Control Cue Precision

[nikolai]

Hi

We use control cues (pause) to trigger the time line using MSC.
On the timeline I also have some Generic output cues, to send UDP messages.

Sometimes, if the UDP cue is to close to the pause cue, it will fire the message even though it technically is programmed at a later point on the time line.

Is this a known issue?
Some users say that this also relates to the zoom of the timeline, but I can not believe or confirm that so is true.

[jfk]

6 minutes ago, nikolai said:

... Sometimes, if the UDP cue is to close to the pause cue, it will fire the message even though it technically is programmed at a later point on the time line. ...

How much later? i.e. what are the time positions of the Pause cue and the Output cue where this occurs? 

[nikolai]

Will need to check in the show, but I tried zooming all the way in, and then putting the output cue just to the right of the pause cue. So it is at a different time, that is for sure. but we are talking fractions of seconds

[nikolai]

Tested now in an unlicensed, empty show.

Pause cue 45.52 and output cue at 45.53, this causes it to sometimes trigger the output

[stiegzinator]

Think of it this way, in a 30 fps video, 1 frame is 0.033 seconds, so your time difference of 45.52 and 45.53 is less than 1/3 of a frame, which does not give you a lot of room for error.

My standard practice when programming is to put the pause cue on a .9 and the actual content on a whole number, giving me a 0.1 second gap between pause cue and content; whether it's image content, a UDP cue, or whatever. 95% of the time, the 0.1 second is just fine, but for instances where I want/need it to be tighter, I'll move the pause cue closer to the content.

[nikolai]

@stiegzinator

True, but given that WO gives the impression of a higher resolution, I call this a bug. It should rather truncate or round to the actual time resolution instead of presenting unpredictable behaviour. The logic is clear, is the cue at the time of the play head or past, yes, run it, else no.

If the resolution of the timeline is limited to the 60fps (as we are running), the timeline should not let me put clips or cues in sub-frames, that would just cause jitter and effects like these.

Not to mention, if you put audio in to the mix where 0.1 seconds is an eternity in relation to phase of audio. 

 

[nikolai]

So, I just tested this in a real show, that I got a report had fired a message to soon.

The message and the pause cue was 0,024 apart. Running at 60 fps that is about 1.4 frames space.

The strange thing is that I have other cues with 0,013 apart, and they seem fine. 

have moved many of them just to be safe, but since I don|'t understand the logic behind this, I don't want to make rushed changes.

so what is the deal here?