Thomas Leong

Thanks Miro. But I did try all combinations for Watchpoint: - Default gpu: Intel. This worked. - Default gpu: nVidia. This did not. - Preferred gpu: nVidia. This did not. - Preferred gpu: Intel. This worked. No hybrid SLI option for me. Perhaps it is the dual gpu that is the cause of my problem, although I thought that by selecting the nVidia as default rather than preferred, it would somehow 'disable' the Intel. Looks like not. I presume your tests are with a desktop with a 3rd party gpu installed, and so far that works fine with the Anniversary Update? Time for me to go buy a Win 10 Pro licence to find out then...but I still have 2 unsold Win 7 Pro licences in the cupboard! Thomas

Think it is this one - http://www.gearbest.com/cables-connectors-c_11308/6.html ...else from the gearbest.com, look for Computers & Networking > Computer Peripherals> Cables & Connectors and its at the bottom of Page 6.

Yes, I updated 2 nights ago, but Win 10 v1607 still does not seem to work as a multi-output Watchout Display PC!...for me anyway. Tested only with my i5 Lenovo laptop (therefore only 2 outputs: laptop display + HDMI out). WO 6.1.2. Selecting the nVidia gfx card (840M, latest driver updated), works only in Clone mode, not in Extended mode. Selecting the onboard Intel 4400 gfx, Watchout works in Extended Mode! That's not bad I suppose since the laptop i5 can play out 2 x 1920x1080 without a problem with the Intel 4400 gfx. A Desktop may be different, but I do not have Win 10 on mine. Hopefully someone else can report on this. Thomas Leong

Perfect Cue from dsan or Master Cue from interspaceind both may be able to do it since their remote units are user re-programmable and the units can be connected to at least 2 computers via USB. So perhaps re-program one of the remote buttons to the spacebar, which will trigger both Powerpoint's next slide, and Watchout's active Timeline. That said, it also depends on how your Watchout Timeline is programmed to play/pause since the spacebar is a toggle key for both, whereas with Powerpoint it is always a 'next slide' command.

Watchout 6.1.2 Display 'under' Windows 10 seems to work now...with the proviso that Watchpoint works only in Windows 7/8 Compatibility mode, not otherwise. [Edit: only on 1 monitor output! See Edit 2 below] So far tested with only one Display monitor out (using my laptop which is the only unit I have with Windows 10 - upgraded by Microsoft from Windows 8.1 months ago). Tested multiple layers in the Main Timeline, Aux Timelines, Live Video (webcam), and some Tweens - Scale, Volume, Position. All work now without problems. Was not so a couple of months ago when I tried Compatibility mode, which resulted in inconsistent network connection with the Production PC. This time, seems solid when I Ctrl+Q out of Display, and relaunch Watchpoint again repeatedly. No problems surfaced. Don't know what Microsoft has updated since, but seems to work well so far. Your mileage might vary, Thomas Leong Edit 1: As my tests were only to a single display, if someone has Win 10 in a multi-display capable pc, perhaps he could report back the results before Microsoft's free upgrade to Win 10 expires. Edit 2: Unsuccessful test 36 hours later with 2 outputs from my Win 10 laptop - via HDMI out for the 2nd output. Watchpoint 6.1.2 and 5.5.2 would not start up...oft times went into a loop trying to start. It is like back to Watchout v4 but using v6!! No joy.

Question is does this occur when the same files are tried on another machine? I normally do not touch the following in BIOS using the manufacturer's default settings instead. However in your case, you may want to try the following in BIOS - 1. Disable Intel C-State It is a processor power management technology defined by ACPI. Enabled, it detects the idle state of system and reduce CPU power consumption accordingly. 2. Disable C1E Support (if this option is available; it may not be available when Intel C-State is disabled) This function when enabled reduces the CPU frequency and voltage for power-saving in halt state. 3. Disable EIST (Enhanced Intel® SpeedStep Technology) This adjusts CPU voltage and core frequency dynamically. It can decrease average power consumption and average heat production. You can try 1+2+3, or 1+2, or 3 alone to see which combination can help solve your start play problem. If none helps, then suggest you return the settings to original as your problem lies somewhere else. Thomas Leong Edit: Additionally, in your Power Plan - Control Panel > Hardware & Sounds > Power Options > select your exisiting Power Plan or create a new one > Change Advanced Power Settings > twirl down to Processor Power Management > Minimum processor state > set to 100% if you do not want the processor to slow down when system is in idle state; the default is 5%. Not sure of your dual Xeons' processor speeds, but perhaps setting it not to step down when idle may help in the first 1-2 secs of playback.

