Thomas Leong

You could check out http://hrscontrol.com

Search for Showpath and there are 2 threads on the subject. setting location of show cache on display machine? Forcing WO display pc's to use second disk

Running without problems as I write this - Prodn PC: WO 5.5.1 Win10 i5 laptop mp4 file with 21.3Mbps Free running & Loop enabled without any error message Display PC: WO 5.5.1 Win7 Celeron laptop Stage/Display resolution 1366x768 Without further details, difficult to suggest further where your problem may be. Tweaked to Dataton recommendations? Media Centre off? Firewall off? Any 3rd party codecs installed? Online or offline when it happens? Cat sitting on the keyboard?

There is already an option for external control of Virtual Displays similar to other media files, in the Advanced tab: - double-click on the virtual display you want in the Timeline - in the Media Cue pop-up > Advanced > and enable External Control of Position, Scale and Rotation - Now when you add a Position, Scale or Rotation Tween, the Function 'F' will be visible in the track header for you to add your formula. In regards to your desire to track motion of screens, etc, this thread will be of interest - http://forum.dataton.com/topic/1843-realtime-tracking-in-watchout/ and the Spikemark blog pointed out by Mike - http://creativeconners.com/spikemark-and-watchout-step-by-step Thomas

Here's a shot at the cause - The video is compressed with ipb frames, and at the pause command, it jumps to an i frame which contains the full information. The p and b frames are the predictive frames (if I'm not wrong, p is before an i frame, and b is after the i frame both of which do not contain full info but only the changes between two i frames). Solution: re-code with all i frames. Will result in larger filesize, but no jumps on pause.

The hardware part seems solid for the Display machines, and I assume they have been tweaked according to Dataton's recommended guidelines. So look at the Production machine, especially the software side. Uninstall any software that is not absolutely required. You may want to do it one at a time, then continue working to see if the problem surfaces again. If it does, uninstall another. If using a laptop, the manufacturer's bloatware is a likely culprit. In my own experience, I had a 3-minute wait to go offline from an online state (Ctrl-L toggle) due to one or more of these bloatware (read: "features to enhance the experience"). Thomas Leong

Does not happen with my Win 10 as Prodn PC with Watchout 6.02. Do you have more details? - Watchout 6 version - system specs: cpu, motherboard, harddisk, etc - type of media file and encoding details - codec, wrapper, datarate, etc - Are you online/live update when it happens? Does it happen when offline?

If WATCHPAX's locked embedded Windows clears any installed driver on shut down, I suppose yes, the Korg has to auto-install the custom driver every time the WATCHPAX boots. There is no way for us users to know because there is no visual prompt from Watchpax as to what is happening. What I know is that in a normal Windows environment, Windows auto-installs the device driver (or prompts for one) when a device is plugged into a USB port the first time around. Thereafter, if the device is removed without uninstalling it (via Device Manager), the device and its installed driver driver becomes a 'nonpresent device' where Windows is concerned. After shutdown and reboot, if the same device is plugged back into the same USB port, Windows will merely use the 'dormant' driver previously installed for that device, i.e. Windows does not need to re-install the driver again for that USB device in that same port. However, it would have to install the driver if the device is plugged into another USB port (Note: It seems that Win 10 is better at recognizing the same device in another port than Win 7 and does not need to). In any case, my take is that such installs or re-installs are very quick, transparent and painless, and in any setup, even in a museum, should not affect operations at all where Watchpax is concerned.

Confirmed today: Watchpax can be triggered by a MIDI unit provided the MIDI unit auto-installs its drivers into the embedded Windows without user intervention. Can also connect a keyboard and mouse to the USB ports which Windows would also auto-install drivers for, but they are as useful as vnc'ing from the Production PC . I used the Korg NanoKontrol2 today, programmed some triggers - play, pause, stop, also scale and opacity, and transferred the show to Watchpax, then connected the Korg to it, and powered on the Watchpax. When the show loaded (together with the MIDI driver - no notification; just give it a few more seconds), I could use all my MIDI triggers and scale my media item as well as control its opacity with the Korg. If I recall correctly, the Behringer BCD/BCF 2000 also auto-installs its driver so should work as well. Can't test 'cos mine has broken down - keeps blowing its fuse.

