Timing Looping

[Sean Wright]

I am running a 32 channel show with 31 of the channels dedicated to the light show and channel 32 being used to bring up all the other lights not used in the show at the end of it.

I have two problems. In the first instance my song is 3.05 long and even though I have tried to extend the period in the sequence editor it refuses to acknoewledge anything past 3.05. The second problem is that after every show it wants to immediately loop and play it all over again. What it should do at show end is to bring up all of the lighting for 27 minutes until the start of the next show. I have tried setting this through the Simple Show Builder to absolutely no affect.

Can someone please assist on this (soon please!!)

[cmoore60]

First problem....to lengthen a song you can use audacity and add silence to the end.

After you add time to the audio file....I think either the sequence will lengthen, or you can lengthen manually



Chuck

[Brian Mitchell]

Here is what I'm guessing you should have.

your song is 3:05
your animation sequence for lights only is 26:55.

I don't use the SSB
Both sequences should be under the musical tab in the show editor.

Schedule the show for the time you want it to run in the schedule editor.

[Texan78]

I have a similar issue except it is with my animation sequence. My musical show is roughly 15:10. There is about 10 secs at the beginning and end which is just a video loop. So it makes the actually show about 14:38 - 14:50. I am having a hard time getting a grip on it because of the animation sequence that runs during the break. I am setting it up to where Zara will play music during the breaks by setting numerous play and stop events. It will overlap into that 10 sec grace period like stop or start. Now this is where everything is getting thrown off and it throws off my Zara events. I have established that once the show starts for the night it takes LOR 9 secs to start it. So if my show is 14:50 that means I need to set a Zara event to play music once this first show is done at 6:15 which gives me an extra second. Now this is where everything gets thrown off. I want a 15 min break so the show starts at the top and bottom of every hour. I have made a 1 min animation sequence and have it looping for 15 mins. Now I have been timing this with the clock on Zara and since I use video and can see when the show starts. The animation is lasting 17:42 instead of 15 mins so it is throwing everything off. Why is it doing that and is there an easier way to set up animation sequence to run just for 15 mins?

I have both the musical and animation sequence until the musical tab in the show editor with the musical sequence first of course. So by logic everything should start and stop on time for what I am wanting to do, but LOR is running the animation almost 3 mins longer.

Sorry just noticed this is the LOR I forum and I am using S2 btw... The logic is the same though.

[cmoore60]

Texan,

I think this thread will help you out with what your trying to do.

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/view_topic.php?id=17907&forum_id=72&jump_to=164436#p164436

Just a note from my experience. Having musical sequences in the musical tab and animations under the animation tab does not give what you think it should. I think you need to set up 4 shows per hour....2 with your musical sequnces that will end when the last song in the sequence ends provided you schedule it just short of the run time. and 2 that has your animation under than animation tab. Things under the animation tab are truncated when the time is up on the schedule.


Chuck

[Texan78]

Thanks, I had seen that post already. I don't think that is really related to my problems exactly. My animations are not under my animations tab, they are under my musical tab. I am going to do some more testing tonight but I think I might know what happened. I have the 1 min animation and I looped it 16 times since the show is 14 mins and change that would have it starting at the top and bottom of every hour give or take some seconds. In reality though looping it 16 times is actually 17 mins because you don't count the the initial animation. So if I wanted a 15 min animation I would loop the one min animation 14 times because the initial animation is already going to run for one min, I just have to have it do it 14 more times to make it 15 mins.
It still doesn't explain the 42 secs extra though. I think that might just be the delay in LOR responding, not sure maybe?

So what you are suggesting I do if the above doesn't work is schedule my musical seqeunce for the 15 mins twice an hr, then 2 seperate animations twice an hour? If I read that other thread correctly I think there is a bug in doing it that way because musical seqeunces are not starting until the animations are finished when they are under the animations tab. Which is pretty much the same way I am doing it now just with one show that plays from 6-10. 15 min musical show under the musical tab, 15 min animation under the musical tab as well and it will repeat that so the musical show starts at the top and bottom of each hour. Is that not a correct way or is there any easier way? I thought I was doing it the easy way with only having one show.

[cmoore60]

Build 2 shows for each 1/2 hour. One show will have your musical sequences under the musical tab. The other show will run from xx:15 till xx:30:00 and be the 1 minute animation under the animation when the schedule hits the 1/2 past time it will cut off the animation regardless where it is in the 1 minute sequence and start your musical sequence that will be the same show as on the hour show.

This will give you tighter control of your time. Any animation even in the musical tab will not end when the shedule time expires.....but will play to the end.

" I think there is a bug in doing it that way because musical seqeunces are not starting until the animations are finished when they are under the animations tab"

If you read the thread I sent you the link to...it says that animation sequences played under the animation tab are cut off when the schedule end time is reached.

Chuck

[Texan78]

So would it be like this....

TopHourShow.lss

Musical Sequence <---- Musical Tab
Break Animation <---- Animation Tab

BottomHourShow.lss

Musical Sequence <---- Musical Tab
Break Animation <---- Animation Tab


So how would I schedule that though, would it be something like this?

TopHourShow.lss 6-6:30
BottomHourShow.lss 6:30-7:00
TopHourShow.lss 7-7:30
BottomHourShow.lss 7:30-8:00

and so on etc, etc....?

