TRACKING AFTER SHOWPORT

[sonia.esteban]

After I convert one show from Ascii to .ssf using Showport, I found that the tracking info is not correct. I mean, it imports the correct channel values as if it were recorded in cue only (values blocked), but if I changed the cues track from XF to MF on my board, then the show is not correct. What can I do to make it track? Thank you very much.

[GridGirl]

Moderation: I think this will be better off in Lighting - so I'll move it.

[gareth]

In what sense is the show "not correct"?

[obsoperator]

Sonia, the result you describe is not an error, it is - however undesirable - "by design". That is, the definition of ASCII files includes that every channel that is non-zero must be assigned a level in a cue. Because that looks "the same" in every successive cue where a level remains identical, the reading board (in this case, Showport software...) cannot determine whether the level was intended to be blocking or tracking. This will always happen with a show transferred through ASCII.

 

To put that another way, if your ASCII file came from another light board (I mean, as opposed to being typed in by hand, for example) it is correct to say that all blocking and tracking data were discarded (at first I wrote "lost", but that's not a clear enough verb) by the translation process. The only remedy is to manually edit the new console's show.

 

It's not a good comparison, but it's as if you were to read an instruction manual page to someone over the telephone. They would hear all the words, but they would not be able to see which words were boldfaced or italic, or whether there was a picture.

[LeeStoddart]

So here is a slightly different question...

 

When I have a show where every queue is XF. How can I change a queue to be a MF containing only the channels/attributes that have changed? If that was a simple action then Sonia could do that for each cue, effectively restoring the tracking that has been "discarded" in the process of translation via the more limited syntax of ASCII.

[paulears]

...but isn't the problem that using ascii, you're just storing a sequence of snapshots. The ability to just record changes is the thing that's missing. So you can't use ascii to record a MF - or have I misunderstood?

[LeeStoddart]

Perhaps my slightly different question should have been...

 

When I have a show loaded into my Strand 300 or 500 series desk where every queue is XF. How can I change a queue to be a MF containing only the channels/attributes that have changed? If that was a simple action then Sonia could do that for each cue, effectively restoring the tracking that has been "discarded" in the process of translation via the more limited syntax of ASCII.

[obsoperator]

Lee, it's not that easy to get my hands on a 500/300 in New York City. But I think your question (which does describe the most efficient and intended use of the console) might lead away from the solution. I think that the cues have been "contaminated" by the extra levels, and you can't get what you describe by operating on the one cue with the "move" level you want to empower.

 

As I remember (it was four years ago I last ran a 500-series desk), I wrote a one-cue-at-a-time macro. My notes are fragmentary, but I think the macro went to CueSheet/Channels, pressed the Cue key, and used a Softkey "Soft Block" to "clean-up" (That's an American term for removing unwanted partial-blocking levels) the one cue. Perhaps if you can select multiple cues in CueSheet you can clean them up in larger groups?