[QLab] Projecting Web Pages?

[Shannon O'Neill]

Hello Everyone!

We are attempting to project Web pages as well as video files for a production that I am currently working on. Can QLab be used to call up a Web page, or can it only call up files on the computer's hard drive? We're trying to decide whether to use QLab, Max, or Processing. QLab is the most user friendly of the bunch, so we'd prefer to use that if possible, but we need to be able to call up the Web page at particular points during the show.

Thanks for your help!
Shannon O'Neill

--
Shannon O'Neill
Graduate Student, UGA Theatre and Film Studies
Office: 357 Fine Arts
http://www.soundslikeshannon.net

http://www.myspace.com/soundslikeshannon

[*]

If the purpose of the webpages are just for stills (& not interactive -
meaning you don't need to cursor around on them), screen capture each one
as a jpeg. If need be, you can screen capture a certain part of your
screen with cross hairs so you can decide exactly what the screen capture
samples.

*

On Sat, February 13, 2010 12:10 pm, Shannon O'Neill wrote:
> Hello Everyone!
>
> We are attempting to project Web pages as well as video files for a
> production that I am currently working on. Can QLab be used to call up a
> Web
> page, or can it only call up files on the computer's hard drive? We're
> trying to decide whether to use QLab, Max, or Processing. QLab is the most
> user friendly of the bunch, so we'd prefer to use that if possible, but we
> need to be able to call up the Web page at particular points during the
> show.

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[Christopher Ashworth]

Hi Shannon,

If you need to bring up live pages e.g. in Safari, you could probably do this with the Script Cue.

I assume Safari has AppleScript support--Apple is usually pretty good about making their apps scriptable.

You'd probably need to trigger QLab from MIDI for this, since it would go into the background.

-C

On Feb 13, 2010, at 1:10 PM, Shannon O'Neill wrote:

> Hello Everyone!
>
> We are attempting to project Web pages as well as video files for a production that I am currently working on. Can QLab be used to call up a Web page, or can it only call up files on the computer's hard drive? We're trying to decide whether to use QLab, Max, or Processing. QLab is the most user friendly of the bunch, so we'd prefer to use that if possible, but we need to be able to call up the Web page at particular points during the show.

________________________________________________________

[daniel howarth]

not sure of your setup, but I do this a lot for classes and meetings. basically my macbookpro has its dvi output for video cues - it resides in the os as the second screen, regardless of qlab or whatever you might do. so. most simple set-ups work like this, right ?? in my setup I tie that dvi to a video matrix to all the outputs around the theatre, projectors, etc.  

so in other words: just use safari, put it on your second screen, and know how to cmnd-tab and cmnd-hide when it is time for your cues.  

no need to make safari appear in anything but safari.   

but please let us know what you end up doing ?! this is interesting, now i would like to see some sort of video hijack screen capper plugin that can appear as a video cue ..  

daniel howarth

 520 405 9789

________________________________________________________

[ole kristensen]

hi there

but please let us know what you end up doing ?! this is interesting, now i would like to see some sort of video hijack screen capper plugin that can appear as a video cue ..  

there's something i've used for isadora, a screen grabber that works as a quicktime camera input. theoretically this could work with the qLab camera cue... but i haven't tested it.

http://b-l-a-c-k-o-p.com/GrabberRaster.html

watch out for that icon, though . . .

--
o...@kristensen.name

http://ole.kristensen.name

[prem sooriyakumar]

this is a great little app. thanks.

prem

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--
prem sooriyakumar
www.nocommercialvalue.org

[daniel howarth]

i did some experiments tonight .. i could not get qlab to recognize the grabber ARGB virtual camera driver (though the whole idea works with quicktime just fine, including annoying watermark). 

what's going on with the camera cue bug ?? this might be why qlab won't see this grabber driver. anyway - amazing .. exactly what i was looking for. thanks for sharing. 

 

this is a great little app. thanks.

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 5:41 PM, ole kristensen <o...@kristensen.name> wrote:

hi there

there's something i've used for isadora, a screen grabber that works as a quicktime camera input. theoretically this could work with the qLab camera cue... but i haven't tested it.

http://b-l-a-c-k-o-p.com/GrabberRaster.html

watch out for that icon, though . . .

yes. yikes on the icon.  

[*]

I'm wondering if this can be done via a script.

I would like to have master volume control of X outputs via key triggers.

So here is how I picture it.

