Timeline linking to ETC ION console

[Jason Dino]

Hello All, 

So i just updated to Qlab 4 from 3 and i am really interested in the Timeline function and being able to send Midi commands to my Ion lighting console. In years past, i have sent midi commands from ION to Qlab, but just starting the audio or video file and linking it to the Lighting "Go". With timeline, i think it would be better for Qlab to trigger Lighting. I work on a lot of dance shows and have utilized follow cues in my lighting console before. With upwards of 50 cues per 3:00 piece, following the music can be better sometimes. I want to make sure i am thinking about this correctly. Of course there are all the network settings and midi settings to set up. 

1)I have my audio file. 

2)Create 50, or so, OSC Cues with the setting /ion/cue/1/fire and change the cue # accordingly. 

3) Group them all together and change the MODE tab to Timeline

4) in the group TIMELINE tab, move the OSC around to line up with the audio track and make sure cue numbers line up with ION

Am i thinking about this correctly, or is there an easier way to do this? Picture attached of the workspace. 

Thanks

Jason

[Ryan White]

I’m sure that someone will jump in with a better solution, but I just did this exact OSC method last month for a full 2 act dance show. Automation worked flawlessly. Won’t ever go back.

Only issue with just using “go” cues is that it made it difficult to start/stop/scrub to a particular spot during rehearsals. Had to go to the top each time or jump over to the console to drop into the correct cue. Bit of a pain. 

In hindsight, I would’ve started with go cues for tech, but I should’ve gone back to recode and have it fire numbered cues once the lighting cue stack was finalized for each song. 30 minutes of recode would’ve been worth the effort. 

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<Qlab workspace.png>

[Chris Ashworth]

Hi Jason,

One more tip when working with lining up lots of OSC or MIDI cues to a single audio cue, is to use the “pin” feature on the audio cue so it floats at the top of the timeline and is easier to reference when scrolling through lots of other cues.  You can pin a cue in the timeline by selecting it and pressing the pin button on the right side of the inspector.

Cheers,

C

[Andy Dolph]

One more tip on this kind of programing.  It doesn’t have to go one way. I have sometimes (for whatever logistical reason) wanted to run the show from the light board. So I use MSC or OSC commands from the light board to start each number in Qlab and once the track is playing than QLab triggers the light board for the rest of the number.

In terms of programing I keep all of my go cues targeting a specific cue number for the whole process - being able to jump around is too important to me and I’ve gotten reasonably fast at dropping the cues in both places.

Sent from my iPhone

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[KHX]

While I'm no expert and haven't gotten to use the new Timeline in actual practice (our dance season is starting soon), I saw this thread and figured I'd chime in with a few suggestions for making the feature a little more friendly....maybe for v4.6!

#1) The pin feature is great for keeping things on top in a long group, what would be additionally useful, at least for a bunch of trigger cues, would be that if they could all get "pinned" or rather overlayed into one ROW. Maybe it groups all the midi cues onto one row, all the MSC cues onto their own row, etc.?

#2) And this is would probably require a BIG change (v5?), but I think what many people would like to see happen with the the Timeline, especially for dance, is somehow the ability to start at any point (scrub if you will) along the timeline (maybe a cue has to be set as the "control parent" or "link times to a master cue in the group") and have the system fire all the subsequent cues at the correct times along a track. Maybe this would be a switchable function, since in rehearsal sometimes people might not want it. But basically it would function like updating all the times of the grouped pre/post waits to the current play position and GO'ing from that point. Currently it seems like if I scrub back on the group (in the active cues pane) it pauses all the the 'children' or they keep going at their own pace if skip forward.

Thanks for always making it better!

-K

[Jason Dino]

Any thoughts?

When i hit "GO" on this song, which has videos and lighting linked via the TIMELINE, it takes about 4 seconds for the audio to play, and when the audio starts playing, the videos and lighting jump to around 8.5 sec into the videos but the audio is starting at the beginning which makes all my videos and lighting about 8 seconds fast. any help?

Also, I tried grouping my video in 1 folder and lighting in another but then i can't reference the audio track in 1 timeline. Is there a better way to organize this without having EVERYTHING for this one song in 1 big timeline folder?

Screen Shot attached. 

Thanks 

Jason

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Jason Dino
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[Sam Kusnetz]

What are the specs on the Mac you’re using?

Do you get the same behavior whether or not you pre-load the Group?

What codec, frame rate, and resolution are your videos using?

Best

Sam  

On April 7, 2019 at 3:22:37 PM, Jason Dino (jaso...@gmail.com) wrote:

Any thoughts?

When i hit "GO" on this song, which has videos and lighting linked via the TIMELINE, it takes about 4 seconds for the audio to play, and when the audio starts playing, the videos and lighting jump to around 8.5 sec into the videos but the audio is starting at the beginning which makes all my videos and lighting about 8 seconds fast. any help?

Also, I tried grouping my video in 1 folder and lighting in another but then i can't reference the audio track in 1 timeline. Is there a better way to organize this without having EVERYTHING for this one song in 1 big timeline folder?

—

Sam Kusnetz | Figure 53

s...@figure53.com

[micpool]

The situation you describe seems to be an extreme case, and there is probably something that is not quite right with your system, rather than this being something that can just be programmed around, so opening a support case from the QLab help menu  is the best way of resolving this.

Having said that, some timing discrepancies can often be seen with cues in timeline groups (and in the predecessor 'fire all children' group cue in earlier versions).  The main differences  are between the elapsed time of cues that have a soundtrack i.e audio and video cues with  sound track, those that don't, i.e videos with no soundtrack, and cues that are maintaining sync with the system clock. i.e pre-waits on ALL  cues and elapsed times of the group and most other cue types.

In my experience, properly managed these discrepancies can be reduced to within around  60ms, but in cases where the following methods are not followed can be much bigger, though not usually anywhere near the times you are reporting:

Preload groups (this is usually  the most important thing).

Don't use mp3s or h264 encoded video (use wav or aiff and ProRes files)

Make sure videos have a soundtrack, (it can be silent).

Mic

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[Jason Dino]

Thanks Mic and Sam,

I did open a support ticket but thought it would be good for others to see in case they have the same issue moving forward. 

Pre-loading did help tremendously. It is at about 1.5 seconds now. I also found that i had a "copy" of the Lighting and Video Cues grouped together at the end of the group so it was actually triggering twice (OOOPPS).ALSO, i did shutdown Qlab and restarted it and then it went down more and is in sync now. When in doubt, restart!

 

System Specs- 2017 Macbook Pro- 15in, 2.9 GHz i7 Processor. 16GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3. Graphics: Radeon Pro 560 4096MB Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MB. Running Mojave 10.14.3, Qlab 4.4.3

This is what i am building the show on- I plan on running it on my show-computer in the booth. More powerful than this.

 

Any suggestions on file formats? I was given the content, and i am just playing it. The video cues do not have audio and the dance track is an mp3. Do i just drop it into PremierePro and just re-render it?

The 1st and 2nd video info is H.264, 1920x1080, mp4

I get these kind of files alllllllll the time from clients and i just need to make them work, so any thoughts what to do, programs to use, how to re-render content?

 

I am building this ahead of time so i have some time to play around with different options. 

Thanks

Jason

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[Andy Dolph]

When I’m given h.264 files I habitually convert them to ProRes LT using apple compressor, though adobe media encoder should do it easily as well. No reason to go into a full on video editor as far as I can see.

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[micpool]

I'm linking to this thread 

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/qlab/-X2c0PEDfaU/discussion

because it's relevant to this discussion, and I am going to add something to it.

Mic

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[Jason Dino]

really fascinating. Thank!

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