Timeline Jump freezes the system for a break of a second

[Dill]

Hello,

 

We need to sync the watchout system to an Ableton Live computer for external audio with LTC timecode. This works so far.

But we need to jump in the timeline at several parts of the show, to be flexible in artist timings. To cover the resyncing issues while jumping, with covering the main timeline with an auxiliary timeline. This aux timeline contents al relevant cues of the part of main timeline, where the jump could happen.It is triggered in a certain time, then running' parallel to the main timeline and fading in the exact same content, covering everything that is running at the main timeline and is outfaded and stopped after the jump.

This works fine two. But there is still a small freeze when performing the jump. It seems like watchout is hangin' for a break of a second, freezing even the aux timeline.

 

Is there any solution for this?

 

Best

Delil

[jfk]

Simple answer is no.

 

You should consider reorganizing your programming so that timeline jumps are never needed.

 

If the issue is main timeline jumps to lock to timecode changes,

then no,

you will never get around the overall pause that jump causes.

Nature of the beast.

 

Interactivity though timecode chased timeline jumps is ill advised.

There are better ways. 

[Walter]

Question@JFK: would a running aux timeline also suffer from a main timeline jump?

 

If no: a solution would be to start an aux from the main and have that running until after the jump thus covering the main during the jump?

[jfk]

Question@JFK: would a running aux timeline also suffer from a main timeline jump?

 

No. 

They are two independent timebases and one should not effect the other.

 

If no: a solution would be to start an aux from the main and have that running until after the jump thus covering the main during the jump?

 

Well if that is the case, why jump the timeline at all?

Not a fan of making it more convoluted

to place a band-aid when there is a better way to do it.

 

If you need something to loop cleanly,

put it into a composition and loop that cue (free run if you need to as well).

In that scenario, WATCHOUT then knows it is looping,

preloads the buffer appropriately,

and loops without interruption.

 

Yes, I know that with a control cue jump,

WATCHOUT should also know where it is going and preload,

but that is not the way it happens.

Looping a cue is the only way to achieve a smooth jump.

[Dill]

Hello jfk,

 

thank you for your answer. But I’m not sure if you got me right or if I don’t get your solution!

 

Looping things is not the issue.

That a jump in a timeline itself would not be invisible is obvious too, as it would at least need to jump between two exact same frames in the content, what would hartly make any sense, if only the audio would need to jump.

 

Maybe I need to make it more clear:

We do have several screens where there permanently running videos with different contents that sometimes change, mostly by transitions. In front of those screens, an actor is reciting text, that is related to most of the video content. There are several scenes and the transitions from one to another works fine without jumping. But at 3 situations in one hour show, the scene parts are so long, that the artist sometimes speaks faster or slower, finishing his sentence at different times every run through . But as audio and video contend need to switch immediately after here text part, we need to jump through the timeline to that next cue.

 

One solution I would have in mind, would be to work with auxiliary timelines only, triggering them independently with all clips in freerun mode and fading over when triggered.

But this would be very complex to edit, loosing the advantage of jumping to certain exact points while rehearsing, causing a lot of system load because of doubling some of the content and would have the risk of loosing sync with audio over longer parts of running in one auxiliary timeline.

 

That’s why we had the Idea that I already described in my first post and Walter repeated in a much more compact and understandable way.

 

 

 

Question@JFK: would a running aux timeline also suffer from a main timeline jump?

If no: a solution would be to start an aux from the main and have that running until after the jump thus covering the main during the jump?

 

 

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t get how your advice could help us with this issue.

 

However, the reason of writing this all here is, our and Walters solution does NOT work perfectly, as the jump in the main timeline DOES influence the over top running aux timeline!

 

As I wrote in my first post, it seams that the whole system freezes for a break of second, maybe because of the heavy load while jumping from one point to the other and changing all the content in the main timeline, causing the aux timeline (or at least the output of it) to stutter for a moment.

 

In general it seams, that the project is to complex for Wachout at all, or at least for the system, as I suffer a lot of crashes of the display software while loading auxiliary timelines with several clips in freerunmode. My guess in this is the 4GB RAM limit because of the 32bit architecture.

 

I'll gone try to simulate it again with a less complex timeline to see, if it is more fluid then.

 

Or is there any other advise to try?

