Fredrik Svahnberg

Or... if you prefer a slight more compressed version of the news in v5, take a look here: http://forum.dataton.com/forum-2/announcement-8-watchout-5/ Best regards, Fredrik S

WATCHOUT 5.3.1 Released December 5, 2012. Compatible with Windows 8. Windows 7 required for full functionality. Turkish and Japanese languages added. Version 5.3.1 corrects a problem with non-English characters in some media file names. See the release notes for more details. http://dataton.com/downloads/watchout/support/old/watchout/WATCHOUT_Release_Notes_5.3.1.rtf

Hi Omar! A few more questions. 1) Does this happen every time your start up the system or just sometimes? 2) Have you, as Jonas suggested, tried with a straight network cable by-passing the switch. 3) Any chance you have an external VNC (remote desktop service) running on your PCs? 4) What is your display/projector and what is the native revolution and refresh rate? The same setting i WATCHOUT? 5) Is the display/projector connected directly to the display computer or is it going though some external hardware? Best regards, Fredrik S

Hi Sparikh! To best procedure for solving the issues as you describe in this thread is to send a compilation of your show that displays the problem to support@dataton.com Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Here's a list of convenient shortcuts to speed up your WATCHOUT workflow. General Ctrl K Preferences dialog box Ctrl O Open a show file Ctrl Q Quit program Ctrl R Refresh media (looks for changed files) Ctrl S Save show to disk Edit Ctrl A Select all Ctrl C Copy Ctrl E Select to End Ctrl F Find/Replace Ctrl G Find/Replace again Ctrl M Move stage position of selected cues/displays Ctrl X Cut Ctrl Z Undo Ctrl Shift Z Redo Enter Open specifications dialog Stage & Preview Ctrl Shift A Remote manage display Ctrl B Standby mode (toggle) Ctrl D Update Ctrl L Online (toggle) Ctrl N Snap (toggle) Ctrl 1 Preview scale 1:16 Ctrl 2 Preview scale 1:8 Ctrl 3 Preview scale 1:4 Ctrl 4 Preview scale 1:2 Ctrl 5 Preview scale 1:1 Ctrl 6 Preview as wireframes Ctrl 7 Preview as thumbnails Ctrl 8 Preview video as thumbnail Ctrl 9 Preview at best quality Ctrl 0 Preview masked by displays Ctrl Drag Zoom scale to rectangle Ctrl Click Zoom in Ctrl Shift Click Zoom out Ctrl Alt Drag Pan stage position in window Timeline Ctrl I Insert layer Ctrl DEL Delete layer Ctrl J Timeline settings Ctrl P Add play control cue Ctrl Shift P Add pause control cue Ctrl T Click jumps to time (toggle) Spacebar Start timeline (toggle) Esc Pause timeline (no toggle) NUM 0 Start timeline (no toggle) NUM * Jump to last start position NUM + Magnify timeline scale NUM – Reduce timeline scale Alt While dragging tail of cue to stretch tween points Up/Down Select layer Left/Right Select next/previous cue in layer Ctrl Arrow Nudge image of selected cue 1 pixel Ctrl Shift Arrow Nudge image of selected cue 10 pixels Tween Alt P Position Alt O Opacity Alt S Scale Alt R Rotation Z-Axis Alt C Crop Alt L Color Alt V Volume Alt B Balance Alt T Wipe (tiles) Alt E Wipe (tiles) Alt W Wipe (gradient) Alt N Wipe (venetian) Alt H Hue & Saturation

I think Jonas is in "capital red letter mode" today ;-) ...and he is right on the money as always :-)

Great job, Walter. Thanks for sharing. Best regards, Fredrik S

Hi Kaarle! I understand that you're looking for a deeper technical suggestion, but my simple advise is to use a one extra WO display computer as a full redundant back-up in situations like this. You know how easy it is to set this up with "Tiers" in WATCHOUT and it is a very cost-effective and simple way to handle the unexpected with grace. Best regards, Fredrik S

I suddenly found myself searching for a "like" button on this forum. Thanks for the encouragement and poetry, guys.

