Very Simple Question please . Next Cue. Video.

[Andy Wood]

How do you simply jump to your next cue in your list with a hotkey? (Why cant i find the answer to this simple Q on any tutorials... and why cant i find any tutorials for V3.09 the current version which seems to look totally different to all the previous versions?)

I have a cue list of video files that i have to trigger manually in response to performers in a live show. There may be ocasions when i need to quickly fade the current video and then manually trigger the next. I know i can fade the current video with 'escape' hotkey but how do i then skip to the next video in the cue list? surely this is simple but i cant find it. Any help gratefully received and if anyone can recommend some current (V3.09)  tutorials then that would be FAB! Sure previous ones give you an overview but its the simple details that elude me.

Andy

[Mike P]

Hey Andy,

Not sure I quite understand this. When I launch a cue, QLab automatically selects the next cue so if I hit the GO again, it just launches it. If you want to get the the cue after that, you can hit a down arrow key and that gets you there.

Does that help?

Mike Post
(601) 307-8657
mdp...@mac.com
http://mdpostdesign.com

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[Sean Dougall]

On Aug 29, 2013, at 6:59 PM, Mike P <mdpost...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you want to get the the cue after that, you can hit a down arrow key and that gets you there.

As long as "Lock playback position to selection" is checked in the General page of the workspace settings. If the down arrow key doesn't move the playback position, check that setting.

Sean

[Andy Wood]

Thanks for reply, yes in principle thats what I understood too but i seem to be getting erratic things happening like more than one video playing at once. I think perhaps its not clear to me how to set up the cue 'follow on etc' buttons appropriately for my circumstances (which seem as simple as it could get really!)

Seems like i need to make sure no follow on, in fact no triggers of any kind present, so that i can do this manually live as i need to, depending on the live action of performers. And make sure the fade has worked before triggering the next bit of video or i get 2 videos playing at once. Does this make sense to those that know?

Thanks for advice!

Andy

[Andy Wood]

Yes, thanks Sean i have this checked !

[Mike P]

Ah - got ya. Having a continue in sequence puts the playback position _after_ the sequence and you probably wanted the next cue _in_ the sequence. Hitting the up arrow to get to the desired cue or clicking on it would work, but I suspect that's not a great way to run your show.

I'm not sure how you would handle this. Full manual operation would seem the most controllable. Otherwise, maybe something in a script cue or somehow using multiple lists.

Not sure how you're getting multiple videos happening unless you programmed your continues to do that.

Mike Post
(601) 307-8657
mdp...@mac.com
http://mdpostdesign.com

[Andy Wood]

Maybe its not the most elegant but it seems to work. Manually select then trigger at will. (Wont really know till i git in the venue and try with performers;) 

On another note perhaps you could help with the following:

Im trying to connect an external apple cinema display monitor to my MacBook Pro to see what I may get when i get into the venue.

I am doing this via thunderbolt mini display port to DVI adapter. If i hit 'mirror displays' in the Displays system prefs then it does precisely that so i assume connection ok.

How do i get to see on my monitor, the output from QLab? I assumed it would just see it, same as QT but without all the controls 

In QLab the 'audition' screen is working fine and i assumed this was what QLab would be pumping out and what i would see in my attached external monitor but i get nothing

There appears to be something called Untitled surface 1 but if i do anything with this i get red Xs everywhere

If i try to repatch any screens i get told i need a license (?)

Will i have the same problem when i arrive at venue and need to patch into a (full-size) cinema screen there

I assume i'm missing something really obvious but i looked at the tutorials and can find stuff on 'surfaces' and the complexity of options but no simple instructions on connecting to a single external screen properly.

[Mike P]

I'm guessing but... Untitled Surface implies that the Mac isn't seeing the display as an Apple Cinema Display. There's a scheme called EDID that will report back the Mac the make and model of the output. If you don't get that, the Mac just sees an output and does something generic which may not show up properly on something big like a Cinema display.

The reason EDID sometimes doesn't work is in the connection usually. I ran into this big time with a 4 projector rig. I discovered in my case that the cheap Minidisplay to VGA adapters were the problem. The only ones I know for sure that work properly are Apple's adapter. I suspect anything made by Belkin would work, but I haven't confirmed that.

So I'd look at the connection. It could be that adapter if it's non-Apple or even the cable if it doesn't allow for EDID to work right.

Hope that helps!

Mike Post
(601) 307-8657
mdp...@mac.com
http://mdpostdesign.com

[Andy Wood]

Ah...but even if when i hit 'mirror displays' it does just that via this (non mac) cable? Ie its quite happy with this cable when i 'mirror displays' in  but i don't see anything output from QLab...

[Mike P]

Still a possibility since Mirror Displays may do something different from a separate output. It's not that signal isn't going out to the display, it's what _kind_ of signal. Usually the default I see is 640x480 or 800x600 (can't remember offhand). A Cinema display may look at that and just ignore it.

If you know the resolution of the display, you should be able to set it manually in Display Preferences in System Settings and get a workaround. The trouble with this approach is if you disconnect and reconnect the display, it resets to the generic and you're starting over.

