matkeane

Hi, not quite the same thing, but I just updated my Display Builder app to show the pixel-count of each group of Displays, which can have different - or custom - resolutions. So if you add a mix of HD and UHD Displays, for example, you can see the pixel-count required for the HD outputs, the UHD outputs and the combined total for the project. It doesn't actually calculate the number of licences, because I assume hardware might be more of a limit on the number of possible outputs. Anyway, I just tested the export function with v7.1.1 and it seems to still be working OK. Web site link is in my profile.

The Perfect Cue receivers send keystrokes to the operating system - usually right-arrow and left-arrow for next/previous slides. On the Dsan website you can download their CueLightProgrammerSetup software(PC only) which allows you to change the commands associated with each button so, for example, you could set the 'next' button to use the command for the spacebar instead and trigger the current Watchout timeline to play. Unlike, say, a Streamdeck, you don't have any control over which timeline is targeted by the play commands.

That sounds much more flexible and easier to deal with - looking forward to trying it out... I think I'd be more likely to scream out loud if you did re-implement the old method !

I ended up taking a similar approach with my app - since it's not possible to get the current state from Watchout, I manage all changes in the app. So if I want to change a layer condition, I send an output string from Watchout with the command to the app, which calculates the appropriate value (taking other layer conditions into account) and then the app sends an 'enableLayerCond' command back to Watchout. If you're only sending commands from Watchout, the app can function just as a monitor of the current layer states, or you can manage commands sent from Watchout along with, for example, changes triggered from a Streamdeck. I think, somewhere, I have a Watchout project with 30 solid layers with the visibility controlled by conditional layers to make sure the current state in Watchout matches what I think it should be. I really should dig that out and tidy it up...

If you're only switching 1 conditional layer, you probably don't need an external app, but otherwise I built a little app a while ago to manage them - https://matkeane.com/app/conditional-layers-utility-en. I haven't updated it in a while, but it it could be of help, let me know.

I've never had any problems with the Startech DP2HD4K60H DP-HDMI adapters. I recently used them for a project at 2160p50 when the client's no-name '4K' adapters wouldn't work past 2160p25.

Hi, I don't think there is currently a way to do this in Watchout (maybe there will be some surprises in the next version?). You would need to use another software package - TouchDesigner, Notch, Resolume? - that can do the pixel sampling & DMX output, and send a video signal to that from your Watchout player.

I think that - unlike commands sent to Watchout - you don't need the '%0D' at the end of your command string when talking to Companion, so just 'BANK-PRESS 1 2' should work.

@Jericksondesign If you just want to control the Streamdeck, you don't need to use OSC. As long as the option is activated in the Companion settings, you can send UDP commands instead. I've used it to change the colour of buttons when aux timelines are active. To communicate with Companion I added a String output to Watchout, selected the 'Network Port' option and added the IP address of the PC running companion, with the port 51235 and selected UDP. Then, in an Aux Timeline, I added an output cue with the text (without the quotes) : "STYLE BANK 1 2 BGCOLOR CC00FF" (Note, no # symbol before the hex colour code!) In your case - until OSC support is added - I think a cue with the text "PRESS BANK 1 2" would do what you want.

Do you have any other video software installed on the new laptop ? It sounds similar to my problem caused another software package:

Have you forced the EDID on the outputs in the AMD control panel after arranging the outputs in Windows ? In my experience, Windows changes the order of outputs when it detects a change in the connected devices (especially if it recognises a device on a different output). If you force the EDIDs on the graphics card, you should be able to connect/disconnect monitors without it affecting the order of the outputs and so, in Watchout, channel 1 should correspond to output 1 on the graphics card, etc.

It would be helpful to add a visual indicator to video cues in the UI to show the duration and loop points. I saw this implemented in other software and it's quite handy. When you extend the duration of a video media cue in the timeline, a small dotted vertical line is added across the cue at the end of the normal duration, so you can see where the video has finished playing. If the loop option is active, then the line is added at each loop point. So if you have looped a 20 second video and extended the cue duration to 60 seconds, there will be a little dotted line at 20 & 40 seconds. Where this is really useful though is when the original video duration is something like 16.35 seconds and the client wants it to play back at 85% of normal speed - I can see where playback ends and loops without reaching for my calculator !

Salut Benoit, As you say, in my case this only affects one Display output, so sync across multiple outputs isn't a problem, but I guess I will avoid using this 'trick' just in case. Once I dragged an image file back onto the Composition, the Tween Formula icon immediately lit up green - so it was obviously still stored for the cue - and I was able to remove the formula and then restore the Composition media to the cue - so no more unexpected animation.

