Vollmers

I'm facing some weird issues, regarding triggering things randomly. I have a very complex Tv Studio show, and to get a better overview, I started to use String Cue commands, instead of having enormous amounts of Control Cue elements in one AUX timeline. I'm not gonna get into details, but basicly I send all the commands below, from one single String Cue, and it works fine. But now and the the systems seems to behave like it gets random commands, when triggering String Cue's, like this one. Are there any known limitations regarding the number of commands, and/or should I put a slight time delay, between each command? Best regards Christian run "THEME_BG1"$0D run "THEME_BG2$0D run "THEME_BG3"$0D run "THEME_BG4"$0D run "THEME_BG5"$0D run "THEME_BG6"$0D run "THEME_BG7"$0D run "THEME_BG8"$0D run "THEME_BG9"$0D run "THEME_BG10"$0D run "THEME_BG11"$0D run "THEME_BG12"$0D run "THEME_BG12"$0D run "THEME_BG13"$0D run "THEME_BG14"$0D run "THEME_BG15"$0D run "THEME_BG16"$0D run "THEME_BG17"$0D run "THEME_BG18"$0D run "THEME_BG19"$0D run "THEME_BG20"$0D run "THEME_BG21"$0D run "THEME_BG22"$0D run "THEME_BG23"$0D run "THEME_BG24"$0D run "THEME_BG25"$0D run "THEME_BG26"$0D run "THEME_BG27"$0D run "THEME_BG28"$0D run "THEME_BG29"$0D

I experienced the same issue some years ago, and for me the solution was quite simple. Instead of $0D, I just entered "$00", which I guess the system don't expect a carriage return, and then everything worked. I don't know if this solves your problem, but the issues you're facing sounds pretty similar. BTW, if you don't know this free app, dont hesitate to get it. It makes testing a lot easier, when working with TCP/IP commands to and from WO. Best regards Christian

I use HAP or HAP alpha for all my video material. I have designed a very complex show, which is running in a TV studio on a 24 hour news channel. So for me stability is of the essence. And HAP does the trick 100%. It is native in Watchout, so you don't have to install any additional codecs. I hope this answers your question. Best regards Christian

Sounds really weird. If I was stuck in the same situation as you are, I would make an Acronis image of the good computer, and then use that image to clone the others. Faster than wasting time on an annoying. Please update your post, if you find the error. Best regards Christian

Hi Matteo You can find older versions here: http://forum.dataton.com/topic/1126-dataton-software-earlier-versions-archive/ Best C

I'm pretty curious too

If you go to "Stage" and "View", you get 3 options. Front (CTRL-Shift-F), top (CTRL-Shift-T) and left (CTRL-Shift-L). You can't rotate it, like other 3D programs, since Watchout is not a 3D design program. You could though use a trick, and implement a projector in the scene, and use it only for preview purposes. Works great. Best regards Christian

Hap Alpha usually works great. If you're not satisfied with the alph, try to change the setting. Normally it is set to auto detect, but I had an issue once, and changing to the straight alpha setting made a big difference. Best Christian

Try $00 in the end instead. I had a similar problem, and that fixed it. As I recall it, this means you just fire the command, and avoid a return. Best regards Christian

My suggestion is to create a setup with virtual displays, which all your your shows use for reference. So whenever you make a new design/calibrate/adjustment or what ever changes you implement, as long as it runs through the virtual display setup, it will be shown correct. This is a procedure I use with all the designs I make. I create a startup AUX timeline,which enables the virtual displays in the fysical output channels. I don't know if that's the workflow you're looking for, but as mentioned this is my standard method for all I do. Best regards Christian

Totally agree. Being able to search for the media reference, from inside the Media browser, could really be helpful. Cheers

Hi Kat I've experienced that if my Production was running highres in preview when I had a show onair, over a period of time certain functions were beginning to fail. In my case it was images from the Dynamic Image server. What I did was setting the preview to "Thumbnail" resolution, and that did the trick. Nobody have been able to explain why. I don't know if it will help you, but you could give it a try. Best regards Christian

As I understand it you run the latest official version of Watchnet, and a rather old version of Watchout. If I had same problem, I would make a test setup, with the latest Watchout version, to see if the problem were still there. Are you sure nothing else is connected to the Display PC's? I had a similar problem, and I discovered some one else were testing something against the same Display PC as me. BTW I just heard that Dataton is about to release a new version of Watchnet, which can co-exist with both Production PC's and Display PC's. Looking forward to the release :-) Best regards Christian

I've discovered that if you offline a show, then the display computer are not forced back to full screen using the CTRL+W function. So the described behaviour in start up mode corresponds to my experience.

