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    Richard J
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Working Fields.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, and I probably am, but...

It was my understanding that if you select 'Playback' or 'A', 'B' or 'Blind' to work into and press 'Record' you only record the contents of that field.

Selecting Live, and then Recording would record the Live Output of the desk.

I had assumed that after recording 'Live' and selecting 'Playback' as my working field, the desk should return to recording the output of the Main Playback only, ignoring any content from the Submasters ?

On our desk (v 4.2.1) on selecting 'Playback', the 'Live' light remains lit and the desk continues to record the full Live output.

Is this a fault or a feature ? am I doing something wrong or have I got the wrong end of the stick regarding working fields ?

Thanks for (again) your help

Richard

Parents

  • Playback is not a separate field. Playback and Live are the same thing. That is why Live is indicated as active in this case.

    In general, when you work in a tab or view that hasn't got its own channel view, most commands fall back to the Live view. This is a part of the general concept of Congo.

     

  • in reply to Anders Ekvall

    hmmm.

    In my twisted logic, I had assumed that 'Playback', whilst not a field in its own right, would take you back to working into the 'A' field of the playback (the 'A' key lights up after all).

    I had visualised the output of the 'Playback' (essentially the 'A' Field as it's the 'Stage' field) and the outputs of the Submasters working separately into the 'Live' output of the desk. (The 'Live' field effectively being the sum of these two separate entities).

    Therefore, selecting 'Live' selects the outputs of both the 'Playback' (well the 'A' field of it at least) and any Submasters which are faded up.

    I would have thought that subsequently pressing 'Playback' would take me back to only be working with the output of the Main Playback (the 'A' field), disregarding any information from the Subs.

    I've clearly got this wrong !

    -How does the heirarchy of the various fields work ?

    Yours in confusion

    Richard (impossibly dense on Fridays)

  • in reply to Richard J

    ...and the more I think about it the more illogical this seems...

    All of the other functions of the 'Playback' button pertain to the Main Playback (fields 'A'+'B').

    If I press 'C/Alt' + 'Playback' -I clear the playback, I leave the Submasters alone, I don't clear 'Live'

    Pressing 'Playback' connects the channel controller to the 'A' field.

    Why should I expect 'Playback' to make the 'Live' field active ? Surely it should make 'A' the active field for recording ?

     

Reply
  • in reply to Richard J

    ...and the more I think about it the more illogical this seems...

    All of the other functions of the 'Playback' button pertain to the Main Playback (fields 'A'+'B').

    If I press 'C/Alt' + 'Playback' -I clear the playback, I leave the Submasters alone, I don't clear 'Live'

    Pressing 'Playback' connects the channel controller to the 'A' field.

    Why should I expect 'Playback' to make the 'Live' field active ? Surely it should make 'A' the active field for recording ?

     

Children
  • in reply to Richard J

    Hi Richard -

    I think you have answered your own question in this last posting:

     "All of the other functions of the 'Playback' button pertain to the Main Playback (fields 'A'+'B')."

    Note that you said "fields A+B" above. Unless you pick a specific target (and there are quite a few functions of Congo that can be set to be in A or B) you would need to define whether you are working in A or B to use your "press Playback to select a record field" style. Instead, we have the dedicated A and B tab, which you can toggle from one field to the next. Live is the collector of all output, and it is the default field if no other field is currently focussed.

    If you would like to work mainly in the A field, simply press "A" instead of pressing Playback. Playback will always place focus on the playback tab, which is not in itself a recording field.

    I hope this helps. :-)

    Thanks-

    Sarah 

     

     

  • in reply to sclausen
    Hi Sarah,

    Sorry I've been away lying down in a darkened room for the last couple of days and I apologise for my rant on Friday, I was having a bit of a 'sense-of-humour-failure'...

    All calm now, and having reconsidered what I thought I knew, the impact of having to select 'A' isn't really all that significant.

    The only thing I'd mention is that the 'A' tab sometimes seems a wee bit reluctant to update, or show selected channels.

    While I'm on the subject, while it's nice that the tab changes depending on whether you select 'A' or 'B' it would be nice to be able to view both 'A' and 'B' tabs simultaneously so that you can always see what is in the next cue. 

    I should also probably point out that some of my pedancy is not just down to my operational preferences, but rather that I have to try and wrap my head round the Philosophy of the desk so that I can explain its use to colleagues who are either less familiar with Lighting desks or are particularly familiar with one particular console in particular and are sometimes reluctant and resistant to change ! -trying to make the move to Congo as painless and tansparent as possible is one of the main priorities -which is why I might sometimes seem to be trying to use the desk in a seemingly odd way !

