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Same link I embedded in my post, thanks for the confirmation

Yes, i did try it, from my MacBook Pro i7 / OS X (10.6.8), Safari 5.1.1. Tried it again just now - worked as expected. However, it may be because I am signed in on Apple's web site using my Apple ID, you may not have access to it as a visitor.

I am not sure what you are looking for, but if you want to downlaod the standalone installer for QuickTime 7.7.1 for Windows using your Mac, go here: QuickTime 7.7.1 for Windows

The device you choose as a TouchScreen has more to do with the answer than anything else. Lots of customers use smartphones, tablet / pads, etc to just that. You need to clarify that, can't tell if you want the control on the network or not, sounds like you do want it on the network. WATCHOUT Remote will do all of what you ask, but maybe with a mouse event or two more. If you prefer a custom interface, WATCHOUT Remote is written in Java and is open source, so it makes a great jump start for any custom development. The Java develepment is about the same level of difficulty as adding Java functions to a web page. All communication is via IP network, whether it is a PC, Mac, Android, Blackberry, etc. no need for an intermediate device to convert touch screen input to MIDI or DMX values. There is also an iOS version of WATCHOUT Remote, it runs as a web app on iOS, so anyone developing for iOS should have the skill set to create a custom app to do what you want on that platform. Or develop on any platform you choose, WATCHOUT in cluster mode has an extensive IP control set that can do anything you ask, and much more.

Yes, there is a reason to use 32 bit, and no 64 bit would not be better. The reason is most movie decoders available today are 32 bit. Since key components remain 32 bit, WATCHOUT remains 32 bit as well. WATCHOUT is efficiently coded and is not memory constrained in any way. So while WATCHOUT will run in 64 bit, it is 32 bit native, and 64 bit offers absolutely no advantage as a result.

Lawrence's comments about FirePro cards are valid for the FirePro V5900. The AMD / ATi FirePro GPU series become interesting higher up the model range. The v7800 (3), v7900 (4), v8750 (3), v8800 (4) or v9800 (6) when combined with the ATI FirePro S400 Synchronization Module option card. All those models provide both Eyefinity and enhanced synch support and as single card solutions, are compatible with WATCHOUT. Compared to any other offering, the compatible FirePro / s400 combination provides greatly enhanced synchronization of the outputs, even when it is just one multi-headed computer. Very pricey, but when you are feeding processors instead of displays, specially with 0 pixel butts and demanding content, the difference may make or break the results.

Show Sage offers a two day class at the main facility in Brighton, MI. Next scheduled watchout training is 07 and 08 December 2011.

Of course that is correct. HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection aka High-Definition Copy(right) Protection) is data that comes from the video source (in this case the WATCHOUT display computer's graphics card). WATCHOUT does not generate HDCP and therefore it should not be an issue. Now if you were feeding a digital input signal that includes HDCP to a capture card to be displayed in WATCHOUT (Blu-Ray players or cable TV converter boxes are common exampes of digital signal sources that may pass HDCP data integrated with the copyright protected video content) the capture card receiving the digital signal will honor the HDCP data and refuse to provide the signal to WATCHOUT. This is native to the input capture card hardware and its driver and WATCHOUT can not alter that behavior. ----- But a different issue may cause bad behavior with extenders - EDID (Extended display identification data). The graphics card and the display must exchange information on the capabilities of the display. If the display EDID is not available to the graphics card's output connection, the graphics card will literally shut down that output and refuse to provide a signal. If the EDID data from the display is distorted or incorrect, the graphcis card may output, but may refuse to provide the correct resolution. (WATCHOUT would report that as a resolution mismatch or resolution not available). This EDID handshake behavior between the display and the graphics card output is native to the graphics card and its Windows driver, there is nothing WATCHOUT can due to override that function. That said, EDID data distortion is such a common issue, that third party devices to manage the EDID data independent of the display and its connection are available from a wide variety of vendors. An EDID managment device essentially isolates the data from the display, and instead provides the data to the graphics card directly from the EDID manager, even if the display is powered off! The EDID manager is commonly connected directly to the output of the graphics card, before it is extended / connected to the display. This provides a much more stable environment to the graphics card, making it far more reliable. We have seen EDID failures occur often with digital display connection extenders. We have even seen it occur with simple digital short copper cable display connections where the display's native EDID is corrupted or just plain wrong. Was far more common issue "back in the day", even display / projector manufacturers notorious for this problem in the past have pretty much cleaned up there act with current offerings. If I were shopping for a display extender, I would strongly consider combination extender / EDID managers. Barring a combo solution, I would always add an independent EDID manager when using a dedicated digital display signal extender.

BTW Something like that is available today in WATCHOUT Remote. While the timeline is running, WATCHOUT Remote automatically generates a countdown to the next timeline pause.

