Changing Targets' files

[Kyle Anderson]

I'm running a show with lots of images and videos. At one point during the show we take pictures, and we play them back later in the performance.

What I would like to do is:

 1 - I have video cues targeting 1.png, 2.png, 3.png, etc, in a folder called "nightly pictures"

 2 - We take the new pictures during the show, and rename then 1.png, 2.png, etc.

 3 - I drag the new files into "nightly pictures" and tell the popup to replace the old images.

 4 - I play back the cues from step 1, and it shows the new pictures that are currently in the folder in question.

However, what happens instead is that Qlab still points to the now deleted files from last night. It's actually looking at the image in the Trash folder. The ones I dragged into the folder are not used at all. Trying to load the cues ahead of time has no effect. No fiddling around on my part has gotten this to work.

In order to get the final result I want, I have to retarget every single cue. There are LOTS of these pictures, and very little time so this is a very poor work around.

How can I get Qlab to read the latest file put into the target directory?

Thanks!

[Tyler]

This year old topic is what you are looking for.

It's quite long, but the basic idea is QLab uses unique file ID first instead of path/filename.png which is why it's targeting your file in the trash. You'll find some of the reasoning in there as well. I don't believe this behavior has been improved since this topic was posted. There's probably some scripting you can implement to do what you want, but I'll let one of the experts comment on that.

best

tg

[mick...@gmail.com]

Hi kyle

I did exactly what you are doing last year and phots 1-8 refocussed no problem - different to you I had already bundled

the show so I only had a "video" folder in my bundle and just drag and replacing 1-8 in this folder worked.   Id made 

sure there were no back ups kicking around and id copied off the previous nights images.  I didnt have to rebundle again, relaunch

or even empty the trash as there was nothing in the trash? I cant be sure in the shows it didnt mess up as it was all fancy dress

and we may have missed the odd wrong picture but in testing it was perfect

It was osx10.9 qlab3.something but cant be sure.       

mick

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[Rich Walsh]

I think it's important to understand that with step 3 of your workflow the old files are not placed in the Trash: they are marked as "deleted" by the file system and are available to be overwritten. ~/.Trash is just a hidden folder, so files here are easy to find. QLab should NOT however be able to play files that technically no longer exist. We've discussed this a couple of times and I think it should be considered a bug – and quite an unusual one at that: no other software I've used seems to have the ability to contact files once they've crossed over to the other side. Norton Unerase didn't make to OS X did it?

I did make a workspace for the Video Department at the NT a few years ago that did something like what you need, but I don't seem to have a copy of it: it was a proof of concept of how to get photos from a photobooth into an evolving loop projected onto the Lyttelton flytower.

As soon as you find yourself doing the same thing repeatedly it's time to look to scripting for a solution. It depends how you've structured your show, but you could:

• Make the Video Cues
• Run a script to copy the correct filepath of every Video Cue from the "file target" to the "notes"
• Swap out the video content
• Refresh the Video Cues by setting the "file target" to the "notes"

This is essentially a batch relink, but it forces QLab to look in the right place.

Presumably you've ruled out the obvious stuff though, like making sure the cues have been reloaded since the media asset was changed?

I suspect Mic has a single OSC cue that will do all this…

Rich

[Paul Gotch]

On 28 Mar 2015, at 09:35, Rich Walsh <rich...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> I think it's important to understand that with step 3 of your workflow the old files are not placed in the Trash: they are marked as "deleted" by the file system and are available to be overwritten. ~/.Trash is just a hidden folder, so files here are easy to find. QLab should NOT however be able to play files that technically no longer exist.

Since OS X is a Unix style system if a file is open then the program can still do things with it even if it has been unlinked from the directory. The file only truly goes away once the last file handle held is closed.

-p

[Rich Walsh]

That explains a lot: thank you. I wonder when QLab opens/closes the media files? This subtle detail might be the difference between this kind of file-replacing workflow appearing to work and it appearing not to work.

Presumably no-one who's ever had QLab summon the dead has had that issue persist after a workspace close & reopen?

Rich

[Christopher Ashworth]

The file identification behavior was later changed to use file path first, and file ID only as a last resort if the path doesn't lead to something valid. 

(mobile)

[Rich Walsh]

But that's only used when opening the media file, right? So once it's opened for access QLab clings to the media file no matter what you do to it?

Rich

[Christopher Ashworth]

Correct, although I'm not sure offhand when it closes the file. (Might be when unloading, but that sounds like it's not helping in the examples described in this thread so I'd need to look closer.)

We have an experimental branch of the codebase that observes files for changes and reloads them when it sees them change, but haven't felt comfortable merging it into the main product until it has some more testing. I could look into putting up a build for folks to try in the coming week.

(mobile)

[Kyle Anderson]

Chris, that would be amazing!

I haven't tried bundling the workspace -- the show is still being built and is changing every night. I'll run some experiments to see if that helps.

Thanks for the feedback folks. Fingers crossed for an update, and in the meantime I'll give the thread pointed to a read through.

[mick...@gmail.com]

I just retried on qlab.19   and both bundling and not bundling works just the same as i found before - making sure not

a vestige of original files are anywhere to be found -  so having bundled doesnt seem to have any effect.   

Interestingly if i dont turn off the loaded pics first the replacements still appear but with weird dimensions from the original files - 

not soemthing I ever did and best to stop all cues before replacing pics

mick

 

[micpool]

I might be missing something here, but I can't replicate this at all.

On Saturday, March 28, 2015 at 6:08:27 AM UTC, Kyle Anderson wrote:

I'm running a show with lots of images and videos. At one point during the show we take pictures, and we play them back later in the performance.

What I would like to do is:

 1 - I have video cues targeting 1.png, 2.png, 3.png, etc, in a folder called "nightly pictures"

 2 - We take the new pictures during the show, and rename then 1.png, 2.png, etc.

 3 - I drag the new files into "nightly pictures" and tell the popup to replace the old images.

 4 - I play back the cues from step 1, and it shows the new pictures that are currently in the folder in question.

 

See attached screenshots

01 original images in nightly folder

02 drag 4 files with same names from a folder to the nightly folder and get replace dialog

03 Files are replaced. I have nothing in the trash. Thumbnail is still the old image but correct file is targeted.

04 After the cue is played (the new image appeared) the thumbnail updates to the new image.

What am I doing differently to your method and why don't I get any files in the trash?

Mic