Setup a gang (outputs 1 2 3 4)

assign a key to trigger +1db for gang (make the + be settable - +1, +2, +3)
assign a key to trigger -1db for gang
assign a key to trigger 0db for gang
assign a key to trigger mute for gang (whatever minimum volume is at)

If there is some way to make the actual mac keyboard volume control serve
this purpose, that would be perfect.

Other thoughts include +/- keys

number keys

1 = +1db
SHIFT & 1 = -1db
2 = +2db
SHIFT & 2 = -2db
etc...

MIDI triggers for ganged volume control would also be helpful.

Why not just use the master volume control in preferences?
I need to leave some outputs alone.

Why not just use the volume adjustment in preferences?
Takes up too much screen & there is too much room for error. For example,
if you try to drag it & slip, you might max out the levels, etc...

Why not just adjust in each cue?
It takes too long & means I'm missing my other duties like trying to watch
running times & making notes where fades need to go.

Why not just ride the levels at the console?
It's always in the booth & I'm at the tech table. What I need is a way to
keep track of the adjustments I would make if I had these key trigger to
control volume. Maybe a script that keeps track of every adjustment & to
which cue. Then maybe the log could create a group with fades in it to
correspond to each captured event. Of course the fade times & such would
need to be fine tuned. Maybe even the fade curve but that would be pretty
easy once the actual times & levels are known.

LOG EXAMPLE:
CUE 1
00:00 @ 0db
01:10 @ -1db
01:12 @ -2db
01:15 @ -3db
02:33 @ 0db

All logged from what was triggered via the keys in real time.

I know there are some technical things that might render this all void but
just thinking out loud.

--------------------------------------------------

The next logical step would be to add a automation WRITE & RECORD feature
like DAW software has.

Then I could arm certain tracks (1 thru 4) & with the (new volume
adjustment) keys, adjust the volume up & down during rehearsals. Then go
back & fine tune by grabbing little dots in the automation track. This
would eliminate all the groups & all the fades I currently add which is
90% of every cue list.

A sort of realtime integrated fade envelope accept adjustable in real time.

The key is to make it subtle so you can't make it too loud or too soft
accidentally. Instead, on the first pass, you could go up & down in 1 or 2
db increments. Then go into the cue list & fine tune.

Maybe a simpler starting point would be to make it where, while a cue is
playing, you could press a key to "drop" a fade at that point in time
inside a group associated with that cue.

In fact a "drop fade" with a trim box might work.

cue 1 - GO
fade drop = 00:15 (box opens asking level)(response is +2)
fade is built automatically that has a default fade time & +2 of gain)
fade drop = 00:45 (box opens)

Anyway,

Just sitting here near the end of Act 3 glad my rig is working & only
playing one cue at a time:)

*

[ole kristensen]

On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 3:09 AM, daniel howarth <theater...@gmail.com> wrote:

i did some experiments tonight .. i could not get qlab to recognize the grabber ARGB virtual camera driver (though the whole idea works with quicktime just fine, including annoying watermark). 

did you get it to work as a camera source in quicktime? or did you get the grabber raster to record a quicktime movie?

afaik it is only the registered version of grabber raster that will show up as a camera source. i remember spending the registration fee without having tested it, or rather the relief when it worked in isadora.

i have no means of testing it for you right now, but tomorrow i will be at the machine with the registered grabberraster.

best / o

--
o...@kristensen.name

http://ole.kristensen.name

[daniel howarth]

I got the grabber raster argb driver to show up in quicktime 7 as a
source; recorded a mov with grabber hand watermark. qlab sees the
iSight and that's it so far.

[Christopher Ashworth]

On Feb 13, 2010, at 9:09 PM, daniel howarth wrote:

> i did some experiments tonight .. i could not get qlab to recognize the grabber ARGB virtual camera driver (though the whole idea works with quicktime just fine, including annoying watermark).
>
> what's going on with the camera cue bug ?? this might be why qlab won't see this grabber driver.

As discussed previously, the Camera Cue is currently designed to work with Apple's new QTKit video input framework, which is not compatible with many things the old Sequence Grabber framework supports.

The old Sequence Grabber framework is much more compatible, but it's also much harder to use, in many cases employs deprecated technology (i.e. technology that Apple could choose to remove at any time), and is 32-bit only.

So the situation with the camera cue is this:

- We are unhappy about how many video input sources are incompatible with the current Camera Cue.

- We are considering, and looking in to, whether we could drop back to the Sequence Grabber framework for video input sources that don't work with QTKit.

- Doing the previous task will take significant effort, hence why it has not been accomplished yet.

