Thomas Leong

...when the Stage Window is re-sized! I do not do operations often but while checking out my EVGA MST hub today, I noticed that the Main Timeline, in play mode stops playing whenever the Stage Window is resized. Thereafter, it can only continue playing with two taps on the space bar. Nothing happens with only one tap. Occurs in both versions 5.5.2 & 6.0. With Aux Timelines, it pauses, and auto restarts when the Stage Window resize is completed (left-mouse click released). Nothing like this occurs with any other Window in Watchout, only the Stage Window. Q: Is this by design, or a bug? Thomas Leong

Hi Christian, If you are referring to the software Serial Buttons, it needs a virtual serial port. I use the freeware single port HW VSP3 to create the virtual serial port on my laptop - http://www.hw-group.com/products/hw_vsp/index_en.html (after install, log-in to the software to make changes under 'Virtual Serial Port' tab. Example: Com Port 3 IP: 127.0.0.1 Port: 3040. If you want the serial port to be created every time you boot up, you will want to enable 'Create VSP port when HW VSP start-up' under Settings tab, and save the Settings to .ini file. Otherwiase, no other changes to the default values/settings in the software. Thereafter it will autorun as a Service everytime). Next start Watchout Production PC on the same computer. Also start Serial Buttons and right-click on any button > Configuration > Output 1 ensure the serial port is correctly chosen. Other parameters are at default (9600,8,1,none,none). Contrary to my earlier posts re Serial Buttons not accepting strings, I found out that it does, with [ ] square brackets to denote a string. So next enter your serial cues either in hex 0x or in string. A space is required between bytes or strings. Examples - [run] 0x0D [halt] 0x0D [gotoTime] 0x20 [0] 0x0D You can also use .13 instead of 0x0D [standBy] 0x20 [true] 0x0D [standBy] 0x20 [false] 0x0D Alternative is assign 3 Serial Buttons - one for [standBy], one for ON, one for OFF with the following commands - standBy button: [standBy] ON button: 0x20 [true] 0x0D OFF button: 0x20 [false] 0x0D Likewise with online and offline. With Aux Timelines, I have not been able to solve the 'space' after the word 'Timeline' as auto-assigned by Watchout, eg. Timeline 1, Timeline 2, etc. Mike has mentioned enclosing with quote marks, but that does not work with Serial Buttons. So far, it seem to work only with Timeline1, Timeline2, or a specific named Aux Timeline without a space in between the name - [run] 0x20 [Timeline1] 0x0D [halt] 0x20 [Timeline1] 0x0D If you have a lot of Aux Timelines, configure as many rows and columns of Buttons as you need. An alternative, to keep things tight and small, break up the serial command into 3 or more Buttons, as follows - Play Aux button: [run] 0x20 [Timeline] Stop Aux button [kill] 0x20 [Timeline] Then 10 buttons a'la a calculator from 0 - 9 with the following values: 0: [0] 1: [1] 2: [2] etc... and finally a TAKE button with the value: 0x20 0x0D NOTE: All Aux Timelines must be renamed to have no space between 'Timeline' and the number, eg Timeline 1 renamed to Timeline1, etc. This way, you can have 9999 Aux Timelines or more! Works on a touch-screen monitor too! Thomas Note: Edited re IP address and Settings.ini

Don't want to be spoil-sport, but with more than 1 projector, I wonder if the same UV mapping would apply especially when the projectors are not from the same direction. Example, one proj from the front, one from the rear; or one on the left side of the car, the other from the right. I have only tried on a toy car with one projector. Need to get a second proj to try this. The other thing to 'watchout' for is not to use still images with colors on different parts of the car. It makes it tough to align perfectly. Probably have to use masks to solve 'bleed over'. Suggest you test and test and test, if possible, to anticipate problems on site. Good luck!

A suggestion: Plug a licence key into one of the Watchpax's USB inputs and try to start it up. If that works, run through the Autostart Script stored in Watchpax to check/reset the IP address - http://forum.dataton.com/topic/1127-watchpax-autostarttxt-script/ Hope that works!

The real cause is a guess at best. I've had the Display PC (unlike your situation, I had nothing running yet, just the start-up Display 'window' showing the version and ip address) being kicked out to the Windows desktop a number of times while setting up and testing a number of new and upgraded Display PCs for clients recently. This is what I've done, and since then Watchout Display has not been 'kicked out to the Desktop' - 1. Per the 'Tweak List', ensure that nothing else is loaded in the Task Bar except for Codemeter and Watchout - i.e. no Catalyst, no whatever else. 2. In Services (right-click My Computer > Manage > Services), set any service that is 'Automatic (Delayed Start)' to either 'Auto' or 'Manual'. Hope that solves it for you. Thomas

