RBeddig

Using VNC on a production computer is usually not such a problem. TightVNC is a good choice and you should select different ports. On the display computer any VNC server can cause problems since WATCHPOINT has it's own VNC server built-in using the standard VNC ports. Rainer Beddig

No, You can define the duration for the individual cues under preferences, but they will all populate the active layer. You could place dummy cues in the different layers and then drop the content individually from the media window onto the dummy cues. But still it has to be done one-by-one. Or you use URL image cues and reference those to a folder into which you can drop the actual files - with the correct names. Rainer Beddig

Nvidea offers a solution with a powerful workstation graphic card (Quadro 4000 and higher) and a daughterboard graphic card. http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/product_quadro_sdi_output_uk.html It's very expensive and can only play one output per computer. The alternative could be to use a Grassvalley all-in-all converter for appr. 1000 EUR and make this convert DVI into a proper HD-SDI signal. This could (should) work with more than one output from a computer. Haven't tried it personally but considered it in some earlier researches. Best regards Rainer

We have not seen notable difference on WIN 7-32 and WIN 7-64, except when you use more than two or three captured inputs. Each capture card blocks some of the RAM and depending on the make/driver you could notice that not all capture card inputs work if you have many on WIN 7-32. This is one point where the improved memory access of WIN 7-64 would help. But for a normal computer with e.g. a SDI capture card and a DVI capture card you should not notice a difference.

Hi, do I get it right that the display computer is not in full screen mode when you have the problem that you can't access WATCHPOINT? If you are on a production computer and remote access one of your display computers, you'll see your diplay computer desktop with a minimized W/O window. In that window, there is splash screen, with the name of your display, but no ip address. This is the screen I am seeing on startup when the computer refuses to display the timeline content. And to reiterate, it only happens sometimes and seemingly at random, up until now, baffeling my operators. It looks to me as if there is another process (program, win service) loading at that point and stealing the focus from WATCHPOINT. The normal situation would be that WATCHPOINT loads up in full-screen mode with it's software version and the IP address displayed. I am having a very silimar issue. On startup one of my three display computers shows a black screen. If I remote in thought Watchout manager!ment and hit reload I can get it to go online. It was working fine until I added an third display to this 4 output machine. Going to check firewall setting after my show, any other suggestions? Maybe a different issue here.... Are you sure that all displays are connected through good active DP adaptors and all EDID and frequency settings are the same on all display computers?

" i put both videos in a composition and put the composition on the main timeline, set to loop and free run." I would look at this point. free-running means that WATCHOUT triggers the clips in sync but then does not care about synchronity of those clips anymore. Computers can run at different speeds even if you think that they are identical and if WATCHOUT does not check synchronity anymore after the start of a video....

Hi, can you say whether your files are 48kHz or 44kHz? We have seen some issues with 48kHz and after converting those to 44kHz they worked fine. Best regards Rainer Beddig

Is your display computer tweaked according to the tweaking suggestions? Especially UAC and Media Center settings?? Those might block your display computer from gaining access to the files.

Wenn die Composition eine Länge von 2:03.00 hat, der Inhalt aber nur 2:00.00 und die Composition dann im Loop läuft ist es normal, dass 3 Sekunden schwarz bleiben. Geloopt wird ja die Composition und nicht die darin liegenden Videos alleine. Warum ist die Composition nicht so lang, wie die Videos? Gruß Rainer Beddig for the rest of the forum: if the composition has a length of 2:03.00 but the content inside 2:00.00 and the content is set to run in a loop it is normal that 3 seconds will be black in each loop. We are looping the complete composition regardless of the length of individual content inside. Why not set the composition to the exact length of the videos? Regards

WATCHOUT does not know the system time. We have one fixed installation where the client first planned to use a show control system for some time related functions and then skipped that after we implemented a work-around which was actually just meant as a temporary work-around. We use one timeline with 24h and have cues at certain positions to control the timelines holding the content. The problems are: - after a while, the gap between real-time and the time on the control timeline gets longer. - whenever someone stops the system, he has to make sure that the control timeline is manually started at the right position In our case, it does not make a difference if the watchout display players are started at the exact time or shut down at the right second. A difference of a few seconds or even minutes does not harm. In your case, a control system which can access a time server or the system time would be the better option I guess. You can use professional solutions like Medialon and similar products or a software running in parallel to WATCHMAKER sending custom cues to WATCHOUT. E.g. a tiny Flash project or any other software with access to the system clock and the capability to send strings.

What problem do you see? Have you looped inside the composition using control cues (wrong) or the composition using the "loop" setting of the cue? Have you set the composition to free-running?

