FFP or focus track

I've used pretty much every Moving light tracking software out there over the years.

Every couple of years something new comes out, or someone stops developing an older one. The new ones have features that were missing from the old, but also may not do something the older ones did better. As far as what I've used and can recommend, these days I would say its between FocusTrack and Moving Light Assistant.  Its been about a year since I've used FocusTrack so I'm not sure if it is being worked on to incorporate OSC in the upcoming EOS 2.3 release. I know MLA has some of the base OSC in its current beta. Both offer demo's, so take them for a spin.

It of course also depends on what you are looking for out of the software. Photo documentation? Usage reports? Whole rig documentation / LightWrite alternative? Power consumption etc...

Thanks a lot for your interesting advice, I already use wysiwyg, it is the photo documentation I'm looking for.

Thanks a lot for your interesting advice, I already use wysiwyg, it is the photo documentation I'm looking for.

It's MLA all the way. It's far superior to both FFP or Focus Track.

Thanks Nick for your advice, I'm going to focus on this unknown software for me. How export EOS data for MLA ?

MLA just uses CSV's, so export the standard CSV's.

Here is a 2 year old webinar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM1aa3JKcDA

And the full website.
www.movinglightassistant.com

MLA is in active development and will has more features coming around the same time as Eos 2.3, they'll both use OSC.

I bought MLA when it came out, and it certainly has the most promise of all of the three current options.  IMO, using Filemaker Pro as the basis of a piece of software is a dead-end.

I'll just caution that MLA has not seen an update in over a year (though I do keep hearing from those in the know, Nick included, that there is a new version in the works).  Most importantly, MLA in its current form cannot control an Eos console. So while it can trigger a camera to take a picture, you'll need to manually type in and recall each preset.  The way I work, that's simply a deal breaker.

(This certainly isn't meant as a knock on Andy or any of the work he's doing on MLA... writing software is hard, and writing software when you have a successful career in the theatre is even harder)

So if I had to document a single show today, I'd buy a show-specific license for FocusTrack.  If I was buying a single piece of software to use in the future, I'd buy MLA.

You're going to be happy in the next 3-6 weeks Paul.

Very much looking forward to it.