Had a chance to use these two new enhancements under fire last week in Show Sage's WATCHOUT trade show exhibit at LDI. BTW LDI awarded WATCHOUT 5.1 best new product release - Projection category. During the show, we ran a single screen / single Win 7, WATCHOUT 5.1 display computer - no production computer (cluster mode). We could have just as easily played back six output channels from one computer / one WATCHOUT License, with the same independent control of the outputs, in groups or standlaone. Or controlled a group of WATCHOUT Display computers in the same manner, still with a single point conneciton to the controller. A simple command file (ref: WATCHOUT 5 User guide, pg 247-249, File-based Control) was used to automatically load the show on power up of the display computer. From there, all actions were triggered via an external controller. A Highend Systems Road Hog Full Boar lighting console was used as the controller. The Road Hog Full Boar was programmed with three cue lists. MIDI Show Control was used to trigger three independent auxiliary timelines using the list parameter and “Map to Auxiliary Timelines” setting. i.e. each independent cue list in the Hog Full Boar was locked to its own independent auxiliary timeline in WATCHOUT. There is no limit on auxiliary timelines, three were adequate to demonstrate the function. Connection was via a simple MIDI cable from the lighting console's MIDI jack to a MOTU FastLane MIDI–USB interface on the display computer. During programming / testing / rehearsal, the MIDI interface was connected to the production computer. MIDI Show Control was enabled and the device ID entered in the WATCHOUT Production's Preferences - Control Tab. This setting enables the same function on the display when it is run in cluster mode via the startup command file. No specific command is needed in the command file to enable MSC, enabling it in production’s preferences is all that is needed. For playback, the MIDI-USB interface was moved to the display computer and the production computer removed. Once production is complete and removed, operation was - turn it on, wait to the show loads, and control all function from the lighting console. The show is locked down without a production station and can not be changed during performance - solid, repeatable, reliable. Show elements we had designated as live control during production, retain interactive control from the lighting console in standalone playback (cluster mode). This really worked great - from the lighting console - we jumped cues, backed up cues, and triggered cues randomly from the available lighting console cue lists. WATCHOUT was quick to respond and tracked flawlessly. We also connected the Full Boar console's ethernet/ArtNet output to the WATCHOUT network to provide an ArtNet (DMX) connection. The DMX universe was entered into Production’s Preferences Control Tab to enable this signal. We used faders on the console and WATCHOUT’s DMX input function with tween formulas to live control aspects of graphic objects called up from two of the auxiliary timelines. As with MSC, the ArtNet production setting is saved to the display and no additional commands are needed to enable it when functioning in standalone playback (cluster mode). i.e. the setting is stored to the display with the show. The ArtNet / DMX input for live control also worked solid as a rock too. Great work Dataton! And a public ‘thank you’ for adding this enhancment. Jim Kellner

I am not going to try and answer all of those, but one I could clarify is ... That note refers to synchronization between display computers only.Production computer could be anything really, even a different vendors graphics card. The note typically means that all the cards within a group of displays should be from the same manufacturer. Have not tried mixing the FirePro and Radeon families among displays, but have mixed various generations and processors within the Radeon family and no synch issues arose.

The iPad was using an app custom written for the presentation.Dataton offers a generic iOS WATCHOUT Remote app. That was used as a starting point for the custom app written specifically for the presentation. The custom app was written to copy the images to the Dynamic Image Server via WiFi.From there, the WATCHOUT program was written to display the image from the Dynamic Image Server .Dynamic Image Server accepts new images while the show is running and updates them to the displays as soon as the transfer is complete. Posted in this forum.WATCHOUT version 5 - Specifications on InfoComm 2011 SHOW-computers

Dataton has addressed that with WATCHOUT Systems Manager,a set of software applications and components, allowing you to manage one or several WATCHOUT systems. It provides capabilities to control and monitor their operations in a predetermined, or interactive, manner. The utilities include WATCHOUT Remote, WATCHOUT Scheduler and The WATCHOUT Management API. All the applications included come with source code, allowing you to use them as starting points should you choose to customize for your own applications. Documentation is included in the WATCHOUT Systems Manager download package. The WATCHOUT Systems Manager collection runs under Adobe Air. Adobe Air runtime is available for the Android OS.

I hesitate to use the word "perfect" as that leaves no wiggle room ;-) With the visuals yes, three independent stereo audio files will play with very good visual lip-synch. "Perfect" synch to each other - no. i.e. While WATCHOUT is frame accurate, when playing multiple audio files, it is not phase accurate when spread across multiple displays. In very critical applications, you may observe small amounts of sub-frame drift over a long time. When this occurs, the display will vari-speed back to synch. The drift is not enough to affect lip-synch, but it will disrupt audio multi-channel phase. And that is preferred, uncompressed .wav is the audio playback format of choice for WATCHOUT. yes

Version of WATCHOUT?There is a malfunction in 5.0 with audio from production that [em]may[/em] explain your issue. It will cause production to cease audio output if the audio file's speaker icon is not visible on the stage. Fixed in 5.1. Since its a laptop, as a troubleshooting step, have you tried moving it to the connection point and using a short simple connection cable? Anytime I hear mini RTS to XLR cable I am always concerned about level mis-match too (-10 dB vs + 4 dB, etc.)