Hi Nikalaya, Quicktime is a not a codec format. There are many different codecs which relate to Quicktime but could be played through the Windows Media player too if it has the right filter. Which format causes the problem? If you open the file with the quicktime player and look at the clip information (strg+I, if I'm not mistaken) it should tell you more about the file format. There are also some programs which give you more details. On my Mac I use "MediaInfo" or "VideoSpec" for this purpose. WATCHOUT does not use Quicktime for most codecs anymore. Even Quicktime formats like QT Animation and H.264 are played through a Dataton filter using Media Player. I would suggest to reinstall the latest Quicktime and not to change any media playback preferences at all. You could also do a reinstall of WATCHOUT so that this application can set the right filters in the registry again. There is also a very good tool for Windows (graphedit/graphstudio) which can tell you exactly how DirectShow will play a specific file. It needs to run on the computer which causes problems since it uses the installed filters. One more point: have you updated anything recently? If not, a problem with your hard drive (corrupt data) could also lead to such a problem. Hope it helps Rainer

We have images for all our rental computers and usually update drivers and Windows fixes when we update the image to suit a new WATCHOUT version. We then test one machine thoroughly before we make the clone master. In the past, we did not see any rela issues installing Windows fixes but after doing so, you need to turn the automatic update detection off completely. Otherwise it might happen that Windows want's to inform you about an update in the middle of your presentation. I've seen this regularly with people presenting powerpoint & co. Best regards Rainer

Be aware that audio sent from more than one computer will not be phase accurate in it's sync! This means: you can use individual computers to send out audio, as long as the audio is not the same as on the second computer. Sending the same audio out of two computers will lead to interferences which may lead to canceling the audio signal from one computer with the audio played from the second. If you have some main audio signal on a couple of channels played from one computer and additional audio effects from the other computer(s) it will most probably work. Best regards Rainer Beddig

Hi Mal, I've seen issues between WATCHOUT and Barco Encore. Those could be traced back to a non-standard EDID information sent from the inputs of the Encore. Using a proper EDID manager in between usually solved those problems. Have you set the EDID of the DVI matrix to a certain settings or does it just pushes the EDID of the Spyder through to it's inputs? Best regards Rainer

Sounds interesting. We have done some projects like that using WATCHOUT and KISSBOX interfaces. The KISSBOX I/O3 can take input cards which send their information through Artnet into WATCHOUT. If you use those and have no DMX lights etc. to control, you do not need the KISSBOX DMX. The KISSBOX I/O3 also needs PoE! Best regards Rainer

Hi, you can not use 3D interlaced material since here both views of the 3D film are encoded into one image. You have to ask for the two videos as separate files or at least as side-by-side versions which you could crop and scale to size. In WATCHOUT you have to use two tiers for the two displays and you need to link each file to the correct tier in the layer settings too. For more information see page 86 of the WATCHOUT manual. Regards Rainer Beddig

Not all DVI switchers can switch "invisible" between the frames and it is extremely important to show the same EDID setting to all inputs of the switch. The WATCHOUT outputs need to see identical EDID settings and if you switch from one EDID to the other the matrix needs more time to establish the connection after switching the inputs. The purple color could come from a wrong color space setting. Normally DVI switches do not interfere with colors... Regards Rainer Beddig

Hi Thomas, All WATCHPAX have to be connected to the network through a normal network switch. The KISSBOX also needs to be connected to the switch or anywhere in the network as long as it is on the same base address and reachable from the WATCHPAX units. The advantage is that it can be further away from the WATCHOUT/WATCHPAX system. Pls. note that the KISSBOX gets the power through the ethernet connection. You will need the power injector (MS1 / PoE Injector) or a switch with PoE outputs! Regards Rainer Beddig

Hi Mith, there are usually two or three ways to use timecode. a) send timecode from WATCHOUT and sync the audio player (protools) to this b ) sync a watchout display cluster to incoming timecode c) more ways if you use a good show control system in between, e.g. Medialon Manager... a) you feed timecode into the audio in port of your display computer and open the display computer through scripting to accept the timecode. It will sync your main timeline to the external timecode. (see p. 268 of the manual for more information) b ) you use a recorded timecode (LTC- not VITC!!!) and place this as an audio cue into a timeline. The timecode is on the audio output and can be fed into a suitable audio player. Due to the internal synchronisation of WATCHOUT players it can happen that you get a small jitter (speed variation) in your timecode and some receivers are very strict with the incoming signal quality. In this case it is always a good idea to use a re-clocking interface in between which will usually also convert LTC into MIDI-TC. A good choice is Rosendahl MIF4. Hope it helps Rainer

