qLab 3 Pro, stopping groups of cues at the same time

[James COOPER]

Hi,

I have a group of 8 video cues, all starting simultaneously.

When I try issuing a Stop cue to the group, it stops the video cues one after another.

Also when I try using lots of stop cues for each video cue in the group (group starting all cues simultaneously), they do the same thing - one after another.

How can I do this - stop the group at the same time?

Running qLab 3 on:

MBPr 15 inch (Mid-2015), 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048 MB, with SSD.

Many thanks,

James

[Rich Walsh]

Fades are more reliable than stops: fade to 0 and stop; should maintain sync.

Rich

[James COOPER]

Ok, I was going to use fades, but I guess I'd fade the opacity? I haven't really needed to fade video before...

[Rich Walsh]

Snap fade opacity of Group Cue.

Rich

[James COOPER]

Ok, that seems to work for all except one for some reason. It is always the same cue.

Additionally, when selecting "Stop cue when finished" brings back the original problem.

[James COOPER]

Would it work for me to use timecode?

I have a timecode bus on the mac, so could use timecode cues for this?

[Rich Walsh]

How can you tell that they're not all stopping simultaneously if they're faded out when the stop? Or are you saying that the fade outs are not synchronised across the surfaces – at which point I defer to others about the limitations (Sam? Mic?)…

Rich

On 14 Apr 2016, at 12:40, James COOPER <coope...@christthekingcollege.co.uk> wrote:

Furthermore, the only differences between these cues are their Cue Numbers and the Surfaces.

[micpool]

The fade group method Rich describes is the correct way to do this. It will work, providing you have sufficient computing headroom to play the 8 videos and fade them.

It sounds to me you are at the edge of your playback capabilities with that set up.

Other ways this close to the limit manifests itself, is with staggered start times even though a group of videos is preloaded.

Timecode won't help, its just another way of triggering cues. What you need to opimise is your video playback performance, and I would suspect that using the correct codec and optimising surface and video pixel dimensions is the way to achieve this,

What format and pixel size are your videos?

What is the resolution of your projector(s), and how are your 8 videos arranged on surfaces feeding them?

Mic

[James COOPER]

One projector, but currently programming away from performance space.

Each video is 1000x1000 pixels, H.264 MP4 (I know this isn't at all recommended, but I don't have any Apple Pro software, but do have all the Adobe Creative Suite 2015.)

At the moment I'm using the Colour LCD Screen of my Mac.

[micpool]

I always get confused about the current situation with Adobe and Apple ProRes.

I think that Adobe CC 2015 can use the Pro Res codecs installed at system level. In After effects do you see Pro Res as an option in the render formats?

Also, how are you fitting 8 1000x1000 videos onto 1 projector? Couldn't the videos be a lot smaller?

Mic

[James COOPER]

I really didn't need it at 1000x1000, it's only for projection onto approx 3ft x 3ft boxes, the projector is a 1280x720 resolution.

I don't actually have any ProRes codecs, any way to get them for cheap?

[Sam Kusnetz]

micpool wrote:
> I always get confused about the current situation with Adobe and Apple ProRes.
>
> I think that Adobe CC 2015 can use the Pro Res codecs installed at system level. In After effects do you see Pro Res as an option in the render formats?

Adobe CC, and in fact pretty much any video software, can make use of
the ProRes codecs as long as they're installed on the Mac. The trick is
that while the codecs are free, there's no official way to install them
except by installing Final Cut Pro, Motion, or Compressor.

Now, there is a sort of hack-job way to do it, which isn't even
technically illegal since the ProRes codecs are free to use. Here are
the instructions for that:

http://www.martin-thoburn.com/vj/install-apple-prores-codec-without-final-cut/

> Also, how are you fitting 8 1000x1000 videos onto 1 projector? Couldn't the videos be a lot smaller?

I second this question! Scaling takes processing power, so if you can
prerender your videos to the correct size, you'll save a few cycles.

Sam

--
Sam Kusnetz | Figure 53
s...@figure53.com

[micpool]

I think Adobe CC (not any of the CSx programs) is a licensed ProRes product.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT200321.

I seem to have ProRes on a clean El Capitan Mac (No Apple Pro Video apps) which has Adobe CC AE trial downloaded on it.

Perhaps downloading a CC trial is a free way of getting the codecs anyway?

The trick in determining how big your surfaces and the videos assigned to them should be is to estimate how many projector pixels are used to cover each object you are projecting on.  

As an example if your 1280 pixels were covering 13 feet, then it unlikely that a 3ft box needs more than 300 x300 pixels to cover it

That means you would be pushing 720,000 pixels around instead of the 8 million you are, currently.

Mic

[Sam Kusnetz]

micpool wrote:
> I think Adobe CC (not any of the CSx programs) is a licensed ProRes
> product.
>
> https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT200321.
>
> I seem to have ProRes on a clean El Capitan Mac (No Apple Pro Video
> apps) which has Adobe CC AE trial downloaded on it.
>
> Perhaps downloading a CC trial is a free way of getting the codecs anyway?

I did not know that! That's excellent news.

[micpool]

On Thursday, April 14, 2016 at 12:35:37 PM UTC+1, James COOPER wrote:

Additionally, when selecting "Stop cue when finished" brings back the original problem.

Interestingly, a fade time of 0.01 (or possibly a higher value depending on your system and codec)  may cure this problem. With a fade time of 0 the ragged stop looks the same as using a stop cue. 

Also, a panic time of 0 in settings exhibits the staggered stop. A panic time of 0.01 does not cure this either. However 0.05 does.

Mic

[James COOPER]

Ok, wow!

Did not do that math, and wow yeah, that's a ridiculous amount of pixels, I will re-render them, and scale them down.

I think I have Adobe CC 2015 - is ProRes supported in this version? - something that school installed on my mac, where can I test to see if I have ProRes products?

Else I will look into installing them in another way.

[micpool]

Adobe AE CC2015 definitely supports ProRes

In After Effects output module settings you should have this

If they are not there try downloading them here

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1396?locale=en_US

Mic

[Chet Miller]

I totally forgot to send an email about this a month ago. I came in to help with a show and they had five surfaces over two projectors using a triplehead. Stop and fade 0 caused them to blink out in sequential order. A fade of .1 seconds was instantaneous. Interesting little quirk.