No one else answering? Here's my 2 cents - Q1: "One was about "delete places" in indexing option." A: Sorry, can't understand you on this. Please explain again. There is no 'delete places' in Windows. There is, however, an indexing option in the Properties of the drive. The recommendation is to un-enable/un-tick indexing, presumably to stop background work (indexing) while the drive is being used for Watchout. Q2: "...another thing I wasn't sure about was page file size. It requires to double the RAM..." A: If you are using a traditional spinning drive for OS and/or Watchout, then follow the recommendation in the Tweak list. On the other hand, if you are using a SSD for OS and/or Watchout, I have personally been following the recommendations here: http://www.thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optimization-guides/the-ssd-optimization-guide-ultimate-windows-8-edition/#comment-22098 and dis-abled any paging file on all my computers (laptops and desktops) that use a SSD for the OS. Have not had any problems without a pagefile at all. Thomas Leong

Sound good, Zack! I'll try it. However, in keeping with Watchout's 'Easy to learn and use of the basics' (a real selling point!), a Preview toggle button would be a plus point. Thomas

Never mind. I checked Datapath downloads, and it appears that the Vision range all have the same download driver file v780. Prima facie, it would appear that the same range of cards share the same driver, and can therefore co-exist in the one pc.

A Preview Feature! If possible, a Preview feature (before Watchout sends to the outputs: aka 'Take') for Aux Timelines (which would include Live Video inputs in an Aux Timeline). If there is a workaround to this in the present WO5 and WO6 feature set, pray tell. Thomas Leong Edit: An idea would be a toggle Preview button for Aux Timelines which pops up a Preview window (like the Input/Output/Task/etc windows do).

I vaguely recall reading in this forum that it was not possible to install to different Datapath cards in one pc if they use different drivers, but ok if the same driver is used for both cards...but an hour of research, and I cant find the posts, hence a new topic. Client would like to have a Vision SDI2 and a RGB E2S installed in one Display PC. The slots and lanes are available. So question is whether this is possible. Do they use the same driver? Any gotcha? Thanks in advance, Thomas Leong

Yes, laptop's Intel graphics control says says output is set at '1920x1080@60p Hz'

As mentioned in the description accompanying the video ('Show more'), Watchout version 5.5.2 was used. Though the licences sold were v5/6, client's current project rental for 8 days (the main purpose of his purchase) specified v5.5.2, so he did not want v6 installed...yet.

Recently, had a chance to install a Magewell Xi102XE-HD and a Datapath RGB E2S capture cards in a new X99 Watchout pc and run a check for a client. Resolution quality was visually equal between the two, but the Magewell is slightly slower as one can see in this short video I have posted on youtube - https://youtu.be/d1BROTKlO-Y Thomas Leong

Watchout can work with Eyefinity but you will not be able to apply blending between displays. Watchout works only with Displays setup as Extended Displays. Watchout works only with ONE graphics card per Display PC. It will ignore other graphics cards installed in the same PC. To achieve what you want: 15 Displays you need: 1 Watchout Production PC + 1 licence 3 Watchout Display PCs + 3 licences (each PC fitted with one W9100 + one S400 outputting, say, to 5 Displays from each PC = 15) Ethernet link to all of the PCs.

Initially, I did rotate the UV coordinates in the UV Editor window - 90 degrees clockwise and anti-c, then 180 degrees, etc - but the result was not the desired one. Looking back I think the wrong mesh was selected and unwrapped. It was the mesh inside the vehicle - the seats, engine, etc. Eventually, I managed to select the entire body, windows and wheels, and the UV Editor showed two textures, one of which showed the shape of the vehicle cut into whole parts, eg. half of left side, half of right side, bonnet, etc. That seemed more like it, I thought. Rotated both textures clockwise 90 degrees, exported to obj, imported to Watchout, applied the snow.m2v as texture, and voila! All was sweet Thomas

Above posted too soon!! Problem solved! Somehow I accidentally discovered a method to change the UVW coordinates of the 3D model car I downloaded, and when textured with the snow.m2v file, the snow now 'falls' from front of car towards the rear. Managed to repeat the accident! Using Blender. Now it takes maybe 5-10 seconds to change the UVW coordinates to the desired direction, instead of 2 days!! Thomas

The difficulty I have been having is the direction of the UVW Coordinates. The car obj file in the video demo seems to have its coords running from the front of the car to the rear, including the window coords, such that when the snow.m2v is textured onto the car in the demo, the snow 'falls' from the front to the rear of the car. However, I tried the same snow.m2v file with another car obj file downloaded from the net, and the snow 'falls' from, say the left side of the car to the right side, if not all over in mixed directions. I think it is the UVW coordinates mapped to the car obj file I downloaded. Tried other obj files with the same 'confusing directional' results. Trying to make sense of these UVW coords and directions. Rotating in the original 3D file and re-exporting does not seem to help at the moment, and the mesh making up even a simple window is not in one piece/face but in hundreds of small triangles, so re-orientating a mesh is near impossible. Struggling! Thomas

