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Brian

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Everything posted by Brian

  1. You can run different rates... but you run into a conversion problem. Google "3:2 pull down" for some more technical information but basically a 24p video has to have frames added or taken away as you convert to 30 or 60. If you're not working in PAL or SECAM I would avoid 50. *if* you can hit 120hz (and that's a BIG *if*) then everything will be as smooth as possible. 120 = 24x5, 30x4, 60x2, so they all play smooth, no frames created from nothing... Unfortunately 120 is not typically understood except by newer 3D tv's that use the doubled refresh rate to display stereoscopic images. They use 240 too but we shouldn't even mention that lol! You can definitely play mixed frame rates of video but you will always run the risk of stuttering as the 3:2 conversion is done someplace along the line. When/if I have time to get my hands on content early I will use After Effects to transcode the 24p videos to 30 or 60 drop frame so it plays as close to WO native as possible. The less conversion WO has to do the better. The "frame blending" option does a great job of smoothing over the 3:2 pull down problems. Brian
  2. I have had great success with the Echo AudioFire cards and Windows 7 64 bit. I am not near my server at the moment so I'm not completely sure on the model we have but I think its the AudioFire8. If its not I will post and update tomorrow. It would be nice if WO could use ASIO drivers but we can't have everything can we? Is it possible with more 64 bit machines and less support for the WDM drivers WO needs that there will be a change or expansion to what audio drivers WO can use? Seems odd that Windows can play 8 channel audio on my MOTU MK3 Hybrid but WO can't... I know I've asked this before and been told no but I can keep hoping right??
  3. I have to completely agree with Makkot... I hear this on almost every show I do with WatchOUT: "why can't it do a countdown? that's a basic function..." And another producer/director is now looking for something else. I also agree that running a show from WatchOUT Remote is not my favorite. I often have to make changes DURING a show... crazy I know, but that's the world I live in. Corporate show people are used to Beta tape and PowerPoint. The former allows for very simple countdowns and the former extremely fast changes... I am not sure why Makkot is scrolling through the timeline to find where to jump to instead of breaking it down into Tasks that can run at anytime... and if you break it down far enough it also allows for very quick changes. I almost never use the Main Timeline. I do 99% of my playback from Aux Timelines... The Task window allows for non-linear playback of every cue assuming you clear the way through the stacking order properly... I keep a series of play-through cue points that are properly spaced for (2) 1 minute intervals with 30 second, 15 second and 10 second indicators to help me countdown a playback. Is it possible to run WO Remote for the countdown while controlling the show through Production? I know you can do multiple WO Remotes but will this conflict with Production while in show mode? I would buy another laptop simply for watching the Countdown! Brian
  4. What kind of projectors are you using? This may not be a WatchOUT, Sypder, or Encore problem at all... And to answer your question to the best of my knowledge: you can't exactly genlock WatchOUT itself but you -can- genlock the graphics card if you have the right one. I have ATI FirePro cards in the servers I use the most with an S400 module. This allows me to either genlock to an external source or use one of the GPUs as a lock source. I typically lock 3 heads of my main server to output 1 and then use the framelock cascade feature to lock the rest of my servers to the first output (4 heads per server, 4 servers). This saved my carcass on a show where I had problems with pre-split video proxies not loading properly and had to run my blend screen as discreet files! Without the framelock active I had sync issues like crazy... put the cat5 cables in, slaved the sync of all my outputs to the first output on my first server and no more issues! I don't recommend doing this and not using proxies... proxies are the way to go to improve sync across multiple Displays. WatchOUT itself cannot be genlocked nor can it use a genlock signal coming in if you had a way to get it into the server, but you can lock the graphics cards and heads together!