However, if those graphs can be logged, it can continue to run under the Watchout software such that when you quit Watchout Display (Ctrl-Q), you can then view the graphs or log. Depending on how much overheads your graphing software takes up, it may or may not affect the performance of Watchout Display. Thomas

Thanks for the clarification, Miro. In case you are not aware, in vlc > Tools > Media Information > Statistics, it gives a count of frames dropped - does not state at which point in time though. Being GNU Licenced, it should be ok to look at its code without breaking copyright laws, to see if its methodology can help with your objective on "...how to add better logging and statistics in future versions of WATCHOUT..."? Thomas

In the Display's Properties popup window, there is a choice to 'disable'/untick the Display concerned. Edit: Just to be clear though, the 'unticked' Display will not return control back to the user when in online mode. It will just remain black, same as if no content had been assigned to it. If you had meant whether, after unticking 'Use the display' in Display Properties, the Windows desktop for example could be accessed whilst the rest of the displays are in fullscreen Watchout mode, then screenshaper is correct in that the answer is 'No'. Not a workaround, but for convenience sake, you could connect a desktop monitor to Output 1, and the projectors to Outputs 2, 3 & 4 and assign content to those. Windows desktop will always appear on Output 1 as the Primary Monitor whenever not in Watchout online mode. Convenient for work.

I use my good ole eyes But if you want, you could try Fraps on the Display PC. The fps overlay stays in a corner (limited to Output 1 from my trials) overlayed on top of the fullsceen display. To log the fps, F11 to stop the Benchmark before you quit Display PC fullsceen mode so that the data logged will be written to some files in csv format in the Fraps\Benchmark folder. Remember it is F11 from the keyboard attached to the Display PC, not the keyboard attached to Production PC. You can change the default F11 key to some other key if you want. I use OpenOffice to read the csv files. Maybe Microsoft Word can too (not tried). MSI Afterburner has also been mentioned as being able to monitor fps. I tried but that did not work. Maybe did it wrong, but Fraps is much easier, and has less overheads. Thomas

Quick Solution: In BIOS > Power Management Setup set Restore after AC Power Loss to 'Power On'. This saves time trying to discover how Watchout can remote power up the Display after AC power is off. For tests, AC power must be off for at least 15-20 secs. Thomas

Mike, Production PC was used to power down the Display PC in all my tests. In cases where, after the power down as per above, I pulled the power cord from the Display PC for a 20-odd seconds and re-inserted, the Production PC, which was never powered off and Watchout Production was left loaded all this time, it could never power on the Display PC again. I reversed the PCs (Production, which had an Intel NIC, became Display and vice versa), and the same thing. Without Display PC psu being switched off, the Production PC was able to re-power up the Display, but not otherwise. Thomas