Hi, I don't think you can do this in the way that you hope, because it seems to me that it involves mixing two methods of navigating the timeline - selecting layers in the UI and sending midi commands. Normally if you're using external control - whether it's midi or network commands - you aren't using the UI. So, I can think of two workarounds for selecting another layer in the timeline. One might be to use something like AutoHotKey to send the cursor commands to select another layer, but that would be extremely fragile and I don't think I would go that route. An alternative could be to use the keyboard Function keys F1-F15 (or whatever your keyboard stretches to). If you have a cue named 'F1', pushing the F1 function key on the keyboard will jump to that point in the timeline _and_ select the layer on which the F1 cue is located. From there, midi commands to play to the next cue would work as normal. Still a bit fragile, but should work. It's not easy to suggest a better solution because it's stil not entirely clear to me that your use-case is. If you need to be able to dynamically ignore pause cues on some layers, you could look at Conditional Layers, which would allow you to - for example - ignore pause cues on layer 2 while still respecting those on layers 1 and 3. This works in a similar way to @Weisemann's suggestion about locking layers, but Conditional Layers can be switched live with network commands.

Not sure if this is a bug or a feature... Short version: I have managed to enable external control of the position of a Composition (and now can't easily disable it). At the beginning of this year I worked on a show where, without any tracking equipment available, I had to try and make projections follow a wall being flown up and down using Timeline animations. Since the cueing and motor-speed were variable, to say the least, I added a midi fader to allow me to adjust the position live, using a Formula (something like Tweenvalue + Midi_Fader_6) on the Y value. In some sequences, I would have liked to animate a Composition but, since the 'External Control' option isn't available, I had to add the position formula on each media item within the composition. This month, the show is back and this time we have a linear tracker on the fly carrying the wall, which removes one headache. Because the director took the opportunity to add more media to the show, things have got complex enough that I decided to remove the tween formulas from sub-layers and drop my composition into a Virtual Display, which is then animated with a tween formula linked to the tracker, so that the tracking code is all in one place. The other day though, I wanted to check which Midi controls were still used in the show and, to my surprise, when I moved the midi fader, one of my Compositions also moved. This particular Composition had originally been a single media file, with a tween formula applied to it. When the director asked me to add extra layers to it, I created a new Composition with the original image cue plus the new layers, then dragged the Composition onto the existing cue to replace it. None of the media cues within the Composition have a any position tweens. On the Composition itself, the position tween no longer shows the green 'F' icon to allow editing of the tween formula and, of course, the 'External Control of Position Scale & Rotation' option isn't available in the specifications of the Composition, but it still responds to the formula added to the media cue which it replaced. I guess the only way to disable the formula will be to work backwards - replace the Composition with an image file so that I have access to the 'External Control' option in the specifications, and can remove the position formula, then finally put the Composition back into place. Having accidentally got this working, I could see that this 'feature' could be useful. It's much easier to add a single formula to one Composition cue than to all the source media cues. I almost hesitated in posting this in case this 'bug' gets removed in a future version! However, I assume there is a reason the option for external control doesn't exist - are there any drawbacks to having it enabled ? Thanks, Matthew

Hi, There are ways to monitor timelines over the network - For example, Tim Franklin posted this app on the forum: Personally, I've ended up opting for something much simpler - a small clock composition which I copy into every new project to give me a quick-and-easy countdown. It doesn't involve any video media (so is still legible even when preview quality is set to thumbnails), doesn't involve any network connections or external software and you can just place it on the timeline at any arbitrary point (doesn't have to be the start or end of a timeline) to get a quick visual countdown. Works for me... Source files and example project are up on GitHub: https://github.com/matkeane/watchout-snippets/tree/master/countdown-clock

That's interesting, as un-installing vMix (via the Windows control panel - remove apps/features) wasn't enough to get Watchout Hap playback working again on my system, and I had to revert to a fresh Windows installation. I even tried a custom installation of vMix without the vMix codec, as I generally try to avoid installing any extra codecs, and the problem still showed up, which is why I thought that the .Net framework might be the culprit (I'm afraid I didn't make a note of which version is installed by vMix). I'm pretty sure Quicktime is not a factor, as I don't install it any more. As @jfk says, it's not a required part of Watchout, despite the reminder in the installer. This is on a laptop dedicated to media-server software, with as much superfluous Windows stuff as possible uninstalled. I guess Disguise and Modulo also use internal HAP codecs, as their installation doesn't seem to conflict with Watchout.

