Long time lag between sequences

[George Simmons]

Does anyone have or know of a workaround for the time lag between sequences during the first run through of a show? I'm seeing a lag of 7-9 seconds between the end of one sequence and the beginning of the next. After the show turns over and repeats, the time lag is one second or less on the second (and subsequent) play throughs. I've got 40+ songs and 7 announcments so it's almost two hours of what seems like an endless time between each one before turning over and speeding up.

Bob - any words of wisdom?

[Brian Mitchell]

When I saw this happening during testing I discovered there was another program running on the computer that was hogging CPU resources and slowing it up.

Once I stopped that program, all ran seemless.

[Guest wbottomley]

George... I'm seeing between 1-2 seconds and it's sporadic.

[Max-Paul]

George,

You do have your sequence and music files on the host computer that is running LOR scheduler, right? If you are hosting the sequences on a different computer than the one that is running the LOR control panel. I would rework it, so that all is on one computer.

[George Simmons]

So far, no relief.

Brian, last night I verified that nothing else (that I can find anyway) is running in the background on my show machine. And Max, except for backups I don't believe I've ever even considered storing my sequence and/or audio files anywhere else other than my show machine. But thanks.

What makes me think this is related to the LOR software (or how it interacts with WMP or something along those lines) is due to the fact that the delay only exists during the first run-through of the show. Once it loops, then for the rest of the night there's only a second or two between sequences like Bill cites. Stopping and then restarting the show during a loop when the delay had been gone restarts the delay. One show ends and a different one begins and the delay is back in the second show until it too loops.

Could it have something to do with sequence size or layout I wonder? My sequences are single network and have 340 separate channels divvied up over 17 tracks which vary in size from 2 to 58 channels. Does this set-up in any way affect whatever occurs from the time one sequence ends and the next one begins during the first runthrough of a show?

[radioguy1007]

George:

I have been working on this with Bob last week after I saw the delays. We traced it to the "loading" of the sequence files the first time through the show. It is an issue that they are aware of, and have been discussing possibly "preloading" a show. The second time through, the delays are not present. But if you change shows, the first time through the delays will be there. Please see this thread:

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum72/20569.html

Maybe Bob will post a possible work-around he sent to me. It is not clean, but might work for you.

Mike

[bob]

A sequence is loaded once per run of the show, at the time it is first to be played. For a very large sequence, this could take noticeable time.

You might want to consider paring down your sequences so that if you have any duplicate channels in more than one track, you keep only a single copy of each. Perhaps have two copies of each sequence - an "editing" sequence as it is now, and after you're done editing it, make a "lean and mean" sequence based on it.

Also, if you haven't already, look into the (relatively) new "Timing Grids" feature, which might even let you get rid of all but one track (depending upon what you use tracks for).

Finally, the following is the workaround that I sent to Mike, which he mentioned here. It's highly manual, and it might not work depending upon exactly what you're trying to accomplish, but it (or something like it) might help. Keep in mind that it was written with Mike's particular situation in mind, so it might not totally apply to what you want to do, but the general idea might, at least:

Preloading the sequence is one of the changes that we're thinking about making, but unfortunately I can't promise that it will be done anytime in the near future.

It's possible that you might be able to work around it, depending upon how your show is set up. It will be pretty manual, though. If your show currently has no sequences in the "Background" or "Animation" sections, you could do this:

Instead of scheduling the show to start at 5:00 PM, start it at some "dead time", like 12:00 PM.

In the "Startup" section, schedule all of the little sound bite files that you want to preload.

Figure out how long it will take to load and play all those sequences. For example, let's say it works out to be three minutes. Then those sequences will run from 12:00 PM to 12:03 PM, at which time the Musical section of your show will start.

But you don't want the "real" show to start until 5:00 PM. So, make an empty sequence, no song, no lights being controlled, that lasts four hours and 57 minutes. Put it, too, in the "Startup" section.

So now your sequences get preloaded at 12:00 PM, and your "real" show starts at 5:00 PM. You might want to do something like turn off your speakers before 12:00 PM and turn them back on before 5:00 PM, so that they don't cause the sound bite files to be heard during preloading.

Now, the problem (well, one of the problems) is that when you switch to your "power show" at 7:00 PM, the sequences get unloaded, and will need to be loaded again. They get unloaded any time a new show starts. So, instead of really stopping the regular show and starting the power show, make them both into one big show. Similarly, instead of then switching back to the regular show at 7:30, put it into the one big show, too.

But this requires that your show not loop. So, you'll have to loop manually: Figure out how long the sequences in your "real show" are, and manually add them several times to the musical section. For example, if you've got three sequences, A, B, and C, and they last a total of 10 minutes, then get them to "pseudo-loop" for two hours by scheduling them twelve times each, A, B, C, A, B, C, A, B, C, and so forth (or, if you use the "random play" feature, turn it off, and randomize the order yourself). After the final C is done, then go into the sequences of your power show. Again, you might have to pseudo-loop these too, after which you would go back into the sequences of the regular show.

If you use the Animation or Background sections, there are two flaws with this plan:

(1) The sequences in those sections will be playing for the whole scheduled show, which means they'll be playing during the time before 5:00 that's supposed to have nothing happening.

(2) Since your regular show and your power show are now one big show, there can only be one Animation section, and one Background section. So if the contents of your Animation or Background sections are different between the regular show and the power show, you would have to make them the same.