Show out of sync with Audio/Video

[kevin]

I was outside last night and noticed that towards the end of the show the Video and the Lights were out of sync.

Heres what happens

1) Light portion of the song sequence ends (call this sequence 7)
2) video and music continue to play (sequence 7)
3) Lights start for the next sequence (lights are on sequence 8)
4) video and music finally finish previous song (sequence 7) and than start the current sequence (sequence 8) with out interruption to the lights that are already preforming the current sequence (sequence 8).

Its like the controller (light) portion of the sequence is finished and goes on to the next song, and doesn't wait for the audio/video to end before it starts the next sequence, which appear to be running in its own process, not linked to the controller process.

Two separate processes starting at the same time, but not dependent on each other for timing of the sequence, nor checking status of each other intell the end of the show.

At the end of the show it loops back to the first sequence and all is working fine for the first 2 or 3 sequences in the show, then it slowly gets out of sync.


Show consist of 12 sequences all with video vary length from 30se to over 4min
Continuous loop of shows, (Shows loop with no time in between them)
No pause in between Sequences (other than the default flash of screen from LOR)
Videos saved as a WMV file, with a 128k audio bit and a 29 FPS video 720x480 res (Created with Adobe Premiere CS3 and Avid Liquid 7)
Audio and Video stay synced to each other through out the entire night. Just the controllers get out of sync with the WMV files.

104 LOR Channels
18 DMX Channels

LOR 2.0.12,
USB 485 (current drivers)
DMX 1000

System is Vista Ultimate
3.4gh with 2gb memory
ATI PCIe Video cards with 512m video Memory each


Any thoughts on what might be causing this? Or what to try to fix it?

[cenote]

Did you try and make a dummie channel for lights to stay on the exact time of your video? Just a thought.

Chuck N

[kevin]

I don't understand what you are asking. My sequences are set up to the length of the audio/video now. all 104 chann + dmx channels are in the musical sequence. if the song/video is 3:16:14 long then the sequence is 3:16:14 long. They were created by creating a new musical sequence, pointing the audio/video file, and then a default of .10 timing to start creating the sequence. I didn't add or subtract any total timing.

It doesn't appear to be an issue when you play the sequences by themselves only when you put them in a show and play the show.

[medman2000]

Kevin - you're one of our video leaders here, so I think we're all just waiting for Bob or Dan to answer.... but, I'm curious - is this a new problem (it was all in sync for sure before for days and days, now not) - or just newly recognized?

Assuming you've done this already - but complete reboot, complete power-down of LOR controllers?

Have you tried adding a non-video sequence to try and let everything "Catch up"? Might be a work-around until the underlying problem can be fixed.

Good luck!

[Dale W]

I had a problem with that happening earlier this week. When it happened, I had noticed that I had gone into the Hardware Utility to find all the units, then enabled the show when the show was supposed to be showing.

I found that if, after using the hardware utility and enabling the show, that if I rebooted the computer, it would sync up the music and lights.

I do not know if that is what your problem is as I am not sure why I had my problem.

All I know was that after scrambling around for 3 days troubleshooting cables, controllers, sequences, etc, that this problem was the only one that went away with a reboot.

Dale

[kevin]

I re-rendered the video file keeping the sound at 128kbs but downgrading the video to a 3128kbps bitrate I don't notice a syncing problem now. I am going to play around with it after the holidays to see if it was the video bitrate that was causing the problem or if it was just a fluke. I have some video that have a much higher bit rate of 4282kbps. It is the first song in the show and it wasn't out of sync. So I am unable to confirm right now if the bit rate was the issue of if it was just something out of wack with the system that night.


Since it was only in the Show that caused it to be out of sync I didn't redo any of the timing in the sequence editor.

I am leaning toward that there was just something flakey about the rendering and not really an issue with anything else other than a bad copy. Maybe Bob could explain more about how the video gets passed to WMP during the show portion and if there is any differance between that and the way the Sequence Editor.

Bob..
One other question I have concerns the way the Show links to WMP. Does LOR call a WMP from within a window and than streams the file inside of an LOR windo?

I have narrowed now the switching to the screen inbetween songs in a show to being an LOR issue and it also show a blank LOR window, which I am thinking is the LOR Video window.

[bob]

kevin wrote:

One other question I have concerns the way the Show links to WMP. Does LOR call a WMP from within a window and than streams the file inside of an LOR windo?

I have narrowed now the switching to the screen inbetween songs in a show to being an LOR issue and it also show a blank LOR window, which I am thinking is the LOR Video window.

I'm not sure that I'm following you exactly, so if this doesn't answer your question, could you please rephrase? Thanks.

LOR has a copy of WMP inside a window. This window is only visible to the user when displaying a video or audio visualization, but it's always present, and is always used (for musical sequences). LOR tells WMP to play the song (or video); WMP periodically tells LOR the current time position within the song. LOR sends lighting effect commands to the controllers based upon that current time position. Both the Sequence Editor and the Show Player do this the same way.

[kevin]

bob wrote

LOR has a copy of WMP inside a window. This window is only visible to the user when displaying a video or audio visualization, but it's always present, and is always used (for musical sequences). LOR tells WMP to play the song (or video); WMP periodically tells LOR the current time position within the song. LOR sends lighting effect commands to the controllers based upon that current time position. Both the Sequence Editor and the Show Player do this the same way.

During a show LOR displays the computer desktop inbetween songs. This LOR window which has a copy of WMP is what is staying open inbetween songs during a show. Is there a way to make this window full screen or minimize it to the windows tray inbetween songs in a show?

[bob]

OK, I'm guessing that you are using full screen mode for your videos (check "Edit / Preferences / Video Preferences / Use Full Screen Mode".

WMP, not the LOR window that has WMP in it, is what's actually in "full screen mode". And WMP automatically exits full screen mode at the end of the song it is asked to play. This causes display to shift back to the LOR window, until the next song starts.

We have thus far been unable to find a way to tell WMP not to exit full screen mode when a song ends. We will continue looking into it.

[kevin]

Thanks for the info BOB.

I was begining to wonder if I was the only one with this issue and if I was going crazy...