Newbie question about controlling 2 laptops

[Royal Tennis Court]

I have a 2 laptop (Windows) set up for broadcasting sport.

Laptop 1 controls the camera switcher

Laptop 2 streams the output from the switcher

I can set up different crops as scenes in the streaming software so e.g. crop A cuts out the view of the ceiling from camera 1, while crop B cuts out the view of a lot of right-hand wall from camera 2 etc.

I need to be able to send a single hotkey instruction to laptop 1 to switch from camera 1 to camera 2 and at the same time instruct laptop 2 to switch scene from crop A to crop B.

Input Director looks a promising product to do this. Has anybody tried something similar successfully? 

Suppose I am using laptop 1's keyboard for both actions, how is the signal conveyed to laptop 2 (wired connection, WLAN)? What latency (delay) should I expect from the client laptop?

[Shane]

Hi Oliver,

You can use Input Director macros to send a sequence of keys to another computer, though you can't create a macro that sends different key sequences to different computers at the same time. A product like autohotkey might be able to do the job or work alongside Input Director to meet your needs.

Regs,

Shane.

[Royal Tennis Court]

I think that's OK, Shane. Using the same numbering as in my original question: what I am proposing to do is to use say, Laptop 2's keyboard to send a hotkey sequence, for example Alt-1, to the switcher program on Laptop 1 where I have set up Alt-1, Alt-2, Alt-3 to switch between cameras 1, 2 and 3. At the same time, I have the same hotkey sequence Alt-1, Alt-2, Alt-3 set up on Laptop 2 within the broadcaster software to pick scenes from Crop A, Crop B and Crop C. So sending the same hotkey sequence does different things on different programs on the two laptops, but at the same time. That should work don't you think?

Moving on from there, with Input Director running on both laptops with Laptop 2 acting as the Master for sending these hotkeys, can I still use Laptop 1's keyboard to control other functions on Laptop 1 or does Input Director take over entirely so all keyboard input comes from the keyboard on Laptop 2?  

Is there any danger, if I happen to press a key or hotkey sequence, outside the few I have defined for camera switching, on Laptop 2 that unintentionally means something entirely different on Laptop 1, that I will get unexpected reactions, or can I limit what Input Director does on both laptops just to those particular hotkey sequences I want to use?

[Shane]

Hi Oliver,

You can still use laptop 1's keyboard (and mouse) at the same time it's being controlled by Input Director.

The macros will only play the keystrokes you've recorded. Where it can get tricky, is if you've programmed a macro with the assumption that a particular application has focus on one of the laptops. If that application doesn't have focus and the macro is executed it could have unexpected results.

Regs,

Shane.