Hi Navypti, your problem sounds a bit strange and it needs some structured analysis: a) you claim that your miniDP>HDMI adapters are all active and working. To confirm this, I would suggest to use 4 of the monitors which have been working so far and try to use all 6 adapters on those four monitors. Once all of your adapters have been tested this way and you have images on the four outputs with every combination of adapters, the adapters should be ok. The Eyefinity cards do need active adapters also when using only four monitors. (there are some adapters which do not work fine and only very few have the official AMD certification). are your 6 displays identical? They all need to have an identical EDID!!! If not, this can cause problems and lead to what you describe. Note that the EDID might be different on older and newer models of the "same" monitor. We normally use EDID detectives (tools) in between the graphic card outputs and the monitors. Important: do not copy the EDID from your display into the EDID tool since this would only change the position of the problematic EDID, not cure the problem. The best is to use only one EDID for the needed resolution and skip all others. You may need a more intelligent EDID tool for that, like DVI-Parrot, Lightware,... Then copy this single EDID onto all EDID tools for each monitor. Your graphic card will then detect identical displays, even though they might slightly differ in reality. c) only install the important parts of the AMD driver (display driver, audio driver, control center. Do not install transcoding and their tool to clone monitors....! d) Normally it is not necessary to change anything on the windows side, regarding the setup of the graphic card outputs. e) Inside the Catalyst Pro Control Center, you should NOT change anything on the "AMD Eyefinity Multi-Display" tab. We do not need this for WATCHOUT! You can use "Desktop Management" to arrange your displays into the correct order. Click onto the little black arrows for the options. If you use non-VESA frequencies, it might be necessary to tell your graphic cards about that, especially if you do not have EDID tools connected. Go to the "My Digital Flat Panels" tab and there to "HDTV Support". Activate all needed "video" frequencies on all outputs. Change the output with the big bar in the upper part of that window. All other settings should remain untouched! We are using the W7000 and V7900 models for quite some time and never had any issues with monitors beeing deactivated. But it is important that all adapters are active and working, all monitors show the same identical EDID and Eyefinity and other grouping settings inside the graphic card driver should be set to default. BTW: what do you mean when you write " with different browsers on"?? Hope this helps Rainer Beddig

Well, WATCHOUT 5.2 is a rather old version and there have been quite a few updates and bug fixes in between. I would strongly suggest to use either 5.3.1 (which we have used for many months as a very solid version) or to 5.5. There have been some changes lately in the scaling mechanisms too. Best regards Rainer Beddig

Hello Jean-Luc, I've set some shows under WO 5.5 to 50Hz and this worked fine. I can not confirm your findings here. Have you unimnstalled the previous version before installing 5.5? This sometimes helps. Also pls. be aware that even if you set 50Hz in the preferences, it does not necessarily mean that your computer will use this frequency. The graphic card will negotiate with your monitor/display which frequency to use and normally displays will consider 60Hz as the standard frequency. If you want to make sure that your computer uses 50Hz you'll have to use some EDID tool which you can set to possibly only one frequency, e.g. 1920x1080@50Hz. It does not help to copy the settings from your display into the EDID tool since this will lead to the same negotiation result. Take an EDID tool which you can set to one frequency only and this should work. Hope this helps, Rainer Beddig

Some few thoughts from my side too: Magnetic horizontal and vertical reference lines - can be useful to accurately position cues inside the stage window without going into the numeric values again and again. Preference switch to deactivate the main timeline completely - We do not use the main timeline very often anymore. In life situations, if you do not correctly focus on a specific aux timeline window before, hitting the space bar to continue will always run the main timeline. This can be confusing and annoying at times. Maybe the space bar could also be connected to a specific timeline instead to make sure that the right timeline get's fired off. Media Text... duplicate - when we use the internal text cues, we often want to use the same text with some little changes again and again. Now we have to go into the cue, mark and copy the text, open a new empty text cue , paste the old text into this one and then alter it to change it to the text we need. It would be much easier, if we could just mark a text cue and copy this into a new cue which we could then save under a new name and with different content. Preference switch to deactivate error messages regarding to IP output bing not delivered - We sometimes use the IP output to send strings to other systems (show control systems, projectors,...). While working on the project, the actual device might not be available and every time the output cue is started, the message window will come forward to tell me that the cue could not be delivered. Would be cool if I could activate/deactivate the output in the settings window or the preferences somewhere to avoid those messages when editing. IP cues sent from specific display computers - in fixed installations we have the need to report the working condition of all computers in the setup. We sometimes use a string output sent through IP to the show control system to send some sort of "alive" cue every 10, 20 or 30 seconds or so. The problem is that only one of the display computers will send out this string. If any of the other display computers dies it will go unnoticed. I'm aware that I could send the string through the COM port of each computer but this would often involve some extra hardware or at least extra serial wiring and a controller which has enough COM ports for all lines coming in. My idea would be to be able to link a string output (IP) to a specific display in the same way like an audio cue. Just positioning an icon over the correct screen area. MIDI OUT - we get questions for this very often. There are hardware devices which could translate DMX into MIDI but why not do it directly from WATCHOUT. Import of real 3D objects as cues - After going into the semi-3D world already it would be time to be able to use real 3D media in our shows. That's all for now... Best regards Rainer

Just found a good link on DP adapters: https://www.sapphireforum.com/showthread.php?28155-EWP-Guide-3-or-More-Monitors-Eyefinity-Setups-and-You!! BTW, most adapters from know eyefinity capable graphic card manufacturers seem to be identical and can be used when they show the eyefinity logo on the box. We have tried XFX and SAPPHIRE with good results. PNY, HIS,... should also work. Best regards Rainer