Don't have the Watchmax also, but I did some tests with my own 2 PCs and discovered the following settings to make WOL work, regardless of whether the port shows 2 lights (blinking yellow and steady orange/green) showing - 1. In BIOS Power Management menu: a. Set "EUP 2013" as Disabled b. Restore after AC Power Loss: Power off 2. In Wakeup Event Setup: a. Wake Up Event By: BIOS b. Enable "Resume by PCI or PCIe Device" c. All others disabled 3. In Windows Device Manager > Network Adapter > Power Management tab, check boxes/enable options that allow this device to wake the computer, examples: a. Wake on Magic Packet b. Wake on Pattern Match c. Wake on Magic Packet from Power Off state d. Wake on Link Settings e. Shutdown Wake-On-LAN (although this seems counter intuitive, disable this and WOL does not work. So enable it). Tested with Watchout 6.1.1 Production PC: Shutdown Watchout, restart/shutdown PC all does not matter. As long as network is connected, and Watchout is loaded, Remote Power off/Remote Power on of Display PC will work. It all depends very much on the Display PC. Display PC: Above settings in BIOS and Network Adapter must be followed, regardless of NIC manufacturer. If an option is not available, don't worry. IF Display PC is powered off at source (i.e. Power Supply Unit is off), all bets are off. WOL will not work when powered back on. In my opinion, in such case, a third party utility is required, such as "Auto PowerOn and Shutdown", a shareware. Without source powered off and after power off from Production PC, I tried after 1 minute and after 5 minutes+ and the Display PC will still remote power on from Production PC, given the settings above. Thomas Leong

Those with more insights into the way the program works should be able to give a more technically accomplished answer. But below are my two cents : AFAIK, all Tweens, mask effects, blending, and Virtual Displays use the gpu. I reckon the 3D Projectors too. So a gpu with at least 2GB of VRAM would be a minimum, unless you know for sure your program does not use this and that, and only plays back two or more video layers to no more than 2 displays. If latter is the case, even a W2100 would do for 2 outputs only (not more; i.e. W2100 does not work with a MST hub to extend to more outputs). Having 4 outputs available can be a blessing. I've been using one of my 4 outputs (in particular the 1st output), to a monitor in front of me, and the other 3 to the projectors. This way, if I need to access the Display PC's desktop, it is right in front of me, not 100 yards away for these old eyes, in small fonts. Being an event company, more often than not, you do not know the material handed in for playback so generally, the W7100 is a good choice. Powerful enough for eventualities, and allows you to concentrate on delivering without worry. The W8100, being a dual slot card, has vents at the rear to expel the heat generated by card. The W7100 is a single slot card and its vents are at the top of the card. The heat is therefore expelled back into the pc chassis. If you are able to direct the airflow in the chassis and plan for this, the W7100 is fine. Else, the W8100 is better.

If urgent, you may want to try this shareware-priced utility: Auto Power-On and Shut-down at http:http://lifsoft.com/ EDIT: This post of mine is in the wrong thread!! Could have been my fault in the first place. Apologies. Should be in http://forum.dataton.com/topic/2152-wake-up-on-lan-for-watchmax-sever/ Can it be moved please?

After the power down, did you switch off the source power supply, or off the power switch to the the computer's psu. If you did, then remote power off won't work. Additionally, after the power down, and without powering off the source power supply, have a look at the LAN adapter connection from the rear of the motherboard. If the 2 lights are not on (yellow blinking, and a steady red for the other light), then your motherboard does not support WOL despite, I think, the BIOS setting. From my experience, it seems that only Intel NICs work, Realtek does not. So check your motherboard manual to see if it is an Intel NIC. If you have 2 NIC ports, one of which is Intel, use the Intel.

Channelshifter.air is available at http://academy.dataton.com/recipe/audio-channel-assignment.

In the first place, I would set the Digital Video Processor to NOT SCALE anything of the inputs. This ensures that what you send from Watchout is not reprocessed into any other size, and the LED Wall is receiving Watchout's outputs in the intended resolution. What is not clear from your post is the "output of display server was 1920x1080 60hz...these processors were receiving 1920x1200 resolution from server". How did you determine that the Digital Video Processors were receiving 1920x1200? Is there an input readout from the DVPs? Your objective should be to match Watchout's graphics card output to the Wall's input - as Jim said, if this needs EDID Management, then you can't escape that. But in my limited experience with Watchout-LED, short-run cables do not need such extra costs (1-3m cables). Lastly, whatever content you have in the Stage Display (eg. 1440x720) is positioned in the Stage Display aligned to the top left corner of the Stage Display if using Watchout 5.x. If using Watchout 6.x you can use a Virtual Display of 1440x720 positioned in an actual Stage Display of 1920x1080 also aligning the 1440x720 Virtual Display to the top left corner of the Stage Display. From my observation, what happens then is that the Watchout Display PC's graphics card sends out 1920x1080 (or 1920x1200 as the case may be) with content of 1440x720 aligned to the top left corner of the 1920x1080. The LED Wall Sending Card receives this and sends it out to the wall. Since the rest of the (1920-1440) x (1080-720) is not connected to any LED panel at all, there is nothing to be seen.

