Renderboxes
partners with Disguise
A recommended hardware vendor for Disguise X1 — real-time visual control on your own hardware
Renderboxes is a Disguise-recommended hardware vendor for Disguise X1. The Renderboxes Photon workstation pairs directly with X1 — Disguise’s software-only solution for real-time visual control, mapping and playback at one 4K output.
X1 runs from a portable licence key on Windows hardware of the user’s choice, giving production teams the flexibility to stay inside the Disguise software ecosystem while choosing hardware that fits their project. The Photon is a compact, standardised, transportable workstation engineered for exactly this — professional real-time visual production, on the road or in the studio.
Built for real-time visual production
About Disguise X1
X1 is software, not a locked appliance — it runs from a portable X1 licence key on Windows hardware of your choice. That lets production teams stay inside the Disguise software ecosystem while running on the Renderboxes hardware platform: the Photon, a compact, standardised, transportable workstation engineered for professional real-time visual production, on the road or in the studio.
How X1 works with your Renderboxes Photon
X1 gives you the full Disguise Designer engine on your own Windows hardware, driven by a portable licence key. Here’s what plugs into it, what it drives, and what it works with.
Video output: One 4K DCI output at 60fps via DisplayPort 1.4. For LED wall or projection canvases requiring genlock across a wider synchronised video system, a custom Photon configuration with NVIDIA Quadro Sync II is available on request.
Content engines — full RenderStream support: X1 supports Notch, TouchDesigner, Unreal Engine 5.5, and Unity via Disguise’s bi-directional RenderStream protocol. Real-time content generated in your engine of choice flows into Designer with camera tracking data, image frames, metadata and control parameters exchanged in both directions. For efficient RenderStream throughput on demanding scenes, a dual-port 25GbE Mellanox CX-5 or CX-6 NIC is available as part of a custom Photon build.
Video capture: X1 accepts SDI (3G/HD/SD), NDI, and DirectShow sources. Add a Blackmagic DeckLink or similar SDI capture card to your Photon and Designer will patch the input into your show as a video input clip, ready to be composited, mapped, or triggered.
Control & timecode: MIDI, DMX, Art-Net, OSC, MTC and SMPTE timecode, MIDI Show Control — all work natively out of Designer. Trigger cues from a lighting console, chase timecode from an audio playback rig, or drive DMX effects from Designer’s timeline.
Tracking & automation: Native support for Kinesys, Tait Navigator, and PSN. If you’re running scenic automation or performer tracking as part of a show, X1 integrates without middleware.
Session behaviour: X1 can operate as a Non-Dedicated Director in X1-only sessions, as an Understudy for 1:1 redundancy pairing, or as an Editor in any session. X1 cannot join a session as an Actor — X1 is designed for standalone or twin-redundant operation, not for driving multi-server setups. For that, you scale to a Disguise VX or GX media server.
Show file interoperability: Show files move both directions between X1 and Disguise media servers. Build on X1 for a club show, drop the same file into a VX or GX server for a festival main stage — no re-programming, no re-authoring.
Failover: Native 1:1 redundancy. Pair two Photons each running X1 and the show keeps running if one instance fails. Automatic failover, no manual switching.
Licence: Wibu Codemeter USB licence key, one per X1 instance. Physical, portable, transferable between Photons.
The Photon is engineered for X1 workloads. The standard Photon is spec-matched to run Disguise X1 out of the box — CPU, memory, storage throughput, GPU, and DisplayPort output all sit at or above what X1 needs for reliable 4K real-time playback. For genlock (Quadro Sync II) or RenderStream-optimised networking (25GbE Mellanox), specify at build.
Honest constraints — worth knowing: Single 4K output (for multi-canvas or larger LED walls, scale to a Disguise media server). Apply Feeds is not supported (outputs configured via GPU Control Panel). Cannot take the Actor role in a session. Cannot join a Disguise media server session in Director, Understudy, or Actor roles — X1 can be an Editor only.
The Photon is the workstation Disguise’s ecosystem is designed to plug into. For full X1 documentation, see the Disguise X1 user guide and the Disguise X1 product page. To configure a Photon for your specific X1 workflow, book a call ↗.
Common X1 workflows we build Photons for
Every Photon we build for an X1 workflow is spec-matched to what the show actually needs. Common patterns:
- Touring visuals with 1:1 redundancy — twin Photons in transport cases, failover configured, portable enough to travel light and reliable enough for tour rotation
- Corporate keynote setups with Blackmagic SDI capture — Photon plus DeckLink capture card, ready to ingest live cameras or presenter feeds directly into Designer
- Immersive installations with genlock — custom Photon build with NVIDIA Quadro Sync II for synchronised multi-output installations
- Theatre productions with scenic automation — Photon integrated with Tait Navigator or Kinesys tracking, X1 driving projection or LED backdrops
Have a specific X1 workflow in mind? Book a call ↗ and we’ll spec a Photon around it.
A new partnership
A shared commitment to the Disguise ecosystem
The Renderboxes Photon lets teams stay inside the Disguise software ecosystem — the same industry-leading Designer platform used behind the majority of the world’s biggest live shows — while choosing hardware that fits their project. Show files can move seamlessly between X1 and Disguise media servers, so teams can scale between show sizes without rebuilding a project.