- The writing is on the wall for the Sequence Grabber. While to my knowledge SG itself is not yet deprecated, it uses technology that is deprecated. It is not 32-bit compatible. It is from the Carbon era. Apple will be killing it. My guess is the only reason SG is not already deprecated is that Apple knows QTKit doesn't really cut it as a replacement yet. But Apple is encouraging us to move to QTKit, and it's hard to get excited about shoving old, ugly, dying code into your application right before you'll be ripping it out again.

- However, the fact remains that the Camera Cue is incompatible with a bunch of cameras that in some way could be made compatible. From your perspective, that's the salient point.

So what's going on with the camera cue bug is: it is important to us to work on this. It is something that will take some real time to investigate. With the new website finally finished, the new products getting wrapped up and about to be taken out of beta, etc, we're hoping we can turn our attention to this soon.

Some problems we can fix in a few hours or in a weekend, but not this one.

Best,
Chris

[Rich Walsh]

On 14 Feb 2010, at 04:43, * <ra...@rabyn.com> wrote:

> I'm wondering if this can be done via a script.

There are two technical limitations to what you describe: the levels
under Workspace preferences are not scriptable (or, indeed, available
for adjustment by a cue) and it is not possible to query QLab for any
kind of running time.

However, a while back I wrote a "Stopwatch fade maker" script that
will capture times to the nearest second and make fades for you - and
level bump scripts have been up on the wiki for a while. It would be
very easy to combine these and have a script play a cue and then
create a fade whenever you enter a number in a dialog box; this would
be the level change, and you could use "" as an escape string. If the
script then sent a GO after making the Fade Cue you would be able to
hear the result.

Rich

[daniel howarth]

hi chris and folks

thanks for the update on the camera cue issues .. 

briefly - is there a web location that saves the fruit of this listserv ?? 

in the last few weeks of subscription, i've enjoyed a handful of wonderful attachments

and now i am wondering if i've missed others in the past ... where would they be ??

[daniel howarth]

There are two technical limitations to what you describe: the levels under Workspace preferences are not scriptable (or, indeed, available for adjustment by a cue) and it is not possible to query QLab for any kind of running time.

the above quoted is Rich talking about scripting in response to rabyn .... hmm. so a couple of weeks ago (my first post, indeed) i asked whether i could get qlab to output the running time of active cues to the second screen / video output ... qlab v1 included a detachable, floating window that was ideal for this purpose .. no more. the idea is to send active cue times to SM, to dressing rooms, etc. the most intriguing suggestion was to make a quartz composition that queried qlab for active cue running time and then printed that data as an overlay on the video output ... 

Rich, what you are saying is that qlab won't respond to "scripting" cues in relation to active cues, running times, etc ?? Rich, i've noted that you seem to know what you're talking about with scripts ... could you please point a newbie to some helpful online scripting treasure ?? 

any thoughts on quartz reading qlab's data ?? anybody have any thoughts on this ?? i haven't had enough time to think about this, but when i get there i will need a nudge in the right direction (having made only one screensaver in quartz, to date). 

 

also --- i am curious. what sort of audio signals are you guys controlling that need to be precisely lowered by a single dB every two or three seconds ?? what's the show ?? your audience listens ?? perhaps i've been working dance too long. ;-)

[Rich Walsh]

On 15 Feb 2010, at 21:04, daniel howarth wrote:

> Rich, what you are saying is that qlab won't respond to "scripting"
> cues in relation to active cues, running times, etc ?? Rich, i've
> noted that you seem to know what you're talking about with
> scripts ... could you please point a newbie to some helpful online
> scripting treasure ??

If you examine QLab's AppleScript dictionary you will see that there
are no scripting hooks to query the current time of a running cue. All
cues have the properties "loaded", "running" & "paused", so you can
find out which cues are "active", but not what time they have reached.

As for learning about scripting, I suggest going back into the history
of this group to September last year when the Script Cue arrived and
reading as we collectively started to get our heads round it. Then
study QLab's AppleScript dictionary and move on to the Figure 53 wiki,
the AppleScript Language Guide (http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/AppleScript/Conceptual/AppleScriptLangGuide/introduction/ASLR_intro.html
) and http://macscripter.net/.

[Christopher Ashworth]

On Feb 15, 2010, at 3:42 PM, daniel howarth wrote:
>
> briefly - is there a web location that saves the fruit of this
> listserv ??

http://lists.figure53.com/pipermail/qlab-figure53.com/

e.g.:

http://lists.figure53.com/pipermail/qlab-figure53.com/2010-February/009826.html