Mike Fahl

Many lighting consoles take LTC timecode. If so, that may be an option (using a WAV file to play timecode from your WATCHOUT timeline). Mike

Below is Microsoft's official description of the error you received, from this page https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/directshow/error-and-success-codes So there's likely something unsupported in your MOV file, as Rainer suggests above. VFW_E_UNSUPPORTED_STREAM 0x80040265 Cannot play back the file: the format is not supported.

Wow! That's a "blast from the past"! I seriously doubt you'll find any, but who knows. Whaddoyaknow; here's a post from Mal Padgett that actually includes a POWERPAX! Mike

There seems to be AAC audio in the file, as far as I can tell from your screenshots above. I don't think WO supports that format (at least it didn't when I was involved). Perhaps that causes some trouble durig playback. You may want to remove the audio track from the file, to see if it plays OK without it. If so, add it back as a separate WAV file with its own cue for playing it, rather than embedding it into the video. Mike

Consider two edges that cross, forming a "corner". Each pixel in this corner, coming from each of the projectors, must be at 50% brightness, for the combined brightness to come out as 100%. The pixel next to this, just outside the blended area, must be 100%, since there's no blend there. Now, if you move one of the projectors by 1 pixel, you'll have a very notceable 100+50=150% brightness right there, clearly visible as a bright line. Hope this helps. Mike

Most ARTNET montor programs work only on Windows. Here's a cross-platform solution that also works on Mac and Linux: https://github.com/pixilab/artnet-monitor Mike

You can add custom masks inside the Display Settings dialog box (assuming you use WATCHOUT 6). See under MASKING in the DISPLAYS AND PROJECTORS chapter. Note that it's not possible to create a "good" mask for the arrangement you show above. The pixel at the intersecting edges must be 50% intensity, meaning that a 1 pixel error in alignment will be visible in that area. That has nothing to do with WATCHOUT and everything to do with physics. Mike

Well, that's really for Dataton to answer, but unless things have changed since I made it (which I doubt), file transfers and general commands use TCP while play/pause, time synchronization, variables, etc use UDP multicast. Note that the port used for the multicast is dynamically chosen, so there's no known fixed port here. The same goes for the multicast address, which will be from the "administratively scoped" range (all this from memory, and with the above caveat). Mike

Well, technically play/sync messages are multicast, so they may work across networks, assuming IGMP is configured on routers to allow for this. But in general, as Jim says, this is to be avoided unless you have a very good grip on your network infrastructure an its configuration. Mike

I'm so sorry to hear. Mark was such a gentle and nice person. My condoleances. Mike

The container format usually doesn't matter. Both MOV and MP4 are container formats. However, MOV is a superset of MP4 (i.e., MP4 is based on the MOV file format, originally developed by Apple). An MP4 file is essentially a MOV file with some restrictions and (typically) containing H.264 video and possibly AAC audio. So if you have a MOV file containing video/audio with those codecs, it is essentially an MP4 file. More on these and other container formats here: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-video-file-types-e-g-mp4-mov-avi Mike

The data received back by this subscription mechanism provides a very accurate time position. The Status message carries three parameters: The name of the timeline. The run mode, where 1 is paused and 2 is playing. The current time position, in mS. WO will notify you whenever there's an abrupt change. Based on those updates, you can extrapolate the current time position at any instant. Mike

At some point there was a feature that sent a messag if you named a Control cue with a leading colon (if memory serves me correctly). At least the display software did that, to its primary controller. Perhaps that "hack" is still in there? Worth giving a try. Test it with a telnet client to see if you get something back when running over such a control cue. Mike

For 1, I would not use polling for that. Use the subscription model intead. WO will then tell you when there's any abrupt change. Interpolate/extrapolate intermediate values based on the data you get. For 2, just give it a try. If it works then you should be good to go. Mike

You can send commands and receive error messages related to those commands through the same network (TCP) connection. This is described in the manual. What do you mean by "receive notifications from WatchOut Outputs"? Mike