Looking for feedback on usage of Syphon to fade QLab output

[m...@stevensokulski.com]

Hello all,

Looking for critiques, cautions, or anything about this setup that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. I'm still testing this setup, but performance has been great so far.

Goal:

Play video content back that appears on an LED wall behind a performer. Play that same content out for a video director who will intercut between content and IMAG, while cueing the content in advance so that the video director has something other than black to cut so that discrepancies between my timing and their timing won't result in double cuts or overlapping fades.

Method:

Two video outputs, one for the Main Stage and one for the Switched Stage.

Three Output Routes, one each for the stages, and a Syphon virtual output. The Main Stage goes straight to a single Output Route. The Switched Stage goes to a hardware Output Route and a Syphon output.

A single Video Input loops the Syphon output back into QLab.

Video cues are set to play on the Switched Stage.

A Camera cue takes the Syphon input and plays it at 0% opacity on the Main Stage.

When a standby happens for content, it is played immediately for stills or played and paused for video, and shown on the Switched Output for the video director.

At the G-O of the cue, a Fade cue brings the opacity of the Camera cue to 100%, thus routing video to the Main Stage. And if the content is video, it is started and rolls simultaneously to both outputs.

At the end of a cue, the reverse happens, so that the video director can fade away from the last frame of the video back to IMAG while the LED wall fades to black.

I've also been asked about having a video wallpaper of sorts behind the content, and I've tested that. Syphon's transparency worked beautifully and images that are not a 16:9 aspect ratio show the video content behind them.

What am I missing? What performance drawbacks am I creating for myself?

In short... Talk me out of doing this if it's a bad idea.

With enormous appreciation,

Steven