 

Thanks

Dill

[Walter]

Hey, I'm just thinking outside of the box for OP here, no need for judging his chosen solution. If he somehow needs this particular workflow, then this is an option for his case.

We're all techies here, we're born to solve issues. Sometimes you just gotta make it work, and hey, that's what just happened (a better option than "no, you can't".)

[jfk]

Hello jfk,

 

thank you for your answer. But I’m not sure if you got me right or if I don’t get your solution!

 

Looping things is not the issue.

That a jump in a timeline itself would not be invisible is obvious too, as it would at least need to jump between two exact same frames in the content,

Even if you did that, it will take some time for the buffers to reload creating a pause.

No getting around the pause with a timeline jump.

 

what would hartly make any sense, if only the audio would need to jump.

 

Maybe I need to make it more clear:

We do have several screens where there permanently running videos with different contents that sometimes change, mostly by transitions. In front of those screens, an actor is reciting text, that is related to most of the video content. There are several scenes and the transitions from one to another works fine without jumping. But at 3 situations in one hour show, the scene parts are so long, that the artist sometimes speaks faster or slower, finishing his sentence at different times every run through . But as audio and video contend need to switch immediately after here text part, we need to jump through the timeline to that next cue.

Understood, common requirement.

your original question was not clear on that.

 

Put the contents of the cue of unknown duration in a composition.

Place that composition on the timeline with with a cue with a duraition of 1 second or so,

set that cue to "Free Running"

and place a pause cue before the end of the short composition cue.

you may use tweens to define a clean transition off that cue after the pause point.

 

Now, when you run into that cue,

the timeline will pause mid-cue waiting for you to trigger the next Q point,

but the composition will continue to run.

when the next trigger is sent, it will roll off the pause with the defined transitions

no matter where you are in the compositon that is free running.

When the cue ends, the free run ends too.

 

Smooth and simple.

 

Using auxiliary timelines for this result is more complex and offers no advantages.

[jfk]

Hey, I'm just thinking outside of the box for OP here, no need for judging his chosen solution. If he somehow needs this particular workflow, then this is an option for his case.

We're all techies here, we're born to solve issues. Sometimes you just gotta make it work, and hey, that's what just happened (a better option than "no, you can't".)

 

sorry if it came off that way.

but I get frustrated with programmers who still want to use outdated legacy methods

when there are new methods specifically designed to address the issue they are facing.

[Dill]

Dear jfk,

 

be assured that I would really like to use the most simple and newest advancements of watchouts features. I would not ask for another advice or a different approache.

 

I'm clearly aware of the freerun feature as you can read in my last answer. And I do use this technique already heavily even in this project.

 

It seams, that my first post was really not good described. It is not the watchout system that needs to jump in the timeline. It is the Abelton live audio system that is performing this jump. Abelton itself seams to handle this quite nice with a little fade.

As the external Abelton system is controlling watchout by LTC timecode, and it is not possible to pause the timecode in Abelton like it is in watchout (no freerun), watchout can't pause as well. Resulting in pause cues not possible!

 

Anyway, as I wrote in my last answer I recognised that in general the approache with the aux timeline works, but gets stuck if the load is too heavy. I gonna try to optimise this with minimising the doubled cues and using a different codec like HAP.

 

Thank you for your help!

 

Best Delil

[jfk]

As I said in my very first response,

there is no way to accomplish a smooth jump chasing timecode.

By nature, timecode is a continuos uninterrupted linear stram of time information.

Interrupt  that stream or jump it, all bets are off.

Timecode is a less than ideal way to control a show that has live cueing,

That is not what timecode is intended to do.

If you have a section of indeterminate time,

timecode is ill suited to your goals.

[maccalder]

Instead of LTC could you use ableton to send MSC cues instead? that way you can program with pre-run and then when you jump, your timeline will be triggered by Ableton to advance...

[Dill]

Ok, I have to correct myself,

 

the first I tried, was to put all cues in the main timeline into freerun (loop is not needed) let the timeline run and then jump forward to a point where all freerun cues are still on. As there still was some kind of heavy glitch noticeable, I thought it would happen because the timeline still does influence the cues (even in freerun mode) when jumping around in between the freerun cues and only working fine if the timeline is paused and then released. But after some further testing it seems only to be the heavy load of to much videos running parallel in freerun.

 

Sorry for bothering and thanks for ditching me in the right direction!

 

Best Delil