Yes, you can.Not sure what manual you are looking at, but it is documented in the v5 user guide. It is not in the v4.0 user guide because those commands were added in 4.0.1 afte the user guide was published, so it appears in the Help > What's New section of the production Software for v4. Commands are the same for both versions. run [] Start running, optionally specifying an auxiliary timeline name. halt [] Stop running, optionally specifying an auxiliary timeline name.

An uninstall and reinstall should clean the registry. If the OP is Sid, then I can add that it is possible to Telnet into his display clsuter and properly extract a list of the shows. (Sid had his single cpu display cluster on a public IP and I was able to do this remotely). Again, if this is the person I spoke with last night, the remote referred to is the yodesign iOS WATCHOUT remote. OP did you modify any of the iOS code? At the same time I was able to Telnet in and retrieve a show List, Sid was still unable to get iOS WATCHOUT Remote to do the same. BTW For anyone interested, the Cluster protocol commands to do this are: authenticate 2 list Shows 1 So possibly we need to look at iOS version on your iPad in the troubleshooting? Possibly your wireless segment is affecting some communication? Dataton AB support, does the iOS app use the same port (3039) as a Telnet session?

Just about any switch meets that requirement. The real question should be ... This is NOT a WATCHOUT issue, it is a Windows 7 / hardware interaction issue. Just because a switch works fine for someone else with their hardware and Windows configuration, does not guarantee the same will be true for you. I must be lucky, my seven year old dLink DGS-1005D Gigabit switch has worked fine with Win7 without any adjustments on my part.

WATCHOUT only supports one serial port per display computer, hard coded to COM1.Provided COM1 is fully Windows compliant, it should work, ymmv.

No, there is no external control method to power down the production computer.But, there will likely be an alternative solution to your requirement in WATCHOUT 5.1 when it finally arrives, so if you can hang in there for a few more weeks ....

I think you are "barking up the wrong tree" there.That is related to Microsoft networking and sharing. WATCHOUT does not use Microsoft networking and sharing. Best to turn those things off. All WATCHOUT communications are TCP/IP, which is independent of Microsoft networking and sharing. In the NIC properties, the only setting that matters is TCP/IP v4. You can uncheck everything else in the NIC settings and it should work. I did see one very good suggestion in one of your links - disable any network device that is not being used. Windows likes to default setup Firewire, WiFi and Bluetooth ports (when present) as potential network interfaces. I have seen that cause issues in the past. I always disable all network interfaces except the Ethernet NIC we are using, and that NIC is only enabled for TCP/IP v4.

Reminds of the system installed in Cisco Systems San Jose, CA world headquarters Executive Briefing Center.It was initially setup with a managed Cisco switch and it would not work properly. I was hoping they would bring in one of their experts to address it and we could then learn what to do, but there solution was to go to a local computer supply house and buy an unmanaged Linksys switch to deal with it. (Yes, Cisco owns Linksys too). Configuring managed switches is beyond the scope of WATCHOUT support of course. That said, we do have a dealer in Virginia who has a large site licensed system running on managed switches. They initially had problems, but the dealer's IT guy figured it out and it has been running for about six years now.

Yes, when the update is very long, this has been known to occur. It has been identified and corrected in the next release. Note: a network issue that causes slow transfers can exacerbate this issue. There is also a workaround that can be used with 5.0, but I suspect I should not post that here, so call your WATCHOUT vendor driectly or email support for enlightenment on that. As for the mouse cursor issue, that is something a bit different. Once that occurs, watchpoint is not going to be very stable. Quit and restart WATCHOUT Display to eliminate that.

continued .... and there seems to be some issues unique to nVidia GPUs ... and this can go on and on, you really need to research your specific system, or find a hardware vendor who will certify your system with your switch, etc.

seems there is a maximum post length and my response is to long, so it is broken up among the next few posts here … Its not WATCHOUT, its the Windows settings and the network infrastructure.And it sure looks like there is more than one issue at stake. Point is, if your network is running slow, there is no single "do this and you are fixed" answer. You need to identify what is amiss in your system. ------- Periodically we hear reports of very slow online / update times with WATCHOUT under Windows 7. XP machines in the same cluster do not exhibit speed issues. Research has shown this is not unique to WATCHOUT, the general Windows population has many similar reports. Apparently there are some subtle changes in Win7 in the way Windows IP networking is implemented. The change creates slowdowns with some network switches. It seems Win 7 offloads some network duties to the network switch. I see mention of Win7 certified switches. But even switches that were not Win7 certified could be accommodated with changes to adaptor settings in the Advanced tab for the network adapter. Then there is Remote Differential Compression There are other references to the Remote Differential Compression (RDC) fix with comments like: