Bryan

Hi all, I have some Watchpax 40s with attached Focusrite Scarletts. The Watchout display machines are VERY sensitive to changes surrounding the audio interfaces, to the point that a restart of the computer can cause the Watchout machine to "lose" the interface attached to it. I can eventually VLC into the machine and return it to the correct audio adapter, but this is a somewhat invasive process for an installation running without a production computer. Does anyone know of any means to "lock" the audio interface in much the same way I do with my EDID settings, restoring the device upon discovery? Or does anyone have any tricks that might help? Thanks!

Thank you! While I still have some problems to solve (Packet Sender was just being used for testing in place of a custom PLC show controller), it did allow me to narrow down the problem, as I was able to successfully control it through PuTTY. It's strange to me that other commands and single-machine shows don't cause a problem with being run as one message from packet sender. None the less, I will be looking into getting the controller to hold open the socket for these messages. -Bryan

Followup: I forgot to define the computers as a cluster in the network window. This has led me to a new problem, however: now every computer is running EXCEPT the computer I am sending the message to. the conductor machine, whichever one I choose, still displays an "aborted" message but then turns its outputs black. This leads me to a question I am dreading: does Watchout require the conductor display within a cluster to ONLY operate as a conductor? If so, this is nothing that I found documented anywhere. If not, does anyone know what might be causing this?

Hi all, I'm getting an error message from Watchout when trying to load a show. I start from an unloaded display, and when the load command is sent, I get a quarter second of "verifying" which is then replaced with "aborted". The display then sits there until I try again or go online with the production software. My message being sent (from packet sender) is: authenticate 1\rload "COMPNAME" true true\r I've tried loading following the unload command, loading following a reboot, and loading following being previously online from the production machine. I've changed which machine I am trying to conduct the show from. I have 3 machines in this cluster, with 4 video outputs each. Any thoughts from the group? Thanks, Bryan

Just to clarify, I never did find a solution to this. I played with volume levels with little difference. This was tested in a new show file with no change. All the files were WAV 48k 32bit float. All other audio would come out fine. I ended up installing additional Scarletts receiving audio through ADAT to expand my analog output to the quantity I required (we had left open QSC amplifier input channels, so I populated there). -Bryan

Definitely try to avoid running a permanent install through a production machine. How many Dante output channels are you using? I have a similar situation. Due to the Watchpax audio device limitation, we are running analog out through a Focusrite 18i20 to a Q-SYS i/o frame. We ended up needing more than 10 analog channels during installation, so we bought another Focusrite 18i20 and ran ADAT between the two units, giving us an additional 8 analog channels (we patched it into our QSC amplifiers, which have the flex input back to the Q-SYS core). A key element of going this direction is the common availability of Focusrite products; we got the equipment we needed for this expansion in 2 days. Another thing you could try is to add a fourth Watchout display computer, one that is custom made or 3rd-party, into your display cluster, which could act as your audio server. My client wanted to maintain Dataton servers only, which is why I did not go this route. Minor shout out that I REALLY hope to see Dante or some other protocol as an option for Watchout 7, especially carried over to legacy Watchpax 40's and 60's.

Hi all, Is there any way to remotely trigger a relaunch of Watchout display software on a display machine? The only way I know to do it is accessing the computer directly (or through VPN). I'm looking to try to add it to a control panel. Running Watchout 6.7.

Hi Morgan, I did try increasing the volume to full. No change that we noticed. I saw your DM to me and I will be opening a support ticket. Thanks!

I'm running 6.7. I am trying to perform this on a Watchpax 60 and a Watchpax 40, with the same result on both machines.

Hi Braintrust, I have been trying to send LTC from a Watchpax 60 on an audio track to play a large number of discrete audio files using a pre-recorded SMPTE file. When I do, the file plays "dirty"; I get a lot of dropped frames, and the equipment I am trying to sync (Q-SYS) stutters. I was using an attached Scarlett 820i, but bypassed it for default audio output as a test; no change in result. The audio line is running direct from Watchout to an IO frame with no other equipment in line. I've tried multiple SMPTE files from multiple sources; all have the same problem, and all of them work when I play directly from another source. I'm making heavy use of asynchronous playback through auxiliary timelines, so syncing Watchout to Q-SYS or an alternative SMPTE source isn't going to work in my situation. The file, Watchout, and Q-SYS are all set to 48k. Is there some larger issue getting SMPTE to output from Watchout, or some trick to it I should be aware of? Thanks!