  5. Can you describe the problem more than "re-sync"? The only difference I know of between no image and a black image is you can set the color of the background to something other than black... Where do you see this "re-sync"? Is it a pre-split video for a super-wide blend? Or are you going out to discreet individual screens? Are you direct to the screens or are you hitting a video switch with your outputs first? What WatchOUT version? Analog vs Digital it should not make a difference to the playback itself but if you are hitting a video switch first and something is being converted analog>digital or digital>analog then you can definitely see sync issues. My general rule of operation for WatchOUT to perform at its best is native native native. If your destination is digital then everything in line between your WatchOUT server and the screen should be digital. If you are blending projectors together you should -always- use digital. If you have an analog signal you should stay analog and stay away from trying to do edge blending and if you are hitting a video switch it all depends on what kind of switch you are using as to what should be done.
  6. Feature request: Having the option to see the geometry correction grids on the Displays would be awesome! I can make some really nice grid patterns but being able to see the real grid, or turn it on and off, would be a hugely useful tool for me and hopefully others!
  7. The free program Audacity will mono a stereo file for you. It can also write the MS Ext .wav format 8 channel "surround" file. I use this to create the files and one of the Echo cards listed above to play back 8 channels from each WatchOUT server I have. No problems so far!
  8. I would look at Parrots. They are a lot more expensive than the DVI Detective but they have a ton more control. They are passive like the DVI Detective but they can be programmed through a USB input. This way you can customize the EDID to be whatever you want. I had lots of issues seeing 1400x1050 as a resolution even when hooked to a native 1400x1050 destination... the Parrots solved all of that with a very easy programming interface. They are definitely more expensive but the reprogramming ability is huge. I have had similar success using a LightWare DVI Manager in combination with the DVI Detective to set the EDID in the Detective. The biggest drawback to the Detective is the way it captures the EDID. With the LighWare EDID Manager you can push out a customized EDID and then write that into the Detective. This works a lot better because you have more control over what actually writes into the EDID. Extron makes the 101D which is also similar but I don't believe it has any capture or programming ability. Rather it has a selector switch to get the resolutions you want. I use fiber optic DVI cable on a regular basis and the Parrots are an incredible tool to have in that situation. The parrots and other inline EDID managers have another bonus as well... if you are using multiple outputs from one server and something goes bad on one output you will lose -all- the outputs when the graphics card refreshes the pixel spaces. Putting the parrots inline help protect against this by providing a consistent destination independent of your actual destination. Something happens past the parrot and the server never even sees the destination loss... you get one screen that goes black on a 4 head server instead of 4 screens going kaput! I am guessing your on something like a Panazonic AV-HS400A which only likes video formats...480/720p/1080i... if its a camera/video format switch such as this one then you may need to scan convert the 1080p to 1080i if you can't get the 1080i from the source. I agree with Jonas 100%... Don't use the 1080, use 720p. The Panasonic should take that signal in no problem and love it. And the visual difference between 720p and 1080i is typically not something any audience would ever notice. Brian
  9. The ProMatch is a great box, I own a ton of them. For less than the $229 you would have spent on the MPatch you could get an external audio card that would give you better audio processing (built in audio cards tend to lack...) and have true balanced outputs (probably TRS 1/4" jack that is super easy to adapt to XLR, its just a cable). The ProMatch and the other unit listed above is what is typically call a DI or Direct/Device Interface (in USA at least, I don't know about other countries, names change a lot). They are often used to get things like guitar amplifier signals into high end audio mixing boards.
  10. That makes perfect sense. And being able to explain it this way versus "it just doesn't work that way" is going to make clients much happier, or at least easier to persuade to do things the way I want them to/need them to rather than them dictating to me what I will get. Thanks!
  11. "this is inherent in the graphic card setup" So even though the graphics card will output different resolutions WatchOUT can't work with that? I would love to understand the "why" behind this because I have had multiple clients ask about this, and I can't give them an answer other than "that's the way it works". They expect more from me... Thanks!
  12. I never run a firewall on a WatchOUT machine. Or turn it off... you will have problems for days and days if you don't get rid of firewalls! The only time I've seen "Lost Connection" that wasn't a powered down router it was a firewall. Its possible that your Cisco/Linksys has some kind of management internally. Turn it off. I use all NetGEAR unmanaged switches and I've had great success with connections. The only place I've seen good luck with putting WatchOUT on a managed network was at Qualcomm's main building and they have some very intense networking going on there. Hope this helps!