    Ok, apologies over,

    Thanks again for your help and patience.

    Richard 

    ps. Is there an FTP site for Templates ? -I've found I've had to build or modify a couple and wondered if they might be of use to somebody else somewhere down the line...


    [edited by: Richard J at 5:39 PM (GMT -6) on Wed, Apr 04 2007]
  • in reply to Richard J
    Hi Richard,

    Regarding the templates, please send them to me by email and I'll check them and add to the standard template library for a future release. Please also add a description of what you modified in the templates, so I can check what was changed and verify that everything looks good. Just send a show with the templates, that will be fine.
    And please notify us also in the future if you find errors in the templates and we'll fix them.

    I'll send my email address to you as a private message, check your forum Inbox. The link to the Inbox is in the top right corner.

    Thanks,

    Oskar

  • in reply to okrogell

    OK... first day back at the desk for a while and the sense-of-humour failure is rapidly returning...

    We're having major problems with the 'A' field.

    To name a few:

    If I select a channel, it appears 'focused' in the 'A' tab but not in the 'Live' tab' -should my 'active' channels not be reflected in the 'Live' tab also ?

    'Highlight' does not work if you are working into 'A', only if you select the 'Live' tab do the lamps highlight correctly -particularly if you're using 'Next' and 'Last' to flash out a rig. If you are working into 'A' and use 'next' to select the first channel, pressing 'Highlight' highlights all of the chaneels in the selection rather than just the focused 'Red' one -surely this must be a bug ?

    With the 'Live Attributes' screen 'active' (and the 'Live' light extinguished) channels I select do not appear in the 'A' tab but do appear in 'Live' and on the output -even though I seem to be working into 'A', I have to press 'A' to see my channels in the 'A' tab.

    -also, sometimes the 'Live Attributes' screen doesn't refresh properly when set to 'Changed Devices'

    It's surely not just us up here who are having issues with this ?

    Is there any chance that someone who knows more about this than I do (shouldn't be too hard to find such a person) could produce a graphical representation of the field heirarchy and how they all interact ? -it might help to clear the water slightly

    Thanks

    Richard

  • in reply to Richard J

    Hi Richard -

    Channel fields in Congo are not connected in the way you describe above. When you are focused on A, you are not working in Live. Since Live is the culmination of all fields, it may appear that Live and A are really the same thing, but they're not. So, selection in one field doesn't affect other fields. In a similar vein, the Live Attributes tab is a view into the LTP field that attributes fall into. It is only connected to Live. I can see your point though, since you can set intensity levels for channels selected in Live Attributes, and since those manual changes are actually being made in the A field, it makes sense that you would expect to see those selections appear in the A tab as well. I will talk to the team about this one.

    You are the first, I think, to want to work exclusively in A. Most of us work with the Live tab, and use the RECORD & A command to keep the masters out. Keep sending the questions/comments, though, and we'll try to make the displays more consistent. It will take some time, though, so please be patient. :-)

    Thanks!

    Sarah 

  • in reply to sclausen
    Hi again Sarah,

    Sorry to keep harping on like a deranged madman.

    I understand that Live and 'A' aren't the same thing, and I was working with two 'Live' tabs ('non-zero' and 'selected') which showed the lamps (outlined in Gold) as I selected them in both tabs (although, was I not really setting their levels in the 'A' field ?).  

    I had expected the same to happen when I replaced the 'Selected' Live tab with the 'A' tab, but the selected channels are not indicated as such in the Live tab. This wasn't really a huge problem, although I was trying to demonstrate the fact that, when selected, you can see where the highest level currently being output for a channel is coming from !

    The really big head-scratcher came when 'Highlight' steadfastly refused to work properly when working in the 'A' field ? Why should this be the case ?

    I think I've come up with a workable solution which is to work in 'Live' most of the time and only work into 'A' when the situation demands (which is similar, I think, to what you describe above)

    I recognize that Congo has great potential but some of these little (apparent) inconsitencies make it difficult for new or sporadic users to grasp exactly what they are doing...

    Thanks again, -and I'll try to keep my questions/comments sensible in the future !

    Richard

    ps. Seriously though, a diagrammatic representation of the field heirarchy would be a great help in understanding how the desk all fits together for those unfamiliar with it... 
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