Audio and video output using QLab on a MacBook Pro

[Rick Pearson]

Preparing a theatre based 'concert experience' show, with multimedia production, including visuals and some percussion and ambient audio tracks.  Going to use QLab as 'ground control' for performances.  Trying to decide whether to make the audio tracks and video/still images one file, in iMovie.  Or should I keep the visuals and audio separate in QLab?  I have a home recording studio to prepare the audio and won't need to use QLab's audio effects and fades.

Either way, how do I output the visuals and audio in a theatre setting, so that the visuals end up at the projector and the audio at the desk?

Thank you for any help on this newbie question.  

[Damien Figueras]

So long as your computer is connected to both the projector and the desk, you should be able to just select both of those devices. If the video and audio are connected in 1 file, you would select the projector in the Display and Geometry tab and then the desk in the Audio Levels tab. If they were separated, you would click the video file and select the projector in the Display and Geometry tab and then click the audio file and select the desk in the Devices and Levels tab.

Either way, you should be able to send to the correct devices. It's just a matter of how you'd prefer to set it up. I personally prefer to separate the audio from the video but that's mainly because I like to have more control over the individual aspects of the audio (i.e. - sending different stems of the mix to different speakers, rather than sending the general mix to all the speakers). But I think it's really a matter of preference and system setup.

If anyone else has more experience with this, feel free to jump in. I haven't done a lot of multimedia work. So I'm not entirely sure about what the advantages are of keeping it one file, other than synchronization.

--
--
Change your preferences or unsubscribe here:
http://groups.google.com/group/qlab
 
Follow Figure 53 on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Figure53
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "QLab" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to qlab+uns...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qlab/16ebc22d-36a2-4cba-9dd6-329b3984a0c1%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Rick Pearson]

Thanks Damien,  I appreciate the response..  What I really need to know is this:  am I using one computer port (say, Firewire) to output the audio and a different computer port to output the video?  And what about lighting cues….another port?  

OR….

does all the data from QLab come out one port and get routed to the various components (lights, sound, visuals) through some sort of external hardware?  

See, I told you it is a naive musician question!  Anybody?

[John Evans]

QLab can use anything that appears as a screen to OSX to output video, so for example, an external monitor you have connected to your laptop, or a projector, or indeed the internal screen of the laptop. 

Similarly, any audio output device appears for audio output, so for example the headphone socket of your laptop, or an external USB or Firewire soundcard, each output of of which can be seen individually from QLab - for example the left and right headphone channels can be used as two separate mono channels of audio. 

If you are controlling a lighting desk from QLab you would typically do this either through a MIDI connection from a soundcard or through an Ethernet connection.

All of these outputs can be ran off a single machine, or distributed amongst several machines with one master machine controlling - this is not automatic however and needs to be manually set up in QLab. There is no special hardware associated with QLab - standard video and audio output hardware works.

Thanks,

John