PierreLucB

Great, Thank you for this answer.

Hi guys, I'm wondering if Watchout 6 is a 32 bit or 64 bit program. I need to spec new computers for use with version 6 and I'm wondering how much RAM to put it. Thanks.

Thank you Jonas, We will give it a try next time we have the chance and get back to you on this.

Sounds interesting but I've just updated to 5.5.1 and I'm not seeing this change in behaviour. Nothing has changed here. What is unclear is, with 5.5.1, do I still need to put the -NoLogo command in the shortcuts? Or would this behaviour be the default behaviour without having to the change the shortcut parameters? Thank you.

I couldn't agree more! I just saw your page talking about "A new approach" at ISE 2014. I'm excited to see what this will bring!

That's one way of going about it but I'd would rather not have add additional pieces of hardware or software. Thought I might have to... I want to send the commands over network so having external hardware is not a good option for us. I found a software that can filter midi commands but it's a bit scary to use something like that because if ever this software isn't present or does not respond properly the reset command (which is used in the show) will put all video projectors to black. So again, I'd rather not do that. Which leaves me to ask again if it is possible for Watchout to Ignore the RESET command. I really don't need it. I can always make a cue at 00:00:00 and recall that cue if needed. I pretty sure the answer is no but maybe there are custom solutions that are not mentioned in the manuals. I'm also trying to get some info from the GrandMA support but so far no luck... Thank you.

To follow up. PierreLucB, on 25 Jul 2013 - 20:40, said: This does exist, just not in the form you are asking for. Live tweens provide live control of elements during the performance playback now. Yes I am aware of this feature but, as you understood, what I'm suggesting here is a completely different subject matter. It think it would be great to see modifications made to the timeline apply in real time to the display computers. It would save a lot of time and be very practical. Live tweens, to me, are for very specific and quite rare occasions. I would not use this for a whole show as you have to apply this effects to each parameters of each media. Doing this for a whole show would be very time consuming. This also does not achieve what I'm looking for. PierreLucB, on 25 Jul 2013 - 20:40, said: This exists under cluster control which is normally associated with the playback / delivery of the show. Under watchmaker control, i.e. show assembly, the programmer determines when to reconnect a display. Has been that way since v2. Good to know, I shall give it a try but I think such feature would also be useful in Production / Display mode. I've used Watchout numerous times on very different kinds of shows from medium to very large scale (Live shows, TV Shows, Permanent installations, Museums) and I've never used the cluster mode. Yes even for the permanent installations. That is because: 1-It is simpler this way. 2-It is faster ( a lot of time, last minute modification are needed ) 3-It gives good visual feedback of what is going on (which can be very useful both for the programmer/operator as well as newer operators that don't know all the details but might need to troubleshoot or make modifications) 4-It give a stand alone mode (does not require external triggering systems) Speed and ease of use are key factors to products and I think the Production / Display setup achieves this a lot more than the Cluster mode which is why I am suggesting this one. Just to be clear, what I (and everyone else) are saying here are propositions, suggestions to make your softwares and products better and more fun to use. I think this is a case of a win-win situation here. If a feature requested by users make it into a future version of the product, the users are then satisfied and encouraged to continue to use the product but it also makes your product better for everybody! Thus making it more enjoyable for everyone. This means more potential customers will want to use it. End result, everybody wins. Products are made for the users so I think it's a good idea to listen and understand the ideas and needs of the users. My thoughts. Thank you for your time.

Well while we're at it here are a couple I'm sure a fair number of us would like to see. -Live control of elements please. Remove the need for updates. -Automatic connecting and reconnecting (in case of network failure) to production computer as well as auto sync to what is happening in the production computer. -More options to modify medias and their keyframes in groups. Editing of multiple objects and keyframes simultaneously for faster editing. I hope you consider them. Thank you.