Mike Post
(601) 307-8657
mdp...@mac.com
http://mdpostdesign.com

[Willo]

Hi Andy.

Fading the video with the 'escape' key is not the best solution!  It might be working for you now, but if you ever had a sequence with more than a single cue running it would stop everything at once.

The better way to fade video is with the 'Fade' cue.  Use it the same way you would for an audio cue: drag your current video cue on top of it to make it the target of the fade cue. Then go to the 'Geometry' tab. What you're looking for is the 'Opacity' setting. If you want your currently playing video to fade to black over say, a 3 second period, set your opacity to zero, make the action of the cue 3 seconds, and tick the option that says 'stop target when done'.

So: 

Cue 1 is a video cue. (Video A). When you trigger it your video plays, and the payback head moves down to Cue 2.

Cue 2 is your fade cue. When you trigger it, Video A will fade to black (0% opacity) and stop, over the period of time you specify (3 secs in my example).

Cue 3 could be Video B.

Cue 4 is a fade cue targeting Cue 3.....etc etc.

I think this will produce the results you describe. You will individually control every fade out, and then each play cue, one after another.

If you want the next video to fade in rather than start abruptly, there's a couple of extra steps. First, you make your video cue start with opacity at zero. You then immediately follow on (or play simultaneously inside a group cue) with a fade cue that targets that video, and this time set the opacity of the fade to 100%. The video will start black (0%) and fade in (to 100%), over whatever time you specify in the fade.

Once you have the hang of fading videos in and out, you can create a crossfade effect:

Cue 1 is the currently playing video, Video A.

Cue 2 is a group cue. All children start simultaneously. The first cue in the group fades out video A to 0% opacity. The second cue plays Video B at 0% opacity, and the third cue fades up Video B to 100%.

(The reason you need to fade Video B in as well as fade Video A out is because otherwise Video B would simply play abruptly and you wouldn't notice Video A fading at all.)

Then you can tweak the timings of your fades, both in and out, to achieve the effect you want.

Cheers,

Willo

[Andy Wood]

Ah i see.. But...Curioser and curioser... so i discovered that: 'In my experience, any hardware attached or changed after Qlab has been launched will behave unexpectedly. Relaunch Qlab after adding or changing hardware, even if it is showing correctly in the prefs.' So i did this and bingo Qlab could then see the cinema display. Switched off mirroring in Prefs and display still there. Strange wasn't expecting that. Oh well...So go to the video setting in QLab and it now shows the cinema display BUT now says the Color LCD is '(broken)'. The link with it i assume. So switch to Cinema HD but still its mirroring my local screen i.e. edit screen & audition window. Switch off audition window and the films trigger and output to the external monitor but i lose my Cue list window. So i'm getting confused here....

Q: Am i right in my basic assumption that i should in theory be able to keep my Cue List window open on my local (laptop) screen and yet output to an external screen what i see in the audition window?

[Andy Wood]

Thanks for this Willo. At the moment I've just got a really simple sequence of video files with one (single screen) video to play after another. I just need a bit of manual control with the start cues as it involves some live performers and an element of improvisation.

Andy

[Willo]

No worries. If you're not concerned about how abruptly the video stops, you could go the simple option and just use a "Stop" cue.
But I've invariably found that even when you want a quick stop, using a really short fade cue (like 1 second) looks more professional than simply stopping the cue.

Once you get used to setting up your fades and crossfades, you can copy and paste an entire group as a template for each video, then drag the correct videos to the video cues and fade cues. I recently did a workspace with over 500 quick video fades and crossfades, and pasting the group made it a lot quicker and easier than it would otherwise have been.
All the best experimenting!
Willo

[Andy Wood]

Yeah, of course i need the video to not stop abruptly! All my videos have the appropriate fades embedded in the material itself... and if i need an earlier panic fade (esc) you can program how long that lasts in the settings. (1.5 secs is the default which feels fine)

I dont really understand the advantage of a fade cue unless i knew the precise times of everything. Would you program this to a specific hot-key for each of my ten videos? Wouldn't that be more complicated as i'd have to remember which video fade cue was assigned to which hotkey when i was manually controlling?

My main issue at the moment is that when a video stops it reverts back to the workspace screen. Will the audience see this too? Or will they see screen go to black (as it does in the audition window?) 

What i see in the audition window is fine. I can trigger video, it outputs, then fades to black and arms the next video, which i can then trigger at will. Perfect for my very simple needs! If i need to do a panic fade then replay the same vid, i can use arrow keys it seems. 

I just haven't been able to test it with an external monitor yet... and be re-assured that what the audience will see, is what i see now on the 'audition window'. Any idea?

Cheers, andy

[Andy Wood]

Ok. So i discovered i need mirroring OFF in sytem prefs. Also, you need to connect hardware then relaunch QLab so it collects it (see's it). You also need audition window OFF (so video is output to external screen rather than audition window). 

Finally, I'm getting somewhere...

