RBeddig

Yes, WATCHOUT only receives MIDI but does not send anything back to the controller. Depending on the number of buttons you need, a device like the B-Station from Visual Productions could be a solution.

Problem has been solved and was caused by an external show control software. //Rainer

Our standard solution used to be to use a DVI Parrot to define a single resolution and then to use the DVI Parrot as the source for a bunch of cheaper Gefen DVI Detective units. Then the graphic will only see one resolution which is even more important when you try to use 50fps resolutions. All displays have their preferred resolution in the 60fps range and are sometimes a bit unwilling to change to 50fps. Good EDID minders are also those of Lightware or http://www.spatz-tech.de. Internal EDID management could be an option and is probably the choice to use when it comes to UHD or 4K since there are not many EDID minders available for resolutions above WUXGA.

Lawrence, There are two points which are important. When WATCHOUT - or rather Windows - looses contact to a display it usually means that it does not see a valid EDID information on that port anymore and since we are using digital signals today Windows will just close the output on the graphic card. WATCHOUT will notice this and will show the error message that it detected an unexpected display configuration change. A way to stabilize this at least for WATCHOUT would be to use EDID minders behind the graphic card outputs (short good cable in between) and make sure that the EDID minders only hold one valid resolution. The second part is the extension side. This is basically a question of quality cables and/or quality extenders. From my experience, Kramer products are not on my list of quality products here anymore. If you go for CAT-extenders, use quality brands and good shielded CAT cables with CAT-5e or better CAT-6 specification. Or use good optical converters and glass fibers. Another option could be to use HD-BaseT solutions and good cables. Many manufacturers offer solutions over IP today which give pretty good results, though most of those solutions use compression algorithms. //Rainer

There are two more options you might want to look at. UNIVERSE is a control software programmed and designed by video operators for video operators. It is pretty powerful in live situations but has all the logical functions to work in fixed installations as well. On the other hand, a simple device like the Visual Productions B-Station could work for you as well. The B-Station can send out any command over UDP, OSC, ArtNet or DMX when pressing one of the six big buttons. The buttons can be programmed to give visual feedback as well. You do not need to run any software to use the B-Station interfaces. Actually you could also take their IoCore 2 unit and send cues from the lighting console (Art-Net or DMX) which would then trigger a UDP signal out. It also has GPI and GPO connectors.

It's a rather old post, but has anyone used this card with 8 HD-SDI inputs and WATCHOUT 6.x.x so far? We have some requests for servers with 6 inputs and the price tag is quite different from using Datapath. I know that BM drivers can sometimes be a bit tricky. Does the card show up with 8 input channels out of the box or how is that set?

The control system Universe has support for Watchout and SSH.

Control systems like Watchnet, Universe or Medialon Manager can display the timecode of a certain timeline in it's user interface. You could also use a device called TimeCore produced by Visual Productions to visualize the timecode of a show. Universe could also calculate a count down to display the remaining time. More on Watchnet, Universe and Visual Productions can be found on our website.

I've not tried to control the production software of WATCHOUT 5. The discovery function for the production software works with WATCHOUT 6.2 and later. You might still try to enter the IP address manually in WATCHNET. The error you report just says that WATCHNET sends data into the network and the production software tries to listen but does not understand the new commands.

Two midi controllers will not work since WATCHOUT only talks to the first controller Windows detects. Solutions could be to use generic inputs and WATCHNET, which could run side-by-side to the production software. If software faders are something you don't like you could define buttons with a preset fade rate (setInput "xxx" 1 1000 would fade up to 100% in one second). WATCHNEt would require a second WATCHOUT license key. Another option would be to use UNIVERSE. We sell this here in Germany as an add-on to WATCHOUT and this software is made by operators for operators. Can control almost anything you come across in live events (including your Lightware matrix) and is pretty easy to program. http://www.presentation-technologies.de/universe.html sorry, our website is in German only

Do to licensing issues, WATCHOUT has no Dante software built in but there are numerous users and installations using Dante Virtual Audio in WATCHOUT display servers. Up to 24 channels are supported per display server.

Windows controls the starting order of drivers and applications automatically. In your case it seems that WATCHPOINT starts before the CodeMeter driver is up and running. Since you're also facing an issue with a capture card (second thread) I would suggest to contact support@dataton.com or your local Dataton reseller / Premium Partner.

You can recover the show back from the display computer. The "spec" file is actually a copy of the actual project file and can be converted back to be a **.watch file. All the media is also on your display computer(s). Look for the post named: "Rebuild show file?" This explains the necessary steps to recover the show file. Best regards

The better option would be capture cards from Datapath or maybe Magewell. Datapath's drivers are way better than the Blackmagic drivers and they give support while Blackmagic does not know this word at all.

Hi Michael, I'm not using the latest versions of Adobe since I don't like the rental scheme but on my system HAP is only present in AE or Adobe Encoder if QT is installed and the HAP codecs are installed. They then should appear as QT codecs in AE. QT is the basis and needs to be there before HAP gets installed. Regards, Rainer

My internet does not allow me to follow your link right now but I guess I know what you want to achieve. You'll find the information in the manual on pages 76 and 77.

WMV is not officially supported. It often works but there is no guarantee for it. You can find the list of supported formats here: https://www.dataton.com/watchout-overview-supported-media-images-sound-and-video Regarding the audio files, it is sometimes hard to find the little speaker symbol or it is even not visible. You can still go into the cue settings and define the position in pixels or use the display name of the server which you want to use to send out audio though. This should work even if the little speaker symbol does not show up. Make sure that you define an audio output in the menu of the WATCHOUT screen on the display computer as well.

I've seen this behavior in version 6.2 but not any more since updating to 6.2.1. You should contact support on that matter and tell them all necessary specs of your system (Windows version, tweaked or not, any third party image filters or QT installed,...). support@dataton.com

Could maybe be a rights issue when the installer does not have administrator rights due to some limits on the user share.

Can you define a bit clearer how you are doing this to see this error? If you create a show in the production part of WATCHOUT (called WATCHMAKER.exe) you define the screens and with those the names and ip addresses of your display system. In this window you see a little button named "Test connection". When you press it, the field to the left should become green. If not, it indicates that your network blocks at least UDP traffic. If it shows green you can online and then the display computer should load your show and once it is transferred it should show the content which is under your ruler in WATCHMAKER at that point.

Datapath capture cards usually have no problems in capturing 50fps. We have used several cards and have the visionAV-SDI in our rental systems. Also usable are the cards from Magewell or Blackmagic. We have sold some Magewell cards but do not use those in our own systems. We used Blackmagic cards in the past but stopped due to the rather flaky drivers. Datapath has the best support for WATCHOUT. They even have their own WATCHOUT system in the UK for testing.

I can confirm: if the show is programmed with 6.1.6 first it will still work with 6.2.1. You can't add or change an URL though.

Having the main displays in one tier and the backup displays in another tier, all turned on and set to different names and IP addresses, should not cause any problems at all. We are doing it on almost all shows with backup display computers.

Look for your computer under "Devices", then for your first disk drive (with the OS). On my computer it is called "Macintosh HD" but it might be named differently on other computers. Then look for the folder "users" and in there for the folder for your share. This has the same name as your user. In this folder you'll find the "WATCHNET_Data" folder.

Thanks for sharing this information! Rainer