francesodere, there was no pc/graphics card there when I called in 22-23 Dec., and no one informed me that Watchout had already been tested successfully with another set. Initially not suppose to go, but they had problems with my pc and Watchpax so I was called up. It was all very last minute like come into my office today and take away a unit/units capable of 6 outputs tonight for Penang tomorrow. I only had 1 Watchpax and a low-profile 4-output pc with 2 mDP-DV Active, and 1 non-active. They said they would go buy the rest from the shops, so it ended up with a mix of adapters from different manufacturers. The 4-output Firepro was on EDID Emulator from Catalyst Pro.

Does your Roland Um -One midi unit 'auto-install its driver' into your Production PC such that it is recognized as a midi controller without having to identify it to Windows? I know the Korg NanoKontrol2 and the Behringer BCD2000 both do this, and Watchout can use it 'as is'. In the case where the midi unit does not have a built-in midi driver presented to Windows, one has to manually install its driver and/or select its midi channel input before Watchout will recognise it as a midi unit. Since Watchout in Watchpax is in a locked down embedded Windows which does not allow manual install of drivers nor any other tinkering, an 'auto-installed driver' unit may work. In other words, after having uploaded your show with midi unit specified as the midi interface, just plug in the same unit to the Watchpax, then boot up Watchpax, and try without the production pc connected.

AFAIK, Watchout's playmode can only be controlled by a keyboard's spacebar which toggles play/pause. The other keys (arrows, pgup, pgdown with or without Ctrl key) are for navigating the timeline. If you have a macro keyboard that can map the spacebar to one of the macro keys, theoretically that would work. Not sure if Perfect Cue's clicker can be mapped to the spacebar. I have a Powerpoint-type hand-held remote, and it does not work with Watchout's playmode since the keys on my remote cannot be re-mapped. Thomas

Hi francescodere. That's not what we found. The horizontal line is present when we ran with 1920x1080@30Hz. At 60Hz, the image was split at the same horizontal position and the top half was repeated in the bottom half (i.e. not proper full image), and they were not willing to re-program the LinSn to try get a full proper image. If I knew how to upload an image to attach to this post, I would. But perhaps your boys have sent you the images already.

Without more details/specs from fattoni, we can only guess at the cause. I have WO5 and 6 Production on an old laptop with Celeron 1.2Ghz and Intel GMA-4500 on-board graphics card, laptop with Win 10 64-bit, desktops with Pentium 4 cpu with Win 7 32-bit, i7 4770K/4790K/5920K with Win 7 64-bit, and none of them have exhibited fattoni's problem. One small problem I've had with my Win 10 laptop was not due to Win 10, but to the bloatware that the laptop's manufacturer installs on purchase. Every time I went 'offline' (Ctrl-L) from an online state, it made me wait 3 mins. Any action during the wait would show 'Watchout not responding' in the window title or crash Watchout Production. Solved with un-install of those bloatware. So, perhaps fattoni is using a laptop with bloatware too? Another problem I've had (posted in another post) was wmv files being imported into Watchout's Media window as audio only, not video. Cause was not enabling the 'do not notify when a device is plugged into any of the audio input ports' under the Audio device's properties - mentioned in the Tweak list. So has fattoni tweaked his pc to the tweak list?

Good read, Mike. Lots of insight into the early days of Watchout, Dataton, and before. And yes, the small Transpax+ with the equally small Pax dissolve units allowed me to program my multi-image shows in both AVL and Electrosonics which my clients already had. That saved me from investing in their respective bulky dissolve units. Dataton's ability to translate fully their code and protocol was brilliant! Thank you! All the best for the future! Thomas Leong

May be your production pc's graphics card and/or driver since it has to do with display settings. Whatever it is, your production pc needs troubleshooting/tuning/tweaking. Stat with the recommended Tweaking List here - http://forum.dataton.com/topic/1886-watchout-technical-notes-2015/