Don't have one, and never tried a Lightware (wish I could afford one!). but I have successfully tried commands from Watchout to a Kramer matrix before. So below is a guess, from browsing the Lightware manual. According to Pg 13, if using Ethernet to control it with a direct connection to a computer, a cross cable is required, i.e. a normal CAT5 will not do. If making your own cable, that page shows the required cross connections. Secondly, (pg 23) it seems that "Matrix routers can be controlled with multiple control protocols. Lightware routers have a special protocol, but to interoperate with third party devices, a secondary protocol is also provided...Lightware Device Controller software and the built-in website works only with LW protocol (#1)!..." Looks like you have to switch protocols. Refer Pg 23 or 52 of manual. Thirdly, I think the curly brackets { } are for the Lightware protocol only. I think from Watchout, you have to use " " for string outputs, else just plain hex code numbers without spaces in between, with the carriage return at end. You would just have to try. Good luck! Thomas Leong

If the Production PC did not give an error message such as "...Connection Lost..." when the screen went black, then it is not a network error (i.e. different problem/topic than the original post in this thread). Could be RAM, or the Firepro W9100, or ???, or perhaps you ran out of media in the Timeline ??? Suggest you start a new thread/topic for your problem and post an image of your Timeline at the point when the screen went black. Thomas Leong

Yes, WO6 has a mask tool for each Display. It allows multiple masks to be added to a Display. This tool, however, currently does not allow bezier curves (not sure if bezier will be introduced later). A word of caution is recently a client of mine has complained that adding 10 masks (or more?) crashed his Production PC (X99 Asus Deluxe mobo, i7 5930, 16GB RAM, Samsung 850 Pro SSD for OS, and Samsung SM951 M.2 for Watchout). I have yet to find out more details on this crash so others' mileage may vary. A useful feature of the WO6 Geometry and Mask Tools is that it now superimposes the Geometric Grid and/or Mask(s) over the image at the Preview cursor so you can see what you are doing in the Production PC. The grid, however, does not appear on the Display PC output. To see the Full Geometric Grid in the Display PC, I have created a Photoshop grid (.psd) almost equivalent to the Full grid I see in the Production PC's Display (Adjustment) Window (one for 1920x1080, and one for 1920x1200). This can then be used in an upper layer in the Timeline and output to the Display PC, and turned off/deleted when not required. Available at - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vka36vx3prdbcae/AAAhEIQxLDtQnfZAB29FWYxJa?dl=0 Thomas Leong

Has anyone tried (or is using) Teaming or Bridging to backup their network connection? I tried Teaming with one of my mobos which has 2 NIC ports today - 1 Intel which has the Teaming feature; the other Realtek which does not, so the Intel was used to initiate the Team, using Adapter Fault Tolerance as Team type (italics as edited addition to original post). The 2 ports are connected to a simple unmanaged 1GHz switcher. Tried the same pc first as Production, then as Display PC. Seems to work fine, when pulling out one connector or the other whilst playing a Timeline. Seamless...timeline continues playing with no error message of '...connection lost' from Watchout. Another mobo I have does not have an Intel NIC, only one NIC, a Realtek, so Teaming was not available. But I hooked up an Orico USB-LAN Adapter, and Bridged the two instead. This also worked with one weakness. When disconnecting the USB-LAN connection, sometimes Watchout would give an error message of 'Display connection lost', other times no such message (i.e. as if the connection was fine). Could be a timing coincidence with Watchout checking on the network connection soon after the plug was pulled out. Windows would always show via the network icon in Task Bar as dis-connected when the USB-LAN RJ45 plug was pulled out. It would not show this disconnection if it was the onboard NIC RJ45 being pulled. On re-connecting the USB-LAN RJ45 plug, it takes a few seconds for Windows to show a connection, then a few secs after that, Watchout's timeline would pause playing, requiring a CTRL-L twice to go back online, and spacebar to continue playing. The above occurs when the PC is used as a Production PC. Have not tried this as a Display PC yet. Tomorrow! But the conclusion today is that Teaming is more reliable and seamless than Bridging if one has a choice. Thomas Leong

