of our friends around and setup our own outdoor theatre. This involved hanging a blanket from the eaves of Lachy’s house and sitting the projector on some chairs in front with a computer providing the video. For sound Jamie provided his prototype octavio beneath the screen with a long RCA cable feeding it from the computer. The teenage attendees (including fellow Octavio blogger Jamie) were treated to the classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The octavio is the shadowed box beneath the person kneeling at the screen (the purple glow of the status light is visible in both photos). I will mention for theatrical effect that Lachy rang me the afternoon before and asked if he should setup some other kind of speaker system because he was unsure whether the octavio would be loud enough. There were definitely no complaints once the octavio was cranked and we turned it down from it’s full capacity for fear of annoying the neighbours. Dialogue could be heard by those chilling in the pool and the music was certainly punchy. I noticed that the difference in volume between music and dialogue was much more apparent on the Octavio than on average TV speakers. Definitely more “cinemaish” (cinematic?). Our friends were quite surprised at how loud and clear such a little box could be. I really couldn’t imagine a more suitable device because the octavio could easily be chucked unobtrusively under the screen without carrying the separate components of a normal hifi and having to wire the speakers.

Hope this blog was half interesting – we definitely enjoyed a movie on the warm summer night. We are trying to think of more cool stuff we could do with Jamie’s octavio so there should be more photo posts from us soon.

Jacob – VAF Octavio Cheerleader