Timecode Media

[Pavel Bezrodniy]

Hello!
Can I use remote control to control the playback of the playing video file?

[Mathieu Lightjams]

Hi,

Unfortunately, no. This control is only to allow you to test your video at various positions. A full timecode implementation may come in the future.

[Alex Hughes]

Hello, 

A few years on from this enquiry. Is there any plans to integrate the capacity for ELM to listen to timecode for playback?  

[Marcelo Vidal]

Same here, it could be very important to integrante timecode por playback

Marcelo Vidal

[Mathieu Lightjams]

Hi,

There's still no timecode feature. However, with the sequences, what could be done in the future is triggering the sequences via the timecode. It could work the same way as the schedule: you would specify the timecode value to start the sequence.

Potentially supporting midi and artnet timecodes.

One thing to note is that this is only used as triggers. It would not sync the playback position of a media like a video with the timecode. One thing that might be possible though is to trigger the proper step of a sequence based on the timecode.

Do you think using timecodes like this for triggering would be useful in your case?

[Alex Hughes]

It would be very beneficial for us for it to sync playback position of media as a lot of the installations we do forms part of much larger installations with other control systems that all run of timecode and our current method of cueing is all via remote where we need to ensure we send a start and stop command which always requires a little bit of tweaking to get right on every show as we try to ensure a seamless loop with content to avoid blackout in the loop. We've found (even with exactly the same file lengths) that just leaving ELM to run on loop will cause it to drift (Which is to be expected given its a different computer and all clocks eventually drift) having Timecode sync for playback position takes a lot of the guesswork and on site programming time out as we would just be able to tell it a timecode hour offset to lock to and let it run. 

ELM is such a feature rich program and having this functionality would result in a direct correlation between us purchasing more licenses rather than exploring other solutions. 

[Mathieu Lightjams]

Hi,

>>  just leaving ELM to run on loop will cause it to drift

From what I understand, you're using a video that is looping and want the start of the video to be in sync with your other systems (like an audio system). What is the duration of your video?

At the moment, when a video loops, it can take in the order of 5-50ms to restart. This time is effectively lost at each loop. When the video first start playing, the clock used for the playback should be very precise and there shouldn't be drift for many hours/days. So what you could do is to render your video to be the total length of your show in order to prevent looping.

In the case of a timecode, it would be used to start the video the first time. So it wouldn't help you with the drift caused by the looping.

[Alex Hughes]

Most of our shows are roughly 4-10min minute loops. While timecode triggering wouldn't solve our issue having ELM chase code would as it means it's frame locked to the TC source. Having the capacity to offset it to account for 50ms would be advantageous but for now just getting TC sync that is controllable via DMX would be a huge workflow improvement for us. 

[Mathieu Lightjams]

Hi,

If the playback in ELM is out of sync after 4 minutes, I'd make sure the playback speed is exactly 1x. It should take a lot more time before noticing a time drift. Check the media monitor for your video as the speed is displayed. Even if 1.00x is displayed, check the master speed, media speed and the stage speed.

You can post your project file for more help.

[Alex Hughes]

The MA fixture profile for ELM does have an error with playback speed (reported to Enttec late last year) which gave us issues last year but that isn't the issue now. We don't see drift across one show loop it normally occurs over a day of the 11 hours of show running. The way we get around this is every loop gets started and stopped via DMX control but that obviously takes a bit of tweaking with cues to get right to avoid having any blackout in the show loop. The way we got around this was rather than starting and stopping the same clip we cross fade across to a static image and then back to reset the playhead. 

True timecode sync would solve this issue for us. 

[Mathieu Lightjams]

>>  We don't see drift across one show loop it normally occurs over a day of the 11 hours of show running.

My guess in this case is that the time to restart the loop, which can be anywhere between 5ms to 50ms depending on the computer, can add to something significant over 11 hours. If for example there's a 30ms loss every 4 minutes, after 11 hours you'll see that ELM is late of about 5 seconds.

If ELM could take into account the time it takes to loop and offset the start of the video accordingly at each loop, then that would fix this issue for you, without timecode. 

Meanwhile, you could create a longer video by repeating your 4 minutes loop.

[Alex Hughes]

Yeah that would help but in the same way we would see similar levels of drift with our timecode playback system. 

Timecode also greatly reduces the complexity in programming required. 

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[Alex Hughes]

Hello, 

Is there any further information I can provide on this to assist with getting the feature on the roadmap? 

[Mathieu Lightjams]

Hi,

There's no plan to sync a timecode to one specific media playback. In your case, it seems like your best option is to prevent looping of the video by extending it to fit your show duration.

[Alex Hughes]

The show duration is different every day and the issue is more obvious with everything other playback system being linked to timecode. I would hope this feature would be reviewed in the future as I firmly believe I won't be the only one who sees the true value in it. 

[Alex Hughes]

Hello, 

Is there any progress on this feature request? Let me know if I need to provide more information (or find more people to provide feature requirement)

[Mathieu Lightjams]

Hi,

In the upcoming version, ELM now takes into account the time it takes to loop a video. So if it takes 20ms to restart the video, the video will start playing with a 20ms offset to compensate. This also makes looping more seamless and it should help avoid time drift.

About the timecode, there's no new feature at the moment.

[Alex Hughes]

That is great news. Do we have a release date yet?

[Alex Hughes]

Has there been any further development on this or a testing beta? 

On Wednesday, 4 December 2024 at 07:16:19 UTC+11 mat...@lightjams.com wrote:

[Mathieu Lightjams]

Hi,

This improvement is available right now in ELM 2025.

[Alex Hughes]

Thanks, I wasn't even aware of a 2025 version. We would be interested to update but the deciding factor would be the inclusion of SMTPE/MTC timecode.