Which version of Watchout and VNC are you using? I have not been able to get Watchout 6.1 to work with 'Add Computer Screen'. However, 6.1 will work if I first 'Add Computer Screen' with v5.5.2, save the v5.watch file, and then open it with v6.1. Thereafter it seems to work even if I save the v5.watch file in v6.1, close it, and re-open it with v6.1. Won't work if originally creating with v6.1. Seems like a bug with v6.1. I'm using an old version of realvnc - RealVNC Server 5.3.0 (r15303) x64. Connection is immediate and there is no blue screen like you are getting. However, have not tried with a Display PC yet. Have only tried with Production PC laptop (Windows 10 64-bit). Thomas Update Edit: Got 6.1 to work today. Not Watchout's fault. It was Realvnc 4.x.x on the source pc. Updated to Realvnc 5.3.x and that worked with WO6.1. However, WO Display PC did not update (despite being in 'Live Update' mode) every now and again when the source vnc popped up a message re updating the 'free' licence. Needed Ctrl+D for the Displays to update the source changes. Probably needs a paid Realvnc licence, but I'm not going that way as all my clients do not allow us to install programs into their laptops, so we use capture cards instead. Additionally, I do not get a blue screen on connection (both on Production Stage display and on the fullscreen Display PC). The capture comes up immediately, with NO blue screen preceding it. There was a blue screen when I was using a different version of Realvnc. But then it was not a successful capture, only blue screen showing. Suggest you try various different versions of your vnc on the source pc. I tried Realvnc 5.3.0 and 5.3.1 and both versions did not show up a blue screen. Did not try Ultravnc as years back when I did, there was a lag/latency whereas Realvnc had very little latency.

Since Tiers could be used for a hot Display PC(s) backup per Jonas' suggestion in Redundancy this is a Production PC Backup feature request. The ability to specify a backup Production PC with its IP address perhaps in Preferences > Control tab area such that the Display PC(s) would automatically look for the backup Production PC specified if and when the original Production PC disconnects. The Backup Production PC could be triggered manually, or by an Output string from the Timeline(s). One complication is when the Production PC disconnects by choice, as in going offline, to purposely do something else. Perhaps, any such coding could be limited to 'only during playback mode'. Thomas Leong

Hi Dimi, Not sure what the real problem is with you not being able to set the live inputs even though they are listed. I have not had this problem with 6.1 with both my capture cards and 2 Display PCs even when the Production PC is not connected, i.e. Display PCs operate as standalone cluster with their own keyboard and mouse to trigger CTRL+W. Shots in the dark - 1. Is your Display PC tweaked to the guidelines in WATCHOUT Display & Production Tweaking List, especially with regards to disabling Windows Media Center: http://forum.dataton.com/topic/1886-watchout-technical-notes-2015/ 2. Have you tried the English version of Watchout 6.1 rather than the German version? Doubt if this could be the cause since it is only a translation rather than a recode, but won't hurt to try. 3. For Decklink cards, suggest you try other driver versions, one by one. The old Extreme Studio 2 that I have in hand works fine with driver version 10.3.7 and I've not bothered to try the latest drivers on the premise that this old card won't have the features of the latest cards. 4. Are you trying to capture via HDMI? Loose cabling, faulty cables come to mind. Just find a method to ensure the source is outputting/connected as intended. I use Windows Display Settings to monitor that the Desktop is mirrored as intended since I test captures of my laptop's HDMI out. Thomas Leong