ip control latency Latency on gotoControlCue and run

[ManuelM]

In my actual setup we have created a web controller to play the show cues. Whenever I send the command to play the cues, there is a noticeable lag on the video start, but it doesn't happen everytime on every cue, seems to be a little random. There are no error messages in the log so I cannot figure out what is going on. Also the problem manifests with every kind of formats and codecs (so far I have used .mp4 and .mov with h264 and HAP codecs).

Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850)

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.6GHz
             Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16302MB RAM
          Page File: 2056MB used, 47010MB available

 Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
       Manufacturer: NVIDIA
          Chip type: GeForce GTX 970
           DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
     Display Memory: 3710 MB
   Dedicated Memory: 4007 MB
      Shared Memory: 3798 MB

 

[RBeddig]

Could depend on how much data you have to read from the disk at this moment.

WATCHOUT usually pre-loads media a moment before rendering it. If you just start an aux timeline with a heavy video sitting at 0.000 in the timeline, a small hick-up can happen. A way to avoid this would be to pre-load the aux timeline and keep it at 0.000 until you actually fire it off.

[ManuelM]

18 hours ago, RBeddig said:

Could depend on how much data you have to read from the disk at this moment.

WATCHOUT usually pre-loads media a moment before rendering it. If you just start an aux timeline with a heavy video sitting at 0.000 in the timeline, a small hick-up can happen. A way to avoid this would be to pre-load the aux timeline and keep it at 0.000 until you actually fire it off.

At first that was my idea, but it happens with all kind of media, from 500mb mp4 files to 1,5mb pngs. Although I don't think loading times are the problem, can I do something to preload the files? Could manual preroll help? Note that my setup consists on a timeline with different control cues that I run on demand.

[RBeddig]

It actually sounds a bit odd to me.

Small PNG files should start immediately. If you want to make it easier for WATCHOUT to pre-load files, you set a manual pre-roll. If you then wait inside the pre-roll, WATCHOUT will load the file and just wait for you to fire it off.

On the other hand, I would first try to rule out any other issue here.

My test would be to run a straight and tested network cable from your control computer to the server (no switches) and then use PuTTY or PacketSender to fire off the commands. Does it also lag this way?

[ManuelM]

12 hours ago, RBeddig said:

It actually sounds a bit odd to me.

Small PNG files should start immediately. If you want to make it easier for WATCHOUT to pre-load files, you set a manual pre-roll. If you then wait inside the pre-roll, WATCHOUT will load the file and just wait for you to fire it off.

On the other hand, I would first try to rule out any other issue here.

My test would be to run a straight and tested network cable from your control computer to the server (no switches) and then use PuTTY or PacketSender to fire off the commands. Does it also lag this way?

It does also lag executing the commands directly from Putty. Something that gives me a clue that this is not related to the commands themselves is that all my videos and images start with a 2s fade in and I don't get to see the fade, so it's like the videos start playing at least 2 seconds after they should do.

Quote

Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850)

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.6GHz
             Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16302MB RAM
          Page File: 2056MB used, 47010MB available

 Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
       Manufacturer: NVIDIA
          Chip type: GeForce GTX 970
           DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
     Display Memory: 3710 MB
   Dedicated Memory: 4007 MB
      Shared Memory: 3798 MB

 

[artboy]

What display are you using?

If the fade-out of 2 seconds is ignored, it may be a problem that the startup worked normally, but it is not displayed on the screen.

There are display devices that adjust the brightness to save power when waiting for a long time in the black state.

To test this, make an AUX that plays repeatedly, use it as a background, and test the control cue.

Or, as you might expect, it could be an IO problem.

Send control commands to production? It's more intuitive to see the results than sending it to a display server.

[RBeddig]

Then it looks like a configuration problem somewhere. We're using small computers with Intel graphics and even there we do not see this behavior. The only other reason I can imagine could be some issues with UDP network traffic. WATCHOUT uses TCP and UDP and sends out a heartbeat signal. Have you tried the connection without a switch? Can you check a different NIC?

[ManuelM]

23 minutes ago, RBeddig said:

Then it looks like a configuration problem somewhere. We're using small computers with Intel graphics and even there we do not see this behavior. The only other reason I can imagine could be some issues with UDP network traffic. WATCHOUT uses TCP and UDP and sends out a heartbeat signal. Have you tried the connection without a switch? Can you check a different NIC?

I'm afraid I cannot change the switch because the network and most of the infrastructure is managed by the corporation. If it's not a WO issue I think I have to go with it and disguise the error as much as we can.

[ManuelM]

9 hours ago, artboy said:

What display are you using?

If the fade-out of 2 seconds is ignored, it may be a problem that the startup worked normally, but it is not displayed on the screen.

There are display devices that adjust the brightness to save power when waiting for a long time in the black state.

 

It is a custom LED 7K screen that is always on. I don't think it is a power issue either.

[RBeddig]

I would temporarily connect the computers with an unmanaged switch still. If you then see less lagging you can ask the IT guys to look into the switch settings.