Yes, Tiers is the right way to go. Put your LED screens and Projection screens on different Tiers. Then you open the Layer settings (in the Timeline) and connect the Layers to the appropriate Tiers. In addition, if you want the same content to travel through all screens, you have to apply pixel-density-scaling because the size of the LED pixels and the Projected pixels will probably not match. You can do this scaling in WATCHOUT. Just double-click on your display. Leave the Display resolution as it is (should be the native resolution of your screen) but enter a large/smaller number in the "Stage resolution" a bit further down in the same dialog. Good luck Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Page 148 in the WATCHOUT USER's GUIDE is good place to start... Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

To recover a .watch file from a display computer, first go to the display computer, find the folder where watchout is installed, and in that folder you will find a folder named " Shows " In the Shows folder, you will find more folders, each with the name of a stored show. Open the folder for the show you wish to recover. There, you will find a file named Spec Copy the Spec file to use for the recovery process. The procedure for re-creating a show file from a Spec file is quite straightforward... 1. Rename the Spec file DFC_Data (no file extension) 2. Zip the file 3. Rename the resulting Zip file to Whatever.watch Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Yes, the trick is called "composition". Select All cues and paste them into a new composition. Apply scaling to the composition cue. Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Bonjour! Tomorrow, the doors open for the annual SATIS Show in Paris (Nov 13-15). I am looking forward to seeing you at the Dataton /Videmus SAS stand. Videmus is the WATCHOUT Premium Partner in France. You'll find us at Stand D44. http://www.satis-expo.com Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

You bet. Animations of bit maps (still images) in WATCHOUT should be silk smooth. Please connect the WATCHOUT display computers output directly to a good screen (or projector) with a short DVI cable with nothing else in-between. Make sure WATCHOUT and your graphic card is set to 60 Hz. I am sure you will now see a perfect result. Then you have to figure out what is causing the strutter/stepping. My guess is that you have some kind of miss-match in the VGA/switcher/scaler/LED processor area. Good luck. Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Please find my answers inline below... No, problem, you can trigger a relay-box from an output cue in WATCHOUT or, if the projector is in Standby, send a string output cue. No problem. You can setup WATCHOUT to auto-start after reboot or a power failure. You do this with a command-script. Power down is pretty straightforward through commands in the WATCHOUT protocol. Shut down [PowerDown 0] or Sleep [PowerDown 1] No built-in feature for this but you can certainly query if WATCHOUT is still alive and build your "switch-alarm" from the response (or lack of response). No problem No built-in feature, but I'm sure you can do it with a combination of a string output and some external tricks. Same as above. As I understand you've managed to find a solution for this. Best regards, Fredrik S

Here is the answer, Alex. 1) If you run one video on one display computer it does not matter if you span the video across multiple outputs. WATCHOUT will still only playback one instance of the video file. 2) If you run two (or more) cues of the same video, at the same time on the timeline but on different layers, WATCHOUT is smart and will still only playback one instance. 3) If you run the video (as in 1 above) spanning two displays running on two separate display computer, each display PC will play one instance of the video - of course. Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Dear Luca, Thanks for sharing the results and the solution with us. And thanks Claudio at Mectech (Italian WATCHOUT Premium Partners) http://www.dataton.com/watchout/partners/Mectech Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Hello! While Jonas, with his vast knowledge always solves the complicated technical issues, I, myself, always look for the simple things. In this case "remote access" is indeed greyed out until you select one or several displays in the stage window. Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Hello! The new official WATCHOUT training program, The WATCHOUT Academy has now been officially launched. Yesterday, we ran 5 full sessions in conjunction with Infocomm in Las Vegas Check out some pics here: feed://instagr.am/tags/watchoutacademy/feed/recent.rss Stay tuned. We're soon coming to a city near you. Best regards, Fredrik Svahnberg Dataton

Thanks. Now we know what it was and that is always good. We will have a look on our side as well. Perhaps it need a small adjustment or at least a clarification in the WATCHOUT documentation.

Have you tried a different source? I would suggest a very normal computer with a DVI output set to 1024 x 768. Set the Signal Input in WATCHOUT to "RGB" and Video standard to "Other" - then type 1024 x 768 manually. Best regards, Fredrik S

Rogier, please install WATCHOUT (v5.2) and the Datapath card fresh on a different machine and try again. I suspect something in your installation process. Best regards, Fredrik S

Hi Mark! We would be delighted to test your "app". Please send the details to support@dataton.se Best regards, Fredrik S

The obvious solution is to add a "control cue" at the specific point on the timeline which plays your first movie. This control cue should be set-up to trigger another "Aux timeline" with your second move. Or perhaps, but not very likely, you need to send the trigger commands between to completely separate WATCHOUT computers (clusters) over the network. This is also possible. Please describe your complete setup in detail (WO production and display computers, external control systems etc) Best regards, Fredrik S