  13. According to Dataton the passage in the manual for version 5 that would lead anyone to believe you have a choice in the way to name proxies now is not correct... the method for Version 4 still holds as the correct way to do proxy labels. I have always used the folder.extension/filename(no extension) method for proxies though... I did try both ways of labeling and several combinations as well and I still could not load any proxies. Thanks! Brian
  14. I have been doing proxies in WatchOUT for years... I understand the process of labeling the folder with the file extension, removing the extensions from the files themselves, and how to properly name the files to match the screen names... The problem as far as I can see is that WatchOUT was adding an extra "." to the file name when it was called, between the destination string and the file name. This would result in the files not being recognized. At least as far as I could tell that's what was going on... thankfully I had frame-lock-able graphics cards, ran the whole show as discreet files with no proxy and didn't have any frame issues... even running through ridiculous amounts of fiber between me and the Spyder switching the screen...
  15. I am trying to load 3 pre-split videos as a video proxy and WatchOUT (or myself...) is failing. I can load each clip individually and they play back just fine. If I try to load the three as a Proxy (from folder A.mpg, files 01, 02, 03) I get this error message: Quicktime error: -2048; Uknown file format; Video Proxy "Media/blah blah blah/folder.mpg If I rename the folder and files (folder A, files 01.mpg, 02.mpg, 03.mpg) I get almost the exact same error. I have done video proxy plenty of time is version 4... Did something change with Version 5? Its not just this one clip. NONE of my MPEG pre-split video proxies will load. Every MPEG clip -will- play as a stand alone but WatchOUT fails on the proxy... HELP!!!! Thanks!
  16. I installed WatchOUT 5 on a machine that used to run WatchOUT 4.x just fine. When I try and run anything I get this error: The program can't start because WIBUCM32.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem Re-installing fixed nothing! Thanks Brian
  17. I have done several 7.1 audio shows with WatchOUT 4.x using MOTU MK3 Ultralite Hybrid as the audio interface on Windows XP machines. (I don't have 5 yet) I had zero issues. I nothing BUT issues with Windows Vista and 7! For XP: The audio was created in ProTools and each track exported as a stem. The stems were imported into Audacity and a 32bit 8 channel .wav was created. The audio supported a of a person speaking and sound effects. I chose to separate the audio and video tracks for stability. (According to Dataton WatchOUT does not like decoding surround audio and video on the same machine... better to separate unless you need microscopically synced audio... WatchOUT did a great job playing back the audio and video as separate sources but keeping them in sync.) I ran 2 full systems (main and backup) each had a controller, 5 display machines, and a dedicated audio machine. And I had beautiful 7.1 audio with no problems! I DO NOT believe this will work on Windows Vista or 7 because of the changes in the way the operating system interacts with the hardware. Something about the changes in the Hardware Abstraction Layer or the presence of or the lack of (I don't know the details, I am just guessing that it has led to this:) has made it either impossible or unnecessary for manufacturer's to write the drivers that WatchOUT needs for this type of playback. I am no expert but in my head is this: WatchOUT uses DirectSound for audio playback. Almost any hardware can interact with DirectSound on a basic stereo 2 channel audio output setup. 7.1 requires special drives for decoding for DirectSound. General 7.1 decoding in Windows Vista and 7 is no longer driver/DirectSound based meaning there is no longer a need for hardware to have DirectSound drivers to do surround. Therefore surround audio with Windows Vista/7 and WatchOUT is not possible. I have no idea if this has changed in WatchOUT 5 but during my conversations with Dataton while trouble shooting my setup I was led to believe that WatchOUT 5 will continue to use DirectSound for all audio in the near future. I dug and dug for driver solutions to make this work on Vista/7... and after talking to MOTU, M-Audio, and a few other external audio card manufacturers, and spending a lot of time on hardware forums, I went back to Windows XP for my operating system and all my surround audio troubles went away. I would love to hear details of file type/audio encode and machine setup for the RME FireFace UC success with Win7! Thanks!
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