Help Needed - a question regarding sending video cues to a projector

[Daniel Lawrence]

Hello QLab folks!

This is probably a very basic problem that I'm having trouble with, but I'm hoping that those with more experience can help me out.  The situation is as follows, and I can feel a long description coming on, but please bear with me:

My wife has a solo show that she is performing in various venues around the country (and internationally).  College theaters, college lecture rooms, and regular full-on theaters.  I'm her husband so I get to run the tech part of the show for some of the performances.  The show itself has a lot of audio and video cues, and we're currently using QLab 3.1.9 and a 13" 2014 Macbook Pro to send the audio cues out through the audio jack and the video cues out to a projector via a mini-Display port to VGA adaptor.  

When we first started touring, at the first college venue, we had an older 2007 MBP that we connected to a projector via a mini-DVI to VGA adapter.  We opened up the project and discovered all the video links had broken, because (in retrospect) we hadn't built the show with the computer connected to a projector.  I relinked the cues and away we went.  This worked for the next few shows.  Plug the computer into to the VGA cable, projector comes on, and we can do the show.  I should add that because we had seen the video cue links break when going from building the show with only a MBP, to actually connecting the computer to a VGA connected projector, I actually made a duplicate of the project once the links had been established to the projector at the venue.   Like I wrote... this seemed to work for a while, but something has changed and I don't know how to fix the problem.

In the last few shows I worked - at least one with the old MBP and most recently the one with the new MBP - when the video cues were sent to the projector, they would show up with part of the image cut off.  Usually I had seen QLab (in absence of telling it to reformat the geometry) always send the entirety of the video cue  - stills and videos of different image sizes and resolutions - to the projector.  Because I didn't know what to do to remedy this, I ended up using the mirror display setting to get the full image sent to the projector.  This, as we all know, is not a good way to go, since you're flying blind without the ability to see the QLab interface.  Even worse for me, there were times when there were audio only cues being triggered, and it would stop sending any video signal... so I had to make a workaround project to send constant black instead of projecting the QLab interface.  The show must go on!

I would like to get back to where we were, which is with QLab sending the video cues to a projector and leaving the computer screen free for the operator.  I know I have to disable the mirror display function to do this, but what I don't know is why QLab no longer seems to want to display the full frame of the video cue that it sends out.  

So... I have several questions, apart from the general one of "what am I doing wrong"?

Has something changed in the protocol of how a mini-Display Port to VGA adapter talks to a VGA source?  Seems like it's doing the same job, but I don't know.

Since the show travels from venue to venue, is it even possible to create a single QLab project that is ready to send video cues to any projector, and have the display format be correct?  And by correct, I mean, always showing the whole frame of the image/video.  If that's possible, then I'm ready to buy a cheap VGA projector to use to connect "properly" to the computer and have it be the way to test our QLab work.  But I don't know if this is viable.

OR

Because each venue is different, and each projector is potentially different (even though we're always plugging into a VGA cable), is it necessary for me (or the QLab operator) to essentially customize the QLab project for each venue.  That is, upon arriving at a new venue, one would connect the computer to the projector.  Then boot up QLab.  Then manually create a new surface based on detecting the specific projector that the computer is talking to (if QLab doesn't auto detect it), and assign the video cues to that.  In essence... one needs to relink the QLab project to each new venue's computer.  I was hoping that this wouldn't be the case, and the way we've travelled around, I don't know if we simply got lucky with the first performances.

I would love to know what I need to do, especially since I'm not always the person running QLab at the show.  Any advice any of you might have will be most appreciated!

Thanks in advance and thanks for reading this far!

Dan Lawrence

[Joshua Langman]

I don't have a lot of time to answer now, but one big key to this is that new projectors should warrant new screens, NOT new surfaces.

Decide on the fixed resolution for the surface that you want and program for that surface. You can use anything, including a TV and the Audition window, to test. Patch each venue's projector as a new screen replacing the old one in your surface settings. You should not need to change anything on the cue level because the surface that the cues are assigned to will remain the same.

[Dave H.]

I have a show with similar, basic requirements to yours.  I had a similar situation to yours once:  the show is designed for 1280 x 720, and I suddenly arrived at a venue with a native 800 x 600 projector.  Further, even though it reported to the Mac that it was displaying 1280 x 960, it was only showing the upper left 800 x 600 pixels on the screen.  Took me a frantic 10 minutes to re-do the program from the Surface on up to compensate.

As Joshua said, decide on what your "standard" show resolution should be, and scale your videos in QLab to match.  Then, when at a new venue, before even launching QLab, go to Display Preferences and make sure that the projector is showing at least that resolution.  (1280 x 720 works well for me, both because I'm using a 720p movie and because almost all projectors save that brain-dead one above can display 1280 x (720, 768, 800, 960, 1024).

Once you've done that, launch QLab, go to Video Preferences, and repatch your Surface to the new screen.  Everything should display as intended...use the Grid and Guides check boxes to make sure.

[Jonathan G]

Dave, it seems like that should work, and I've tried it, but I designed the show with a 1024X768 VGA projector, and when I got to a venue with 1080p HDMI projector, the screen doesn't even show up on the list to assign a new screen even though it works fine as an extension to the desktop.  the new projector resolution is greater than the original, but it doesn't work. One thing that did change was originally the projector was connected though the display port on a Mini, and at the venue it's connected through the HDMI.

[luckydave]

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/qlab/iA6nJTnevkg/B5MVP_agBAAJ

-- 
luckydave

On August 15, 2015 at 7:49:31 AM, Jonathan G (jon...@gmail.com) wrote:

Dave, it seems like that should work, and I've tried it, but I designed the show with a 1024X768 VGA projector, and when I got to a venue with 1080p HDMI projector, the screen doesn't even show up on the list to assign a new screen even though it works fine as an extension to the desktop.  the new projector resolution is greater than the original, but it doesn't work. One thing that did change was originally the projector was connected though the display port on a Mini, and at the venue it's connected through the HDMI.

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