Not fix it exactly, but I found a workaround. After more testing - performing a restore of a clean Windows installation and then installing software until things broke - the culprit appeared to be vMix. After contacting vMix support, who swore up and down that their software didn't install any dependencies, I noticed that the Dot Net framework is installed as part of the vMix installation. After another factory reset, and a separate install of the Dot Net framework, the problem reappeared. So the workaround is to not install anything that requires that framework. So far Watchout is happily co-habiting with Disguise, Modulo, TouchDesigner and Notch on the same machine. To confuse matters further, on a Bootcamp partition of my Mac - running Windows 10 but with an AMD GPU - installing vMix doesn't cause the same issue. But now that live events are happening again, I haven't needed vMix again and so haven't investigated further. In any case, it's not related to the HAP video files themselves or the manner in which they were encoded.

A while back when I was toying with the idea of writing an app similar to Eddy's to filter and manipulate values before sending them to Watchout Inputs, a colleague introduced me to an app called Chataigne - https://benjamin.kuperberg.fr/chataigne/en It's kind a Swiss-army knife for live performance / show control or whatever you care to use it for. It can take in Midi, OSC, etc values, manipulate them, perform conditional actions, and then spit them back out in different protocols. On a recent opera project, my colleague built a whole show-control UI using it, monitoring the status of Watchout players, fibre transmitters and projectors, as well as UI controls for video matrix main/spare switching and shutter commands for the projectors. For an upcoming project in the autumn, I think we will probably add scenery tracking data in there and use Chataigne to map and smooth the data before transmitting the values to Watchout. It's maybe not the most intuitive UI the first time you open the app, but it's very powerful once you start exploring the possibilities. The developer, Benjamin Kuperberg, has some other useful utilities on his github: https://github.com/benkuper?tab=repositories

I found one way to do this, but it's not foolproof. The first step is to add an Output to the Watchout project with the IP & Port of the Companion software, so that you can send messages from Watchout to control the Streamdeck. I added a String output to send UDP commands to 127.0.0.1 on port 51235. Under the 'settings' tab in Companion, there is a section titles 'TCP/UDP REMOTE CONTROL' where you can find the port to use for listening. Drag the Output to your Task timeline and then use something like the following to change the colour of a particular button: STYLE BANK 1 10 BGCOLOR 66FF66 Format is : COMMAND BANK {Page No} {Button ID} BGCOLOR {HEX Colour without the preceding #} Add an Output cue at the beginning and end of each Task to trigger a colour change on the appropriate button on the Streamdeck. A major limitation of this method is that, if you stop the Task manually in the Watchout UI, the Output cues don't get sent and the Streamdeck ends up out of sync with the actual state of things. I guess you could use a third-party app to monitor the status of the timelines and update the Streamdeck, but that seemed a bit over the top for my needs.

In the Companion UI, when you add a 'Run' command to a button, there is a field called 'timeline' under the options tab where you need to enter the name of the timeline you want to target.

Hi, Just a guess but, assuming that nothing is being blocked by a firewall, I think it might be some confusion about the ports that's causing the problem. Companion needs to talk to Watchout Production on port 3040, but the Companion server can run on any port - I usually use it on localhost using the default port (23456). If Companion is listening on the same port as Watchout, messages might be getting lost. And I always specify the IP of Watchout Production in Companion - using 127.0.0.1 if you're running on the same laptop.

I just had to do something similar to be able to manually adjust a move that was programmed in the timeline. I added a generic input named 'wall_position_offset_max' to make it easy to adjust the offset range from 'fine tweaking' to 'uh-oh, we're way off'. In my case it was a vertical move and I only needed to adjust ahead of the move (so subtracting on the y axis), so the midi fader at zero meant zero offset : TweenValue - (wall_position_offset_max * Midi_Fader) If you need to be able to adjust the movement both ahead & behind of the tween, you could use the mid-position of the midi fader as zero: TweenValue + (wall_position_offset_max * (Midi_Fader - 0.5))

Hi Mikael, Yes, I spotted the new release announcement on twitter last night and downloaded 6.7, but will wait until after today's show to install it and try it out. Many thanks, Matthew

I just started a project with 6.6.7 and any time I try and modify the settings of a layer (layer condition, standby display, etc) I get the "Timeline already contains a layer with the same name" message on any layer which has a default name. So now I'm faced with having to rename a large number of layers in the project - which I guess is good housekeeping, but is not really how I planned to spend my afternoon! I assume it's related to the following line I spotted in the release notes - "Duplicate layer names could cause erratic behavior and are now prohibited." Is there a workaround to avoid this, while hoping that it gets fixed in 6.6.8 ? Thanks...