Mike Fahl

Shouldn't be. They run off the same synch mechanism as the main timeline. Jumps are sometimes a challenge to do glitch free. A common trick is to make sure the same content is on screen at the end of the loop as at the beginning of the loop. Mike

Yes, you should add a Generic Input. As to the Y value, that will come from the automation system. You can either use a normalized value (0...1), and then scale it up in the tween expression in WATCHOUT, or use a "raw pixel" value (by expanding the range of the Generic Input" in which case you would have to send the proper Y pixel value from the automation system, and not scale it in WATCHOUT. I would personally prefer the former (using normalized value and scale in WATCHOUT), assuming the autmation system can provide that (i.e., a fractional value in the range 0...1). If you choose to go that route, you need to enter something like this in the Y field for the position tween formula: YPos * 3000 + TweenValue Where YPos is the name of your generic input (normalized 0...1). 3000 is your scale factor (the number of pixels to move the image), and TweenValue is the "raw" position value (allowing you to set the initial position by dragging the image in WATCHOUT). Also remember to enable "External Control..." inside the cue. Wihout this, you won't be able to edit the position formula. Mike

WATCHOUT currenty supports a single MIDI bus. That MIDI bus may have up to 16 MIDI devices or "channels" (the maximum addressing capacity of the MIDI standard). The problem is that most USB-connected MIDI equipment creates its own "bus", rather than being added as a MIDI channel to a single MIDI bus. Hence, in order to handle this situation properly, WATCHOUT would need to be enhanced to handle multiple MIDI buses, each with multiple MIDI channels per bus. I understand that this doesn't solve the problem you're having, but hopefully at least explains what's going on, and possibly provide a work-around (e.g., by using a single MIDI-to-USB inteface with multiple MIDI devices connected through that same interface, as suggested above). I don't know if there's any software solution out there, which combines multiple MIDI buses onto a single bus, each using its own channel. But I wouldn't be surprised. Mike

Yes, the display computer can very well crash without taking down the production computer. If you can reproduce the problem, please worh with support@dataton.com to provide them with a reproducible test case. Mike

What codec is it encoded with? Opening it with QuickTime Player and pressing Cmd/Ctrl-I should tell you. Mike

We have been able to reproduce this problem under Windows 10. It appears to be caused by some new behavior introduced in Windows 10. To avoid this problem, go to Start-button, Settings, Devices, Mouse & touchpad and turn off “Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them”. The scroll wheel should now work as before in Watchout. Mike

What message do you get? Whatäs the resolution and framerate of the ProRes file? What kind og ProRes compression? Mike

It sounds like WATCHOUT crashed on you. Without any more details it's hard to guess why. It may be media related, or related to somwthing in your computer's configuration. If this occurs again, work with support@dataton.com to provide something reproducible. Mike

An updated manual is under production, so hang in there. Mike

Yes, the mirroring checkbox was removed in version 6 to simplify the user interface. Mike

It will update as the web page changes. But don't expect animations to play smoothly through the image server. Mike

I've done some initial tests, and it seems to work fine so far. There's a newer version of the dongle software (available from https://www.wibu.com/downloads-user-software.html),that explicitly supports Windows 10, which was released after WATCHOUT 6.0, so you may want to download and install that update after installing WATCHOUT (should be included in the next version). Please share your findings here. Oh; one quick note. If you want to make the display sofware auto-launch, it's a bit harder to find the Startup folder than it used to be. Here's a page that describes how to get to it: http://www.softwareok.com/?seite=faq-Windows-10&faq=28 Mike

We're working on adding density scaling for virtual displays in an upcoming version of WATCHOUT 6. Until then, Jim's method works fine too. Mike

WATCHOUT 6 supports ProRes natively, and is not dependent on QT here. If your problems persist, please work with support to getting a reproducible test case to us. Mike

Yes. Mike

What version of WATCHOUT? Mike

Presumably you're talking about WATCHOUT 5, since WATCHOUT 6 includes an optimized HAP playback codec, and doesn't need the QuickTime version (which really isn't designed to act as a high-performance playback codec). Mike

Rotating the mesh in the 3D file has no effect on UV. You need to open the UV editor in your 3D program and rotate the UV coordinates. Alternatively, you can of course rotate the texture in WATCHOUT, if it flows in the wrong direction. Some models have their UV all over the place. Particularly if the creator of the model tried to optimize a single texture for the various parts of the model. In case it's a static model, this doesn't matter. But if you want to texture it dynamically or with a video, you may want to arrange the texture coordinates in a sensible way in relation to the "flow" around the object. This is an art in itself, and really beyond the scope of what WATCHOUT does, much in the same way as making a good and engaging video is (although you can then of course play that video back through WATCHOUT). Mike

I've had success with some Blender models, but not with others. We're looking into this. Meanwhile, you can export as 3DS or OBJ, which seems to work fine. Keep in mind that models must have UV coordinates in order to work with WATCHOUT. Mike

What I mean by 8k support is that the maximum size of any piece of media that's not a plain still image is now 8192 by 8192 pixels, up from 4096 x 4096 in previous version. That's of particular interest when texturing 3D objects, I would think, although it also may have implications on video playback, as it increases the maximum size of a single video. Codec support and hardware requirements to play such a large video is another issue, though. Mike

Yes, motion tracjing has been used quite a lot in theater applications, using scenery tracking and automation systems. As long as you can get the signal and translate it into a format WATCHOUT understands, it's very doable. Note that the TCP/IP option gives better precision than MIDI or DMX, due to the limited numerical resolution commonly supported by those standards (14 bit for MIDI and 16 bit for DMX). Mike

FYI, the maximum size that WATCHOUT can handle as a single video has been increased in version 6 to 8k (from previously 4k). Mike

Delay in WATCHOUT itself at 720p60 is approximately 4 frames. You then need to add any delay contributed by the other pieces in the chain. Mike

That limitation have been increased by factor 2 in WO6. Here we track the limitation of graphics cards in a somewhat conservative manner. So this is a hardware limitation rather than a WATCHOUT imitation. Also keep in mind that large images like this consume a lot of VRAM on the graphics card. You can determine how much space it needs using width x height x 4 Do the math here and make sure to stay well within your VRAM budget (keeping in mind that there are many other pieces that also use VRAM). Mike

OK. This is what I recalled of as the "work-around": https://www.khronos.org/collada/wiki/SketchUp However, more recent versions of Sketchup apparently support this directly in the free version: http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/36203 I have not personally experimented with bringing Sketchup models into WATCHOUT via Collada, however. Perhaps someone else have some comments to share here on that subject? I either case, due to the very limited UV mapping capabilities of Sketchup, its probably not a very appropriate tool for ue with WATCHOUT, since UV mapping is an important aspect of what needs to be done in preparation to bringing 3D models into WATCHOUT. Mike