Audio Playback

I agree, during cueing and what not to be able to hear the music or to even be able to take a line from the sound guy would be invaluable!

There would finally be a use for the sound card within the EOS series!

Question however, how were you able to gain access to the admin side of the console, I didn't know that it was even accessible without a password?

Thanks,

Jared R.

I don't agree , a 3.5 jack isn't a good connector . Also what type of file would you like to play ? 

mp3 ? or uncompressed WAV file 44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo if I'm not wrong it's 600 kbit/s . ( quite hard work for the hd ) 

Also this mean create an entire file manager that not only allow to play the music but also add the possibility to control the volume and the way the files are loaded in to the hd. 

I won't do it , instead you can use something similar to Figure 53 | QLab | Live Show Control for Mac OS X . 

Dan, when they build a process controller to run a steel mill or a nuclear reactor, they don't usually arrange for Homer to plug in a set of headphones. You are perfectly right that an audio player is needed during production development, but that's why designers and their associates have PCs. Since the steel mill example is perhaps extreme, let me also say that on multiple occasions, I've seen the speaker support (i.e. the slides for the shareholders or customers) computers brought by top-level industrial show companies suddenly freeze - during the event - because Norton AntiVirus began to update virus definitions. CEOs just hate that. (And that was before you could embed videos into PowerPoint.) My own computers are frequently kneecapped by Windows update events I'd rather have at a later time.

Producers were skeptical about computerized lighting control when the predecessors of today's very reliable consoles were under development. There are plenty of scary stories from that era. In more recent times (but before EOS...), it hasn't been that hard to produce hiccups in an effect running on an overburdened console. I for one am content to have a lighting console produce a reliable stream of DMX under the control of the programmer/operator. Now that we're talking about 30 DMX streams over ethernet, I think you underestimate the demands already on the console.

I agree that it is probably best to let the lightboard concentrate on doing its own thing, and doing it well.

But I do want to respond about the comment that uncompressed WAV is "quite hard work for the hd". Actually, my 5 year old laptop has no trouble reading multiple (4-5) uncompressed wav files off its hard drive at the same time. And that is with a slower 54K rpm hd. The bandwidth is about 1.4MB/s for an uncompressed 16bit stereo wav file. This is well below the bandwidth for even random reads on most hard drives.  This is why SFX and QLab can support simultaneous play back of multiple audio cues without a specialized machine to run it on.

Yes. I guess you guys are right. It's a lighting console not a audio system.  It's probably got it's hands full just handling what it's supposed to be doing let alone have to access an audio file and decode it for playback.  Sigh , it was just a thought.

Dan