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Schedule Editor - I just do not get it


rwalchli

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I have never been the brightest light bulb in the chandelier but I am not burned out either. The LOR schedule editor has me pulling my hair out.

All I want to do is play a different musical sequence on each half hour and in between the music, play an animation sequence to fill the half hour in. Then, at 9:30PM stop, turn off the show and lights.

I’ve search through here and read all of the postings I could find but I’m just not getting it.

I am using version 2 and have created shows of my music, I have add the music to the music section followed by animation, the music just repeats without playing the animation. If I put the animation in the shut down tab, the music still repeats.
What is the magic of scheduling?

Help! Please.

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Thanks for the info Jeff.

I think I have it figured out after several tests last night. The real question is what is the behavior of the items placed in the music tab. It appears that whatever is placed here is repeated as long as the show is within its scheduled time. For example, if a 3-minute musical sequence is in the music tab and the show is scheduled to run for 30 minutes, then the musical sequence is repeated for 30 minutes, ending after the sequence is finished play after the time expires.

If I create an animation that is 30 minutes long, add this behind my 3-minute song in the music tab, and schedule this show in a 30-minute time slot, it will really end after 33 minutes. Correct?

If this is the case, which my testing showed, then I need to do time math for each show so the filler ends precisely at the end of the scheduled time slot. If I do not do this and the filler plus the music is longer than 30 minutes, my schedule skews by 3 minutes. If the animation filler is less than 27 minutes, the musical sequence will start over again followed by the animation, which can skew the scheduled time by at least 27 minutes.

The scheduler needs to stop a show when the time slot expires, this would solve the problem. I understand they do not want to stop a musical sequence, but why can’t the filler animation be stopped and the next scheduled show start?
When I got in to this (animating our Christmas display), I certainly did not think scheduling was going to be the hardest part to understand.

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Here is what got me in the LOR documentation, it states in part (in the Music section):

Play will continue until the show is shut down (at a time determined by the schedule).

What they do not say is what confused me and I am sure many others. What they do not say is that play will continue past the shut down time if a musical sequence or animation is currently playing. Once the current sequence or animation completes, then shut down will occur.

Now that all the (my) confusion is removed, the solution is simple, a check box is needed on the music tab that allows the current running sequence or animation to be terminated at the scheduled shut down time.

The scheduler should not make assumptions about the program that is playing, if a musical sequence is playing and gets shut down before it has completed, then it is the user that needs to set the schedule correctly.

I am going to write this up and submit it to the wish list.

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You can also run multiple shows. I run an animation only show that runs from 5pm to 6pm. At 6pm I run a music show that runs until either 9pm or 10pm. After that I run another animation show that runs for an hour. I also run a simple animation show at 6am for an hour or so just to have the lights on when everyone is heading off to work. You can schedule a show at 6:00pm and then another one at 6:30 pm. I understand you're trying to hit a specific time slot. Maybe that will help. In case your testing hasn't shown you this, if you put a sequence in the musical folder and a sequence in the animation folder for a specific show, they will run at the same time. This is for those people who have a semi static portion of their display that they want to run while the music is playing, but it doesn't necessarily correspond with the music. It could be something like the lights on a fence changing colors, or a star that twinkles with a couple of different channels. I hope this make sense.

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Boy oh boy, do I feel your pain! I've tried adding up all the time for my musical sequence, then the time for the start-up sequence, and the ending sequence and the "blank" sequence with a looped animation to run a couple circuits of lights that just plays a few songs until the main show starts again. All I've managed to do is end up with a couple of bald spots from pulling out my hair!

I have figured out if you schedule several shows, like in my case, if one runs from 5:00:00 to 5:30:00 you can't start the second one to run from 5:30:00 to 6:00:00. The second show will start correctly if I set the time to something like 5:30:03.

I guess my biggest headache has been adding all the extra tenth of seconds into the toal time of the shows.

I thought I FINALLY had it figured out last night only to find out the animation running in the background on the blank sequence didn't start the same time as the music and kept shutting off.... NOT what I had intended. So, I guess back to the drawing board.

I thought about throwing the whole lot into one show, but it would run too long during the week, and I sure don't want to irritate my neighbors any more than they already are. Some of the Trans Siberian Orchestra sequences are pretty flashy! hehehe

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