All i need to know now is that audience will see what i see, when i use audition window (i.e. they wont see workspace re-appearing when my video finishes. Which is what happens on local laptop screen.)

And then i need to get an external screen working so i can check all this!

So close and yet...

[Mike P]

Andy,

QLab works the way you describe. If you have external outputs operating, Mirroring is off and have set the Video cues to the surfaces that use those outputs, the QLab will send video to them. The only place you should see the cue list is on your Mac's main screen.

The Audition window needs to be closed as well. Otherwise I believe QLab will only send things to that window instead of the output.

It is possible because of the way Macs operate to 'slide' the cue list onto another screen and occasionally part of a cue list window will accidentally overlap to another output. This is easily correctable to making sure you have the whole cue list on the main screen only.

So if you are not having success with this, then we still haven't quite found the root of the problem yet.

RE Fade cues: Think of it as a way to dynamically create the fades you built into your sources. We often run into a situation where we don't know what the rate of the fade needs to be so there is a certain amount of guessing involved. If it's built into the video source, to change it means you need to rebuild the source which is often time consuming. With QLab and fade cues, you can program it to run the video for a certain amount of time, and then automatically trigger the fade. That way if you need to change the length of the fade, all you have to do is change the duration in QLab instead of rebuilding the source.

I hope this helps!

[Andy Wood]

Wow, cheers Mike. Thanks for the clarity. So, if i have everything set up as you outline below, I can have my video cue workspace on my local (laptop) screen and send the video ONLY to the external screen via outputs. Phew. That will make everything possible then and give me lots of manual flexibility. I will get a chance to test this out tomorrow at the venue.

re Fade cues: Understood in principle! And tho i hadn't previously considered this, I can see the sense and indeed it may actually be very useful to my scenario (where lengths keep changing dependant on performer whims ;)  I don't actually know how to do this but now i know that in principle you can, i can then work out how. So thanks a lot for persisting with the explanation!

Andy 

[Willo]

G'day Andy. 

It seems to me you really need to plug in another monitor or a projector and reassure yourself that all of this works exactly the way you want it to and there's no need to stress!

Yes, the point of using QLab to play your videos is you will be sending ONLY the picture you want sent to your audience, they won't see the QLab program. And yes, YOU will still be able to see the QLab screen so you can follow where you're up to.

On Saturday, August 31, 2013 7:47:03 PM UTC+8, Andy Wood wrote:

Yeah, of course i need the video to not stop abruptly! All my videos have the appropriate fades embedded in the material itself... and if i need an earlier panic fade (esc) you can program how long that lasts in the settings. (1.5 secs is the default which feels fine)

Actually, this is a slight contradiction....If your videos already have the appropriate fade embedded in the material itself, then you DO want it to stop abruptly....exactly at the end of the video when its pre-recorded fade plays out!  But if you want to interrupt the playing video and have a smooth fade out at any point you like, then the fade cue is the way to go. 

Even though you've found the escape key works in this situation, I really don't suggest getting used to using that to play your "video-off" cues. There will come a time when you will want to have video cues as well as audio and other cues playing, and will want to assign each their own fade cue to stop them individually. An escape panic will just shut down everything.

 

I dont really understand the advantage of a fade cue unless i knew the precise times of everything. 

 

Another slight contradiction. The advantage of a fade cue is when you DON'T know the precise times of everything. If you have 3 min of footage, but decide during the performance to fade out at 2min, then the fade cue I described earlier will do exactly what you want. Or the next night, you can let the video play for 2.5 min, and then trigger the fade the same way. Or anytime at all, whenever your performers finish what they're doing.

Remember, you TRIGGER the cue whenever you want. That's the advantage! When I was talking about assigning a time to the fade cue, that was a DURATION time of the fade. For a swift fade to blackout, make it about 1 second. For a slow subtle fade out, make it about 8 seconds or so. This time bears no relation to the actual video, it just means that when you hit the space bar, it will take 8 seconds (or however many you've specified) of gradual fading before the video is completely faded and stops. Experiment!

 

Would you program this to a specific hot-key for each of my ten videos? Wouldn't that be more complicated as i'd have to remember which video fade cue was assigned to which hotkey when i was manually controlling?

 

I don't suggest programming ANY of this to specific hot keys. That WOULD be more complicated.  I'm not sure you understood...with a video cue you hit the space bar to play it, and then if your next cue is a fade cue, you hit the space bar again to fade it out. By making each action a separate cue in the order you want them, you can make them happen whenever you want - all you do is hit the space bar. QLab will then set itself ready for your next action.

 

My main issue at the moment is that when a video stops it reverts back to the workspace screen. 

This will ONLY be happening to you if you are playing your video cues on your own laptop, and are not connected to any other outputs.  The computer wants to show you your video, but the only screen you have available is your laptop screen, so it takes over from the workspace screen to play your video. When it finishes, it reverts to the workspace.

If you were connected to a different screen or a projector output, the video would go to that source, and your Qlab workspace on your laptop screen would never be interrupted.

Is it all making more sense now?

Cheers,

Willo