Well if this is the same project, I have just returned from Penang (2:00am here) on a demo with Watchout 6.01 from it (started with 6.02 but with the afore-mentioned problems plus EDID/mDP-DP adapter problems initially, I switched to 6.01 and never reverted). The 30Hz setting on the 6 LinSn Sending Cards resulted in a horizontal line from left to right across the Display PC's 4 outputs. The other 2 outputs came from Watchpax, and the setting of 30fps in Preferences solved that for Watchpax but not for the Display PC which only had options for 50 or 60Hz, nothing more or less. The demo Display PC specs were i7 4790K, MSI mATX motherboard, Firepro W4100, Samsung 512GB SM951 M.2 on a PCIe Adapter. We tried 1600x900 (with emulated EDID from the Firepro), and 1920x1080@60Hz today to no avail. Finally I called in a friend in Penang familiar with LinSn cards and LED displays for rental work, and he sent his technician to assist troubleshooting. No result especially since the loop amongst the 600+ panels could not be re-wired to a pattern he was familiar with, until he suggested trying a matrix DVI-DVI Switcher/processor in between the W4100 output and the input of the LinSn Sending Cards. Made-in-China but the unit could be set to output to a custom 1920x1080@30Hz regardless of input and this solved the problem. Thomas

Mike must be away. I'm no lighting or dmx expert but I'll try to answer your questions, David. 1. Yes, 'console' would be lighting desk, or software-based lighting controller that is artnet capable. 2. For Inputs, triggering Aux Timelines, etc, please refer WO6 Manual Pg 148-150. Not detailed is the triggering condition' and the use of an expression in the trigger. For example, assuming 'run' is the name of your DMX channel to run a timeline (without the quote marks), click on 'Trigger' column of an Aux Timeline in Task Window, and type 'run > 0.3' (without the quote marks). Then try moving the 'run' DMX in your input window, or if you are hooked up to a lighting console, the fader/dmx channel assigned to the 'run' dmx input. The Aux Timeline will not run until the dmx input trigger 'run' is greater than 0.3 (about 30% of full value). 3. Similarly, you can assign dmx inputs/values to Tween tracks such as Position, Scale, or Opacity. Example: TweenValue * o where o is the name of a dmx input you have defined in the Input window. With this, you can then fade in/out using a defined dmx fader from your physical or software-based lighting console. Hope that all makes sense, Thomas

Quote: "I have one more noob question that comes to me after reading this threat:" Er...matter of correct semantics. The correct word is 'thread', not 'threat'!! Heavens of Murgatroy forbid! Back on topic, you do not need the S400 Sync card since your outputs are blended. The sync between the 2 Watchpoint PCs should be good, or better than good. The S400 is recommended for LED display walls where blending is not used. Many of us here do not use the S400 in our Watchpoint PCs, and have not had a problem with sync.

To add to Christian's recommendation: http://www.ayatoweb.com/ae_tips_e.html has a lot of tuts and examples.

Sorry, don't know of any tuts or on-line specifically relating Watchout to the Photoshop and After Effects. But in my limited experience, knowledge of alpha channels (creation & codec capability) is essential. Before Watchout's Text tool, PS and AE text has saved the day (read: last minute requests by client) a few times, and overlay small renders or a psd has covered up spelling mistakes by clients too. If you need to quickly spruce up an object or text, I'd recommend Trapcode's Shine. Simple to use and renders very fast. One sequence I've often used with Shine is to 'burn' in a client's logo or text logo with a wipe, a'la welding arcs with a left to right wipe, burning in a logo on screen. Thomas Leong

You are correct, jfk. The command itself does not need the "" marks. I was playing with calling Aux Timelines, added the quote marks to the command as well, and overlooked trying without. My error. Thomas

Just tried it with basic "run" and "halt" command strings. Watchout required "..." to encase the string. So in your case, it should be - "C0D"$0D "C0E"$0D Thomas

Well then, try with the '....' quote marks as that is the syntax protocol for Watchout string output. Can't recall if it is a single ' or " marks. I'd try these - 'C0D$0D' 'C0D'$0D "C0D$0D" "C0D"$0D My guess is the second one above where only the string command is encased with quote marks. Thomas

If you have been typing the command with quote marks, eg 'C0D$0D' try without quote marks, eg C0D$0D