Error in the link to "UV Coordinates in Blender". Should be - http://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/UV_coordinates_in_Blender

Been experimenting with Blender using the basic cube that it defaults to on loading. What I've found - 1. Blender saves its files as .blend and Watchout will not import this, so I'm not sure what Mike meant when he said "WATCHOUT will read basic Blender files as is". 2. Export from Blender as .obj or .3ds file, and Watchout will read this. However, if the file has not been prepped for Watchout, the error message is "No mesh with texture (UV) coordinates found", and the file will not import. Note: If you are trying to open a .obj file that was not originally saved by Blender, drag-and-drop will not work. Got to File > Import. 3. To prep a mesh with texture (UV) coordinates in Blender, using the cube as an example, I found 2 simple "tutorials" gave me all the principles required to proceed on my own. These tutorials are - a) Selecting and Transforming Objects - Blender Cookie (a basic how to in order to manipulate the basics within Blender) https://cgcookie.com/blender/lessons/selecting-transforming-objects/ However, the site seems to be down at the moment. Try youtube for lots of basics, some a bit drawn out, or the Blender Wiki. Briefly, Blender defaults to the right-mouse-button for selection. You can change this under File > User Preferences > Input > Select With. Shift > select click adds to a selection. Shift > select double click de-selects a selection. This is useful for selecting/combining faces where you want to have the same UV/texture coordinates. "Transform" function with/without shortcut keys, allows you to move, rotate, or scale the object/faces. Ctrl-Z to undo. UV Coordinates in Blender file:///C:/Utils%20&%20Downloads/Blender/UV%20coordinates%20in%20Blender%20-%20PioneerWiki.htm especially the topics "UV Unwrapping", "Setup Blender", and "Basic Method". With the cube, one could unwrap each face one by one and associate each face with a texture (flat colour; prep some different colours with a paint program; 256x256 pixels will do) rather than the whole cube. This eventually allows Watchout to re-apply a texture to each face rather than one texture to all the faces. Export the file as .obj or .3ds and voila! Watchout will now accept the file since it has texture (UV) coordinates. Thomas

Could also be a gremlin from a source you would never guess to be the cause, as happened here with Adobe products caused by a plugin extension to the Chrome browser - https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/1063516 So you'd have to put on your thinking cap, and/or perhaps uninstall/disable anything you do not need for the connection in your WO PC. Got to be one by one in order to identify the gremlin.

I just did a very basic test sending 'run' command from one WO pc to another WO pc after a 1 minute lapse. Works everytime. Though the WO manual says WO closes the tcp port after about 1 minute if there is inactivity, the next command sent after a minute works. I'd say check with Barco that the projector continues to listen to the port rather than closes the port.

According to Watchout 5 manual, page 206 - "When using the TCP protocol, WATCHOUT will open the connection (if not already open), send the data packet, and close the connection after about a minute of inactivity". Seems like you need to continuously poll the connection to keep it open. Someone more knowledgeable may be able to chip in to suggest ways of keeping the connection open...eg. UDP?, a router or switcher in between?

I seem to have discovered? a flaw in the installer version of WO6 when installed in my laptop Windows 8.1 Single Language version, and only when in Display PC mode. Production PC mode works fine. Reason I occasionally use the laptop as a Display PC is for 1920x1080 tests (it is the only 1920x1080 'monitor' I have ) When in Watchpoint.exe is launched, Watchout's startup screen shows only the bottom half of the '6' in the top half of the monitor, i.e. Display PC does not effectively load/launch, and the version and IP address does not show up. WP.exe does not even load. Solution: I have to rename my install folder from c:\Watchout 6 to c:\Watchout 5. Then everything is fine - version and IP address is displayed on startup as usual. This does not occur with my Windows 7 machines, only my laptop's Windows 8.1 Single Language version. Hope it is not only me! Thomas Leong

Please refer - WATCHOUT Technical Notes - 2015

As aforesaid, problem was fixed with an uninstall of both v5 and v6b9, registry clean, and clean install of v5 and v6b12 per your method, on the Display PCs. Problem first arose in my own systems with the Production PC having v6b12 (the first public beta) updating the display pcs which had both v5.5.2 and v6b9. However, v5.5.2 had not been installed as a co-exist with v6 per your method. At that time, I had merely copied the entire folder of v5 to another folder, and copy-and-pasted v6b9 into this v5 copy since v6b9 did not have an installer. Both versions were running fine before the installer version of v6b12 was released. Anyway, uninstalling and re-installing using your method of having v5 and v6 co-existing, all has been good since. Thanks! Thomas