RBeddig

If you haven't changed anything in your system and WATCHOUT used to play the two signals ok before, I would rather guess that something in your server or in the incoming signal flow incl. the cables has changed or got broken.

Which driver are you using for the Radeon Pro cards??? Did you run your show in WATCHOUT 5 on your new system or was it on a different system? Did you try to update the old system to WATCHOUT 6.6.1 or 6.6.2? When HAP shows green videos, it is usually an indication that you have more codec packs on your computer than just those installed with WATCHOUT. Could that be the case? Is VLC running on the new computer? Did you install any HAP codec on your new computer?

If it works when plying sound from the production computer, it gives you some indication where to search deeper. How many MP4 files are you playing on one server and on how many outputs? Codecs? Codec settings? Which graphic card are you using and which driver?

Which version of WATCHOUT are you using? I guess that the audio files are separate files but are the video files without audio as well? Have you tried playing sound from the production computer instead of playing from a server?

what happens if you separate audio and video into two tracks. Is then lenght the same?

While I don't see issues regarding sync and content delivery (there is no real difference from using one server or 20 servers in WATCHOUT), doing it with 2D displays in WATCHOUT would make it neccessary to do the actual warping outside the system. But this would always work in two steps. First to record the outputs of a warped signal and then to take this into WATCHOUT and to position it in each corner of your 4K output linked to your FX4. This could be doable if you set it up once and then leave it as it is (without recalibration or content changes) but it's probably not the right way in your case. You'd need a virtual 3D projector which you could then remap to a real output in WATCHOUT. Could be a nice feature and pretty useful if the actual stage setting changes during a show and you could just follow this by using different virtual screens at different parts of the show BUT it's not in WATCHOUT right now.

You could of course use two 4-channel servers and use the 3D projection mapping as built into WATCHOUT. This would need a 3D file of your object with a correct UV mesh (3DS, OBJ,...) which you would place into your stage. Then you would just use 8 3D projectors in WATCHOUT and align those to your real object. Softedge would need to be done manually through the display masking feature. Alternatively you could use the domeprojection.com ProjectionTools camera calibration which now supports 3D calibration as well.

It used to be possible to run different versions on the production computer. If I remember right, the trick was to first install e.g. Watchout 5 in C:/watchout5 . Then test that this is working. Now ZIP the folder C:/watchout5 and delete the unzipped files to prevent that the installer finds the previous installation. Next, install Watchout 6 into C:/watchout6. Last step would be to unzip the Watchout 5 installation again and to place two links to your desktop pointing to the two WATCHMAKER.exe files in the two folders.

LTC or MTC (coverted through an external device) is usually the choice if the lighting show is fully pre-programmed along the show time. If you just want to trigger sequences Artnet or DMX is used. Under preferences you can define the standard input and output universes. In the current versions of WATCHOUT you can send out Artnet into more than one universe which is then defined in the actual output channel. You can find this in the output window (DMX). Once an output channel is defined you can just drag this into a timeline and use the attached fade tween to fade the channel up or down. If your console can receive Artnet there is no need for an external converter from Artnet to DMX. Important: WATCHOUT only receives or sends Artnet when it is online!

I have no clue what sort of control the Avolite Arena can take. To answer the second question: you can only select one MIDI device to work with WATCHOUT. One possible way would be to use a midi merger device or an USB to MIDI (5-pin DIN cvonnector) adaptor and fader boxes which can be daisy-chained with outputs on a MIDI plug. I have one client who wrote a bit of software to catch the midi commands and then forwarded this to MIDI rtp. WATCHOUT was then listening to this virtual MIDI input.

The screenshot unfortunately doesn't really say much. Which version of WATCHOUT are you using? Which operating system are you using? Are any other codec packets installed on the computer? Which codec are you trying to play? ".mov" is just a container and quite a few different codecs can hide inside a mov container.

We also have loads of TRAX stuff in Berlin. Also a PowerPax or two.

Once the media has travvelled to your servers, WATCHOUT only needs a very small bandwidth. You need to make sure that you do not block ports and WATCHOUT uses TCP and UDP ports for the communication. I assume that you don't have bored technicians sitting in your network streaming videos all the time during the event! NDI uses appr. 125 Mbit/s for each encoder or decoder (FHD). So as long as you don't want to push WATCHOUT, NDI, a big lighting network over Artnet plus many channels over Dante through your network, I don't see a lot of problems here. WATCHOUT wouldn't really work with more than one NIC on a server or on the production computer anyway.