I think we are on the same page but just wanted to make sure this is what you are talking about? If this is correct would it be seamless like would you tell it was changing. I.E. lights flicker or go off for a few seconds as it changes shows?

[cmoore60]

I was talking more like this

00-30.lss
Musical Sequence <---- Musical Tab

15-45.lss
Break Animation <---- Animation Tab


So how would I schedule that though, would it be something like this?

00-30.lss 6:00-6:14:45 end time to be just short of total time of music
15-45.lss 6:14:46-6:30 animation in the animation tab will truncate when schedule end time is reached
00-30.lss 6:30-6:44:45 end time to be just short of total time of music
15-45.lss 6:44:45-7:00 animation in the animation tab will truncate when schedule end time is reached


and so on for the entire night.

Chuck

[Texan78]

If I understand things correctly Musical sequences you can say trumps animations right? From what I gathered from that other thread a musical sequence will start at the time it is set at regardless if the animation sequence is done right?

[cmoore60]

I said.

Animation that are in the animation tab will stop when the scheduled end time is reached.

Anything in the musical tab will stop when it completes the current sequnce after the scheduled end time.

Chuck

[Texan78]

Right, but what I am trying to ask is if a animation sequence isn't done playing when a musical sequence is scheduled to start the musical sequence will end the animation and start the musical sequence at the schedule time right? So if a a musical sequence is suppose to start at lets say 10:30 and the animation still has 2 mins left, the animation won't finish its remaining time, the musical sequence will cut it off and start at the time it is scheduled. Is that correct?

Not trying to be difficult just trying to understand this so I can time things out accordingly so I know how to set my events up for Zara because if set my musical sequence to play from lets say 6 to 6:15 and it is only 14 mins long I will have a min of no lights. Is that right? Your sample schedule makes sense now, just trying to weigh my options so I have the best possible outcome because LOR doesn't always start things exactly when you tell it to. It could be anywhere from 9-35 secs which doesn't sound like much but makes a big difference when I need to make sure Zara doesn't overlap the show and stops when it needs to.

[cmoore60]

As long as the animation sequence is in the animation tab. IT will STOP midstream when the end time arrives.

If the animation sequence is in the musical tab. The animation sequence will plan to completion.

Thus the need for the number of shows I pointed out earlier.

You can go down to seconds in start and end times.

Chuck

[Texan78]

I see what you are saying. I tried it the way I showed before yours and while that worked better since I fixed the loop right it played out the loop since the animation was under the musical tab it added about 20-35 secs extra. So I am going to try what you suggested and see how close it comes with having the animation under the animation tab and see how much more closer I can get.

[Texan78]

Ok well I have done some more testing and what I have found out is both ways work and I can get it to start at exactly the top of and bottom of the hour on the min I.E. :00 and :30 but it never starts exactly at the same seconds. It could start from anywhere to 9-45 seconds. So that makes setting up my Zara events for having the music start and stop during breaks almost impossible to get it timed perfect. So it looks like it is back to the drawing board.

Would be nice if there was a plugin or a way for LOR to activate Zara once a show ended or a show got to a certain time period. Might have to look into making something like that if nothing like that exsists.

Thank you for your timely help Chuck, I appreicate it.

[Don]

Texan78 wrote:

Would be nice if there was a plugin or a way for LOR to activate Zara once a show ended or a show got to a certain time period. Might have to look into making something like that if nothing like that exsists.

Read up on DTMF tones in the Zara help section.

I send a DTMF tone of 69 at the end of the last show, which triggers the delayed event in Zara to start playing. Set the delayed event to start a few minutes before your show is to end. It will load in the upcoming events window, and won't trigger until it hears a DTMF tone that you defined.

Be sure to set "Tools -> Options -> DTMF -> Action" to "Play the pending events."

[Texan78]

Hmmm interesting. I have seen that in the Zara options. How many times can this be done and can it be done to stop play as well? I am trying to set it up to where it will come on after each 15 min show, then go off before each 15 min show starts. After the shows are done for the night Zara will come back on until that routine starts over again the next night. Can this be done with the DTMF tones or will it just turn on events?

[Don]

I set up an event at 5:59:55 which stops the music. When setting it up, be sure to tell it 'immediate' or else it will wait until the song is over. (The 5 seconds before the hour is because I have my "Tools -> Options -> Fade -> Fade Tracks" set to 5 seconds.)


In your case, I would set up Zara to stop 5 seconds or so before your next musical portion of the show got started. I'd insert a DTMF tone in the shutdown portion of said musical portion, which would then trigger Zara.

Be sure to set up Delayed events in Zara for about 2-5 minutes before your musical is set to stop. Zara will wait for the tone to start playing the playlist.

[Texan78]

Don wrote:

Be sure to set up Delayed events in Zara for about 2-5 minutes before your musical is set to stop. Zara will wait for the tone to start playing the playlist.

I know about events but what event exactly would need to be set up. I see options for enable and disable DTMF. I found this post below that talks more about it that I posted to since it is more relavent. This sounds exactly what I am needing. I have made some test sequnces just so I can see if I can get it to start and stop between shows. Then if that works I will add it to my show sequnce since it is on video it will have to be added and mixed down and that takes the software about 5 hrs to do, but I know exactly where I want them. If I could get this to work that would be perfect!

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum81/17019-3.html