[quote=teerickson] Many programmers (myself included) choose to write their own mark cues. This allows me to control what is marking, when it's marking, and the time it's marking in. It also allows me to use a consistent numbering scheme so that all of my mark cues are easily identifyable in the cuelist window.
Personally, I always make Intensity Palette 1 a palette with every fixture in my show at 0% intensity and I call this palette MARK.
This I have even taken a few steps further where I record all my fixtures on my MARK palettes "Per Fixture." Here is why. If I am programming a look, I can set specific intensities for specific fixtures and merge into this palette. This allows me to see those fixtures if I need to make changes. Later, I can change the palette back to 0% to run the show. To add onto this, an additional feature is to create intensity palettes in stages. What I do is create a "Setup" palette where intensity is at zero, a "Run" palette where I'm at Full, and an "Out" pallet where I go back to zero. Always make sure though that when you change these palettes for viewing that they do not update as "allow ref" or you loose the whole naming scheme in your editors. This may not mean much on a small rig but when you've got 5 Catalysts, 100 movers, and 300 conventionals then all of a sudden you really wish you had better naming in your palettes. (Actually, you'd have a second or third operator with their own board :hitwithrock: ).
It sounds like you may be making things more difficult than they need to be when working with the Catalyst, but I'm not sure I understand what you're doing.
My main question is what are your "sync" cues doing?
I think the best way for you to simplify your cueing would be to use the intensity trigger play modes. This will allow you to not have to hard code a play mode value into your fade up cues and allow you to remove your stop cues completely. The intensity trigger play modes set the appropriate play mode, but won't actually play a media file until the intensity of the layer is above 0%.
Many people here know that my background is primarily as a programmer and Wholehog 3 owner. I can't remember the last show I programmed where I didn't have multiple media servers. I had the opportunity recently to program a show with 2 catalyst servers using a total of 24 layers across 4 outputs. This isn't what I consider to even be approaching a large count these days, but my challenge was that I was using pixel mapping to feed 18 different video surfaces. There were times when I had 23 of my 24 layers live on stage at one time.
I had two things helping me in this situation. The first is that the Wholehog 3 uses an abstract fixture model that allows me to treat all fixtures similarly, whether they are a desk channel, a moving light, or a media server. The second is that Catalyst is a great application with a huge list of useful features (like the intensity triggering I mentioned above) and that it has an extremely well laid out DMX protocol. In almost all situations, I was able to limit myself to 3 basic cues for each given sequence. The first would mark every parameter I needed to use. The second would fade up the intensity (and trigger playback). The third would fade out the intensity (and stop playback when intensity reaches 0%).
In all reality, I do not actually have so many cues. I am constantly using tons of trick but for the sake of posting I simplify. I guess teaching tons of volunteers who have no programming experience, I have a tendency to over simplify to express the significance of thought process.
My issue is actually more complex. Almost all of my content is custom and I do TONS of trans white, trans black, or pngs with alpha so I can overlay. Whatever the case, when I'm in a corporate environment or live on TV, I will have moving content up almost 100% of the time. If I'm running a song, I will usually have an open, verse 1, pre-chorus, chorus, verse 2, bridge, solo, and close look. This doesn't include all the text and logo overlays. Something similar is true when I'm supporting a keynote presentation or speech where I'll cross into several moving files over the course of a few moments.
For the sake of the last post, I was simply concerned with tools to expedite and automate the process.
By "SYNC" I mean Layer sync. This means I am syncing a layer to another layer or to timecode from a deck or something. Sync is quirky how it works so I have to load a file with InFrame and then sync the slaves to the master layer. This causes a jump when I do it while the file is playing So if I sync to a master that is paused on InFrame, I can eliminate jumps from the seek time issues present with any media server. This keeps my live content from showing jerks. This is also a step I have to do before I start play or else the file I am about to start will flash on the screen.
You are absolutely right about go above zero. It is a great feature and the one I load into the master before I sync. Of course I also use content with Audio files too (wish I didn't have to but...) This feature is a bit different and very delicate to use since audio received more priority for processing than video.
As far as stop cues, when I stop a file before loading the next one, I have noticed less skipping on the live files that are running. Not to mention that freezing on a video is common for me.
Most of these issues I have wouldn't be a problem but I am doing a significant amount of edge blending on very smooth surfaces and the slighted jitter will divulge a seam.
I apreciate the input and I would love to discuss other great tricks but you'll notice that when I post I tend to do so in a simplified manner because it's what I'm used to when I'm relating to beginners.
I haven't had problems with doing my marking and setting my sync-to IDs in the same mark cue. This has never caused me any issues with jittering or layers not syncing properly. If you're having issues with this I would definitely suggest posting a bug report in the appropriate Catalyst forum here. Then we can have a tester try to reproduce the problem and let our developer know about it.
Using files with Audio requires some additional considerations, but generally not with regard to marking. When I need to work with audio using the Catalyst I tend to be much more careful about how many active layers I have and the bitrate of my movies, but I tend to handle marking in the same way. One mark cue using one of the intensity trigger modes and one fade up cue that starts everything running.
It may be reasonable that you see less skipping on active layers when you stop a layer before changing media files, but this also becomes a non-issue when using intensity trigger play modes, since your movie stops playing as soon as the intensity of the layer reaches 0%.
I wouldn't be too concerned with simplifying your responses for people here. Many of the people who are actively posting in the forums are accomplished programmers and the new folks tend to catch on fairly quickly. In this case, I think that while your multiple setup cues may do a good job of illustrating what needs to be considered when writing mark cues for media servers, your implementation seems to be more complicated than necessary.
