Converting from obession to expression and visa versa

ETC has free software, the Obsession II Off-Line Editor, that reads the OBII disk and can convert the show file to a USITT ASCII Cue file.  You can then (in theory) use ETC's Expression Off-Line Editor to import the ASCII file and be saved in any of the Express series, Expression II & III as well as Insight II & III consoles.  I believe that Obsession I console show files cannot be converted to USITT ASCII.

Both OBII and Expression OLE are Windows only (No Mac) software.  You will also need a 3.5" floppy drive to read and save as show disk.  Note that both consoles use standard formatted High Density, Double Sided disks.

One big trick to all console reads is to make sure the channel count to is the lowest possible for the most basic Express console you expect to encounter, say 125 channels for the 125 channel Express that might be a common rental unit.  Channels higher then the console is capable of get stripped away in the import.

In any case, if you are on tour, keeping a set of disks for both Obsession II and Express/Ion consoles saves you a ton of time, provided you are not making constant changes and need to update into both formats. 

FWIW, I have successfully converted a Strand 500 series console disk into a USITT ASCII file that was imported to an Express with Emphasis.  Only issues I had was the part cue format in the Strand file was different then the ETC format, with those (few) cues needing to be re-written.  Expression and Insight also have expanded multi-part capabilities then Express and you can have problems here as well. 

In general, I always have had success getting any basic Expression and Express show disk to read into my Express/Emphasis system.

Steve Bailey

Brooklyn College 

ETC has free software, the Obsession II Off-Line Editor, that reads the OBII disk and can convert the show file to a USITT ASCII Cue file.  You can then (in theory) use ETC's Expression Off-Line Editor to import the ASCII file and be saved in any of the Express series, Expression II & III as well as Insight II & III consoles.  I believe that Obsession I console show files cannot be converted to USITT ASCII.

Both OBII and Expression OLE are Windows only (No Mac) software.  You will also need a 3.5" floppy drive to read and save as show disk.  Note that both consoles use standard formatted High Density, Double Sided disks.

One big trick to all console reads is to make sure the channel count to is the lowest possible for the most basic Express console you expect to encounter, say 125 channels for the 125 channel Express that might be a common rental unit.  Channels higher then the console is capable of get stripped away in the import.

In any case, if you are on tour, keeping a set of disks for both Obsession II and Express/Ion consoles saves you a ton of time, provided you are not making constant changes and need to update into both formats. 

FWIW, I have successfully converted a Strand 500 series console disk into a USITT ASCII file that was imported to an Express with Emphasis.  Only issues I had was the part cue format in the Strand file was different then the ETC format, with those (few) cues needing to be re-written.  Expression and Insight also have expanded multi-part capabilities then Express and you can have problems here as well. 

In general, I always have had success getting any basic Expression and Express show disk to read into my Express/Emphasis system.

Steve Bailey

Brooklyn College