Hi, I'm currently working on a show where we would like the lighting board (Grand MA 1) to trigger Watchout (Production computer). The best options are Midi Show Control and Artnet. MSC to me seems perhaps better because you can recall specific cues. Something that one cannot do with Artnet. Though right now I have a couple issues with the Midi Show Control. I got it to work, even over ethernet which is great but: 1-my show killer at the moment is the RESET command. Because the RESET MSC command stops ALL timelines (Main and Aux) even when the Cue List is specified in the incoming MSC message. The Grand MA outputs RESET command when pressing the OFF key, which is used quite a bit. But when it does so it also specifies a Cue List. The problem is that Watchout doesn't care about the Cue List Parameter. In Grand MA it is very common to use multiple Executors (Controls of Sequences - Go+ - Go- - Load - OFF - etc) so one executor can be used for Lighting, one for special effects and one could be used for Watchout but if the RESTORE command doesn't listen to the Cue List it's a big problem because all executors can reset ALL timelines. Meaning your lighting sequence could RESET all Videos cues. Not good. So could Watchout listen to the cue list parameters of the RESET command? Is there a way to tell it do so in a command file I can create? Or is this something you could do in an upcoming release? Perhaps the command could Reset everything only if no cue list is specified. 2-There is no way to go into Stand By mode from the GrandMA using MSC because it does not output ALL OFF or RESTORE. But it is capable of outputting FIRE commands so maybe macro 1 and 2 could be Stand By ON & Stand By OFF or again. Or if there would be a way in Watchout to manually assign different MSC commands to action in Watchout that would be great. Then more devices could talk to Watchout because any commands be used for any action. Otherwise more options for using Artnet IN data to control watchout would be great. Ex: specific cues, next, previous, load, stand by, play, pause. Thank you. I look forward to hearing the possibilities.

Hi, I'm working on a production where they are thinking about triggering Watchout from a GrandMA 1 for their shows. They are already running a lot things on Artnet and since network is so convenient they would like to use Artnet instead of MSC. Now because they have a lot of artnet already going out on their lighting network I would rather keep that separate from the Watchout network. So is there a way to use 2 NICs on a production computer? 1 to talk to the display computers and one to monitor and send the artnet triggers to the Watchout Production software? Or Do I need a piece of software or hardware to transfer the information from one network to the other? Thank you.

This is also happening to at least 1 computer in our system at work on Windows 7 64bits and Watchout 4.3. It is very strange and not reassuring. Does anyone have a thought why this is happening?

Hello Watchout world. The ability to stretch a video block in watchout is great because the video file remains on its last frame until the playhead leaves the block. It would be great if it was the same with compositions. The problem is that if one puts a video file in a composition and make the composition the exact same lenght as the video file the composition will end in black and not with the last frame of the video file. This can be seen when playing a composition and the playhead reaches the end, it goes to black. But if that composition is put in a timeline then set to loop, the black frame isn't shown so there is an inconsistency and it becomes confusing to use compositions. Ideally the end of the composition would not go to black unless its duration was longer than the video file. Is this possible? Thank you.

Hi, We recently had a show that we updated from watchout 4.3 to 5.1 to use the multiple outputs per display computer and we ran into a couple issues. We had 1 production and 2 display each driving 3 outputs. Watchout machine specs CPU-Core i5 750 @2.66 Ram-4GB GFX-AMD Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 Mem Win 7 32bit HDD-Solid State drives Rack Mount cases First and main issue was: every time we would change the output # on a display computer it would re-send all of file into the computer even though there files were already there. This certainly caused some slow down in the production. We had to change output # for troubleshooting purposes. But this would also be done if we would need to switch to a back up display computer in which case it would be a problem. 2nd: The auto-detect of the alpha type for stills wasn't detecting properly. This use to work just fine in watchout 4 but in 5.1 I had to go specify the type of alpha for each media. That only seemed to happen on stills. 2nd and 1/2: Hard to say exactly what happened here but 1 night we made some very specific masks and put them into the show. All was well then but the next day when we turned on everything the masks were not the same anymore. (I do not have all the details because we had left by then) I asked the watchout technician onsite to try to play with the alpha modes, I also re-sent him the files because maybe they had been corrupted but in the end he had to re make the masks from scratch. Very strange. Any thoughts on that? 3rd: The production computer is getting TCP command from a medialon machine in this installation and at one point i turned off the triggering so I can work without being triggered but I was still receiving the commands. What do you think? Thank you.

Hi. Is it possible to have watchout 4 and watchout 5 installed on 1 machine? I need to build some shows in both and it's not super efficient to uninstall and reinstall every time. I will also potentially need to downgrade a show from watchout 5 to 4 and was wondering if I could copy paste timeline elements from 5 to 4. Thank you.