Scheduling problem

[Guest guest]

This is frustrating me to no end. Here's my dilemma. My plan is to run each show for exactly one hour. The first ten minutes or so are going to be a couple of musical sequences with the remainder of the hour being a static display until the next show starts. This way people know to show up at the top of each hour for the shows and it also only drives my neighbors nuts for about ten minutes each hour instead of the whole night. Anyway, problem is that I can't get the static display to follow up my three musical sequences. I've tried putting my static sequence into the shutdown part of the show and also tried putting them into the cleanup section with poor results. Either the music will continue to repeat, or the whole thing will go dark completely until the next show starts.

Is it possible to do this, or should I just create a whole new static show to follow up my musical show each hour? Once I figure that out, then I need to work on getting the timing right which is probably a whole new set of problems:(

[Guest guest]

Sneaky Pete wrote:

Is it possible to do this, or should I just create a whole new static show to follow up my musical show each hour? Once I figure that out, then I need to work on getting the timing right which is probably a whole new set of problems:(

Hey Sneaky,

I don't have a static show but. What if you treated your static show as a musical sequence. Add silence audio to your sequence and save under musical sequence. Let's say your sequenced musical sequences are 10 minutes (seems a little short for me if it's only every hour, but that's just me). Make your static show for another 49 minutes. Now you have 59 minutes of musical sequences. In the schedule editor, schedule each show on the hour and end 59 minutes into each hour. So it would be "start: 6:00, end: 6:59 - start: 7:00, end: 7:59" and so on.

Suggestion: If your only going to have a 10 minute animated light show, why not make it start every thirty minutes and apply the above methods to that. Alot of people will miss out on a good show if they don't have 30 minutes to burn before the next show (just my thoughts).

It should work this way just fine.

Tom


Edited: grammer

[Guest guest]

Sneaky,

I had a semi similar situation. My display is to have 2-3 minutes of sequenced music (musical sequences) followed by 7-8 minutes of a static display. My static display consists of all lights turned on continuously while music is playing in the background, allowing crowds to enjoy then disperse.

My workaround was to make ALL songs "musical sequences". Some were sequenced to the music and some were not sequenced at all, just turned on with music playing. When putting a show together, the names of all sequences followed the following format: M 2 31 Artist-Song (M=Musical with sequencing, S=Static with all on lights and music playing in the background, 2 31= mins +sec], followed with the artist and song name). Since the show creation window is sooo small, this renaming works very well. When making a show, I selected a 2-3 min musical seq. (M) followed by7-8 min of static (S) display. You could even use Audacity and custom combine multiple songs into one.

This setup avoided all the confusion of animated v. musical sequences.

To solve your problem using the above solution, simply add up all the minutes and seconds to an hour, even if you had to create a few custom static displays to make exactly one hour.

As an alternate, you could make shows that run just under one hour and then "schedule" shows to start on the hour, every hour.

[Guest guest]

Never mind all, I figured it out. I made the stupid mistake of overlooking the fact that I didn't import my channel configuration for my new sequence. I'm kind of an idiot like that sometimes.

Thanks for the responses though. This is my first year going animated, so I figured I'd do once and hour for now and get the neighbors reaction. If all goes well, I can probably do more than that, but it's a little late now anyway seeing as I've already made my sign to say at the top of each hour.

[Guest guest]

Sneaky,

It's good you got it figured out. Good luck on the response. I'm sure it will be a great show.

Tom

[Guest guest]

Sneaky Pete wrote:

This is frustrating me to no end. Here's my dilemma. My plan is to run each show for exactly one hour. The first ten minutes or so are going to be a couple of musical sequences with the remainder of the hour being a static display until the next show starts.

I realize you already have a solution ... but consider another way to do this. Create two shows, 'music' and 'static.' Run the music show for the first 10 minutes of the hour. The schedule the 'static' show for the remainder of the hour.

You'll want shorter timings in the static sequence. Remember: LOR will finish the current sequence before starting another. If you have a 20 minute sequence for your static show, then it will finish out that sequence before starting another one. You'd be best to do a one minute static sequence.

[Guest guest]

Hey Don, explain this to me please. In a 1 our time frame, I have the musical sequence running for 10 minutes leaving 50 minutes. I have the static show for 20 minutes leaving 30 minutes. Does LOR know to fill in the last 30 minutes or do you make your static 45 minutes and LOR takes over the last 5? I'm not understanding something.

Thanks,

Bret

[Guest guest]

Ivsmaster wrote:

Hey Don, explain this to me please. In a 1 our time frame, I have the musical sequence running for 10 minutes leaving 50 minutes. I have the static show for 20 minutes leaving 30 minutes. Does LOR know to fill in the last 30 minutes or do you make your static 45 minutes and LOR takes over the last 5? I'm not understanding something.

Thanks,

Bret

Depends on how you have it set up.

(In scheduler. Assumes you already have sequences rolled into shows with the fake names below.)

Example A
SHOW-A 6:00-6:10p
STATIC-A 6:10-6:30p

Example B
SHOW-A 6:00-6:10p
STATIC-A 6:10-7:00p

In Example A, your static show would run until 6:30. It would finish the current sequence then stop. If your static show is 45 minutes (Single 45 minute sequnce), then in this example, you would have 5 minutes of 'dead air.'

In Example B, your static show would run until 7:00pm. However, your musical show stopped at 6:10p. Your single 45 minute static show started at 6:10 or so. It's 6:55. Guess what? Your 45 minute is going to start over. 7:00pm, your musical show isn't going to start.

Best work around in this case is to have a short 1 minute static sequence. It will constantly repeat. 7:00p rolls around and it will still finish up the current sequence. Since it's only a minute, you won't be waiting long for the next one to roll around.

[Guest guest]

Ok, now that makes sense. I was trying to figure out why the next show wouldn't start. Now I know.

Thanks!

[Guest guest]

Don, I like the idea about putting static on one minute intervals, but when I do this, my static blinks every minute as it resets itself. Any ideas on how to make it smooth for the remainder of the hour?

[Guest guest]

Sneaky Pete wrote:

Don, I like the idea about putting static on one minute intervals, but when I do this, my static blinks every minute as it resets itself. Any ideas on how to make it smooth for the remainder of the hour?

Sneaky Pete, If you put that sequence in the background section you should not see any blinks..... The background section was made for static.... Also make sure that there isn't an "off" event at the end of the sequence, it is just a constant ON... Also make sure that you only have the channels with static lights defined in that sequence. If you have other channels defined you will be turning them off.

[Guest guest]

Dan, tried that in background with all events "on" and still gettin a little blink each minute.:X

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Please send the 1 minute sequence and the show file that you created to info@lightorama.com We need to take a look at it.