Will it make a difference if you put the video file in a composition, and use that instead, so it's the composition that are copied multiple times? I haven't tried it, but normally that's my approach, just to make sure that if anything needs to be added to the footage, I just have to do it one time. Question - what size and codec have you been using? Best regards Chris

Hi Alex It seems like you have enough power on your PC. My personal experience with the codecs you mentioned, lead me to a decision not using h264 video files. The reason is it have to be decoded and that uses a lot of CPU power. I run all my footage in HAP from a local SSD drive, and my setup is much super stabile now. Just my 10 cents. Best regards Christian

Yes, and I won't recommend BM capture cards. We had all sorts of problems, like having to reboot 4-5 times, because the BM capture cards wouldn't initialise properly. After a short time we changed to a Datapath card that Dataton also recommended. No problems since the change. True - BM looks really promising, and they do have a lot of great products. Unfortunately the capture cards are, in my opinion, not the right choice in this case. Best regards Christian

That's exact my point. Couldn't get the alpha to act like it should, but after I changed the media setting it worked as I designed it.

Have tried to change the media setting? I'm referring to how WO sees the image file. I had a similar issue, and changed from auto to straight alpha. That did the trick for me.

Hi Mike Thx for your answer. already thought about a solution like that, but unfortunately it conflicts with the workflow we have, and we want to keep. I might be wrong, but as I see it the Dynamic Image server software either have a bug, or I using it in a way it wasn't intended. I've contacted the support team at Dataton now, and try to get them to look at it now. Best regards Christian

Hi We have recently changed design in a Watchout show. In the new show, we use our Dynamic Image server more than we used to. We used to present 1 image at a time, typically in a sequence with 5 images played one after the other. The images did a cross fade, so there was ver more than 2 images visibe at the same time. Now we play 3 at the same time. Watchout start out loading and playing out the 3 images, as intended, but after a while, 7-8 minutes or so, the images appear randomly, and sometimes not at all. To ensure stability and to have a simple unifirmed workflow, we have a system that creates the images for the presentation. It crops and scale the image, and wil always save it in the same format, in this case a HD image, 1920x1080 jpg 72 dpi. The only solution we could come up with, that actually works, is to load all dynamic images, used in all the different aux timelines designed, at the same time. For that purpose I made a composition, that loads everything in a corner of an output, that are not shown on any display. You shouldn't have to do that, hence the entire idea about the Dynamic Image server is to prevent such a workflow. I'm totally stuck here.... We're running WO v. 6.1.2. Have anyone else had this experience? Best regards Christian

Hi It's a bit difficult to be specific with a recommendation when you haven't shared any details about your project. With 3 dongles you can come quite far. Best regards Christian

I started a thread with the same question: http://forum.dataton.com/topic/2261-cant-delete-stage-tiers/ And the answer was unfortunately no

I use HAP for all video material. The great advantage with HAP is that it streams more or less directly to the GPU. When it comes to odd aspects, which I use a lot, I use good old Quicktime. Yes, you get bigger files, but with HAP its not a problem. I used to do conversions to mpg, but also experienced a lot of problems doing that, when I used odd aspect video. True you can make a regular aspect video, a resize it in Watchout, but then you might get a quality degrade.I tried to run 5 enormous QT HAP 1 minute video loops in 6400x1080, and it played out perfectly. I normally don't use HAP Q, since I don't experience any quality improvement in the shows I normally design. With QT HAP you can do all your work in Adobe After Effects, and render it out directly and it'll be ready to use. BTW - I've discovered there's a difference rendering out from PC and MAC. Loops from MAC with HAP doesn't loop correctly. The same loop rendered on PC works like they should.

I work a lot with websocket servers, and sending commands to Watchout from browser panels. My experience is that you need a slight delay between the commands. If you want to achieve what you described, I would recommend at least 0,1 second pause between each command, to make sure they don't interfere with each other. The good news is that it's all done in one specific task on the socket server. So from that perspective it's just one command. You can probably achieve the same, running a separate "control" timeline, with cues for each command. In that case you can just start that one timeline externally and not send several commands at the same time. Best regards Christian