The 3D object needs a correct UV mesh (this needs to be done in the 3D software - Cinema 4D, 3DS Max,...) which actually defines where each pixel belongs to. The content needs to fit to this mesh as well. You should also create some test pattern with some sort of reference points which you can find in your 3D model and content and on the real object. See this https://www.dataton.com/academy-video-watchout-6-3d-creation and related videos on the Dataton website.

I assume that the 2019 driver still has the same issues as all the drivers since 2018Q1. Maybe you can try the 2017q4.1 driver which is actually the same Dataton uses on their servers. I hope that this link still works: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-pro-win-17-q4-1

It is basically not restricted anymore but you should keep in mind that Artnet (DMX) can fill up a network quite easily. For bigger lighting networks I would always suggest to use a separate network and just triggers from WATCHOUT.

Just out of curiosity, which graphic card driver are you using?

As Mike said, it's physics and a calculation problem. If display 1 and 2 would be in one horizontal line, you would add a logarithmic gray curve to both sides. On D1 it would start with 0% on the left going to 100%, on D2 it would just be the opposite. Now, in your case you also have a vertical blend. So here the mask on D1 would start at 0% on the top going to 100% at the bottom of the overlap. On D2 it is vice-versa. If you now look at the pixel in the lower corner between D 1 and 2, the mask should be 0% for the horizontal mask and at the same time100% for the vertical mask. The only way to get a correct overlap would be to use camera calibration system. E.g. domeprojection.com https://www.domeprojection.com/products/demo-version/

No, that's not the case. To framelock outputs on WXxxxx cards, you'll always need a S400 sync board. What do you need this for? The WATCHOUT display software changes into Direct3D mode when playing content and does not run in WMI mode. I've seen a lot of problems with graphic cards trying to send out custom resolutions. Have you tried to use UHD instead? On the WATCHOUT side it would be easy to accomplish using virtual screens mapped onto real outputs. I would first try to get your computers in sync unsing a standard resolution and then start exploring from there.

Can your PowerPoint computer really play out a resolution of 8000 x 3000 px on one graphic card output? I've some doubts here. There are basically two ways to get live (external) content into WATCHOUT. a) use a capture card I doubt that there is a capture card on the market yet going beyond 4K/UHD. b) try NDI If you can force your PowerPoint computer to a resolution of 8000 x 3000px, you could try to send this over NDI. Have never tested such a resolution and can't test either since our computers do not support this resolution at all. Using more than one output on the source side means looking for trouble. PowerPoint has no real synchronization built-in which would probably lead to some tearing between the captured inputs. Wouldn't it make more sense to use WATCHOUT for all background graphics, videos etc. and PowerPoint just for the bullet points etc. which change minutes before the show?

I don't know your device but a very commom mistake is to test without going online. Artnet is a net protocol and only works when the production computer is set to "ONLINE". Even, if you have no displays set up in your show.

If you set all inputs with a ramp of 0, why don't you use the setImputs command instead? setInputs (page 183 of the current manual) This command is functionally equivalent to the setInput command above, but allows you to set multiple inputs with a single command. This is useful in the following cases: • When it is important that several inputs are set simultaneously, because their values are used in an interdependent way. If you use two separate setInput commands, it is possible that the commands will not be executed on the same frame. • When setting a large number of inputs, as it is more efficient to handle this with a single command than a number of separate commands, allowing you to set a larger number of values within a single frame.

Hi Quim, Hope you're fine despite the situation on your end. I just tested a WP2 with NDI and WO 6.6.1 and this works fine. Regards, Rainer

Unfortunately I do not understand this question. The space bar starts and stops the active timeline (toggle). If you just want to start it without the danger of stopping it with the same key, use the "0" (zero) on a numerical pad of your keyboard. In theory, you can connect any number of display computers to a production computer as long as your network is set up correctly. In practice, it might be difficult to work with hundreds of display computers in one project file due to handling aspects in your stage window etc.

I'm not saying that using a cue instead of a time to jump to is safer but that is what we normally use and we have not seen a situation where the loop didn't work. It's still worth a try I guess.