Website Video + Audio on Qlab

[Andrew Lee]

Hi guys, 

is there a way I can get Qlab to go fetch a video from a website and play that video with its audio?

[Sam Kusnetz]

On Apr 10, 2021, 11:29 PM -0400, Andrew Lee <als...@gmail.com>, wrote:

is there a way I can get Qlab to go fetch a video from a website and play that video with its audio?

There are some very complicated ways, but nothing built into QLab directly.

Can you tell us more about why you need this? Is it at all possible to download the video in advance? Fetching assets from the internet on demand really feels like asking for trouble to me… what if there’s lots of network congestion during your performance?

Best
Sam

––
Sam Kusnetz [he/him/his] (what is this?)
Figure 53
https://qlab.app | https://figure53.com

[Andrew Lee]

Hi Sam,

Will you be able to share how it is done ? 

I am a one man show that triggers my Qlab with a remote. And one bit of the show requires me to go fetch information while I’m on. And it is something that is constantly updating when I need it before it’s been fetched. (Hence I will not be able to get this downloaded in advance) 

I’m Looking at possibilities of getting it to work, rather than having one additional person to manually download it and put it on Qlab to be fired. 

Thanks in advance !! 

Sent from my iPhone

On 12 Apr 2021, at 3:18 AM, Sam Kusnetz <s...@figure53.com> wrote:



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[micpool]

Do you have control over where the remote video  file is stored? Can you sync it with dropbox or similar, so it automatically updates a local file on your computer? Or is the video just on a third party website you have no control over?

Mic

[Andrew Lee]

At the moment the file is automatically uploaded into my webpage with a custom url. 

Will that work ?

Sent from my iPhone

On 12 Apr 2021, at 1:32 PM, micpool <m...@micpool.com> wrote:

Do you have control over where the remote video  file is stored? Can you sync it with dropbox or similar, so it automatically updates a local file on your computer? Or is the video just on a third party website you have no control over?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qlab/09c4e3da-6684-4766-bee2-acd617f8d2dbn%40googlegroups.com.

[Sam Kusnetz]

> At the moment the file is automatically uploaded into my webpage with a custom url.

Uploaded from where?

Could it instead be uploaded to your QLab computer directly?

Sam

[micpool]

In the attached screen recording  you can see the computer that is uploading the file on the left of the screen, and a screen share to the show computer, on the right

I am using a still image, but it will work the same with a video file. (It just takes longer to sync)

Both computers have Dropbox installed with a folder named QLab Sync in Dropbox stored locally on each system (i.e not in the cloud)

 image.jpg  (currently a red image  with text image 1 ) is playing on the show computer and is faded

The upload computer changes the image.jpg  in the dropbox folder to  a different image.jpg  (the new file has a blue image with text image 2).A dialog pops up on the upload computer to confirm the replacement.

After a few seconds Dropbox syncs the new image, which you can see happening in the local  QLab sync folder in the Dropbox folder,  on the screen share of the show computer.

Sometimes you can  use the new file straight away, and often  the playing file will update live to the new image. However I often find that when  QLab reloads the new file when it is changed,  it sometimes picks up on a cached version during the dropbox sync, which will have a crazy temporary name which will break the file target of the video file

I think it is safer to re-target the file explicitly to the name of the file you are using before playing the video i.e path to your dropbox folder:QLab Sync: Image.jpg. The script cue in the show workspace does this and sets the playhead to the Video cue ready to play the new image.

Mic

[micpool]

And just for completeness, here's a screen recording of a Dropbox update breaking the file target of a cue. In this example the file is updating a live image, but this can also happen when no cue is playing. 

Mic

[Andrew Lee]

Wow. This is amazing! 

How does that work ? I am currently using FileZilla to automatically upload a video to my webpage for the video to be updated and played.

Just wondering how do I get that to the computer.

Sent from my iPhone

On 13 Apr 2021, at 6:18 AM, micpool <m...@micpool.com> wrote:

And just for completeness, here's a screen recording of a Dropbox update breaking the file target of a cue. In this example the file is updating a live image, but this can also happen when no cue is playing. 

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<Dropbox breaks file target.mov>

[micpool]

A basic 2GB plan on Dropbox is free

https://www.dropbox.com/individual

You just  install Dropbox on any computers you use , and it  automatically sync any folders or files in the Dropbox folders on each computer it is installed on. To use reliably with QLab you should specify that the video file should store a copy locally on your show machine.

There will probably be many ways of automating this, bit I’m still not clear how often the video file on your web server is updated, and how, or why,  this is done while you are on stage performing, as you say it  can’t be done in advance. Presumably this is part of a magic routine, you are performing on line?

Mic

[Andrew Lee]

Hey Mic,

Yes this is for a magic routine that I am doing, and the video will only be uploaded secs before a reveal.. and it is automatically uploaded into my webpage through Filezilla.. 

Not sure how to save that on a dropbox. once the video file has been uploaded.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qlab/05c4f4cf-b9ee-400b-8c85-4181bb3c1254n%40googlegroups.com.

[Taylor Glad]

Can you explain why you need to automatically upload to your website with Filezilla? Who/what is creating this new video and how much control do you have of that process?

I think using DropBox Sync will replace the need to do that if your sole objective is to get the video file to QLab.

I've used my Watch Folder script with a Dropbox Sync folder successfully. I used it with a designer in another state, and replacing file was easy peasy with this script.

It's similar to Mic's approach, but just a little more flexible with file naming if that is something you aren't in the situation to be too exact on. (And then run a script cue just before taking the video cue)

Instead of naming the image the same thing, you could either name it _v1, _v2, _v3 and so on. Or you could name the file with the date & time like Image202104132009.jpeg, so if your device or whatever uses one of those it could work easily. And if your device or whatever does something slightly different, then the script could be tweaked a little.

The only error I ever encountered while using this script was when the designer started uploading a new version, but canceled the upload to make another quick edit. The file got moved by Dropbox to an obscure location with a weird name, and the script was no longer able to keep track of new replacements. But it sounds like your situation wouldn't run into that scenario.

[micpool]

This can be done entirely in QLab with a script

set theURL to "https://archive.org/download/SonySupertrinitronWidebeCarefulWhatYouWatchAdvert_201712/Sony%20Supertrinitron%20Wide%20%27be%20Careful%20What%20You%20Watch%27%20Advert.mp4"

set theTargetFile to (((path to desktop folder) & "video.mp4") as string)

tell application id "com.figure53.QLab.4" to tell front workspace

set notes of cue "VID1" to "Downloading......."

set the selected to cue "VID1"

do shell script "curl -f " & quoted form of theURL & " -L -o ~/Desktop/video.mp4"

set notes of cue "VID1" to "Download complete"

set file target of cue "VID1" to theTargetFile

set the start time of cue "VID1" to 0

set the end time of cue "VID1" to 99999

end tell

This will download the file from the URL set at the top of the script and save it in the target file (video.mp4 on the desktop). Progress is indicated in the notes field of the video cue

I have found that the file target in cue VID1 can quite often break so I relink explicitly after each download. Also the end time doesn't always reset to the new file duration so again I set that (and the start just in case)  explicitly.

Workspace with some  download examples from archive.org attached

Mic

[Andrew Lee]

Mic thank you so much for your help and for solving my question! 

You are a life saver ! 

Sent from my iPhone

On 16 Apr 2021, at 11:27 PM, micpool <m...@micpool.com> wrote:

This can be done entirely in QLab with a script

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qlab/efba992d-7451-4db6-856d-8574088be67en%40googlegroups.com.

<Video Loader.qlab4.zip>