Playlist group with random video groups

[Cy Barlow]

What I'm hoping to accomplish:

Playlist group. Inside it are groups of videos. I want to start the playlist, have a random video from the first group play, then auto follow to a random video from the second group play, etc.

I don't want to have to click GO between them, but with the random group of videos, you don't get a consistent duration for, say, a pre-wait for the following group of videos, and auto follow just launches them all at once. No two videos are the same length inside any given group.

Been trying various AppleScript attempts to solve the challenge (including populating a secondary group on each GO a la https://groups.google.com/g/qlab/c/MI24YljngTA/m/qFVF9qa_BAAJ ), but I'm not getting what I want done. My AppleScript is rusty at best, so if there's even a way to just trigger a script that can suss out the duration of the randomly chosen videos and set pre waits for each random group accordingly on GO, that'd work, but I'm not finding that method.

Screen shot of what I'd like to be able to do attached, but since the video playback won't automatically advance from video group to video group, it's not going to work with a Playlist group, I think.

Effective result desired: 

1. GO
2. Random video between cues 3 and 6 plays.
3. Random video between cues 8 and 12 plays.
4. Random video between cues 14 and 18 plays.
5. Random video between cues 20 and 24 plays.

Works if I set up the Videos group as a Start First and Enter group, but then I have to hit GO between each video. Just trying to not have to do that...

It's also entirely possible I'm missing something stunningly simple. Wouldn't surprise me.

Any suggestions welcome.

[Kinetic Screen]

There's almost certainly a more elegant solution that one of the cleverer people on here will undoubtedly suggest, but if I were doing this I would just have each video actually its own subgroup, with the video first and then a follow on Start cue which begins the next group.

So your first group would like something. like:

Scanlons [Group]

--  Scanlons - Chris [Group]
     -- Scanlons - Chris.mov

     -- START SimplyNext 

--  Scanlons - CJ [Group]
     -- Scanlons - CJ.mov

     -- START SimplyNext 

--  Scanlons - Melissa [Group]
     -- Scanlons - Melissa.mov

     -- START SimplyNext 

...etc etc

[micpool]

This structure will work with any number of cues in each group  (and if you extend the eachItem list, any number of sequential groups )

I've made it with text cues which are clear for the demo, which you can remove by selecting them all and deleting, then populate each group with your video cues

Workspace and Screen recordings attached

Mic

[Cy Barlow]

And there it is. micpool, you never cease to amaze. (Can't tell you the number of times I've searched a QLab challenge and found your solution... this was just the first one I couldn't find already solved.)

I knew there was an elegant solution in there somewhere. kinetic, you and I think similarly, because I was headed down that same path you suggested. I just knew there had to be a more slick way to keep from having to add extra steps every time I add a new video to a set or the like. 

Thank you, thank you.

[Chris Ashworth]

Is it accurate to say that the script portion of this solution would not be necessary if Start Cues had an option to match their duration to the duration of their target?  

i.e. to become a bit more like aliases for their target, which report their elapsed time and duration to match whatever their target says?

-C

[Kinetic Screen]

That would be one option. Though this seems more like an issue of the 'original' style of groups hitting up against expectations of how the newer Timeline and Playlist groups operate - that their auto-follow should be automatically guided by the length of their content. The Play Random groups behave similarly to Start First groups.

This setup would be very simple of the group's auto-follow was 'smarter'. Not sure how that would be resolved in terms of backwards compatibility etc.

[Cy Barlow]

I believe what you've said is accurate, yes. If the Start cue of a Play Random group had its duration set by the activated cue within it, and you could set it to auto follow within a larger Start First and Enter group, that would sort this out.

[Cy Barlow]

(Sorry... not Start First and Enter... just Start First... )

[Chris Ashworth]

Ah right, just having Start cues be more like aliases of their targets doesn’t quite get there since they would (in this case) be targeting groups that do not themselves have a duration or an elapsed time. Hm. 

[Chris Ashworth]

Sorry I am not sure I follow what you are saying

[Taylor Glad]

Playlist groups skip over disarmed cues, so looks like a way to do it without scripting (even though Mic solved that for you already) is with a group of disarm cues for all of the vides, and then 4 groups of arm cues that randomly arm 1 of each group of videos. (This can be done really easily by selecting all the video cues when creating a disarm cue to get the "Create Disarm cues for 19 selected cues?" popup.) I tried this with having the videos still in their sub-groups like you have them, but it doesn't work with any of the group types. (Timeline and playlist groups don't have their group times adjusted by disarmed cues, and the other groups just don't have group times)

To make everything fire in 1 GO, I had to put all the arming/disarming cues in 1 timeline group with a network cue patched to localhost firing the playlist group. Putting the playlist group inside the same timeline group as the arming & disarming groups didn't work and using a start cue didn't either, even after tinkering with pre-wait times.

I  want to add a plus 1 to Chris's idea though of start cues having an option of matching the duration of their target. That would be a bit helpful to me personally with the way I like to group videos by stage outside of my main timeline groups, and seems like an easier thing to develop to show the video duration in the timeline group. (Easier to develop I presume than letting video cue's peers be defined as cues using the same stage for the "fade and stop peers" feature, which would let me leave the video cues in the main timeline groups.)