Jack B Drury Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Hello! Im trying to use qlab to show a few films on an external display. I have set all of the neccicery preferences to allow this to happen but when I press go, I only get a frozen image on the screen despite the sound playing quite happily. I have rented the Pro Video licence so there should be no problem at all, but no matter what I do (move to a new display, new VGA cable ect) I still have the same problem... I have contacted Qlab via email but local time there is about 5 in the morning and id rather like a solution ASAP. I have toyed with the idea that it might be the system running too slowly to render a smooth video to the display, but when I play the video in quicktime, it runs perfectly well. Im currently wondering if it has something to do with the codec.. What codec does everyone else use best with Qlab? Also, its worth mentioning that when I run the cue just on the mac its self with no display, it shows fine. However, if I choose to mirror onto another display, it freezes on both. Any ideas? Anything and everything you have will be greatly appreciated! Many Thanks! Jack Drury EDIT! Turning the machine off for an hour, having stern worlds with it and threatening it with a custard cream stuffed into its disk drive appears to have fixed it... For now.... Much Love! Jack D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Edwards Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Just to clarify, when routing the video cue to both displays or just the external display, the video freezes? You mention it runs fine on the mac in quicktime. Does the freezing occur if you set the external display to mirror in the OS and run it in QT? (taking qlab out of the equation) Unfortunately I cannot comment on any recent issues regarding performance relating to video quality/size as I run everything from a possibly overspec'd quad-core mac pro 8gb with 6 video outs and separate internal HDD for video and audio. It has happily coped with everything I have chucked at it. One day I might see how many cues it can play at the same time if I am bored. In know this might seem to be a little bit cocky but I had some cash, didn't know whether this could be available again and bought a machine to last. It also renders/converts video lightening fast so when (despite numerous requests to the contrary) a client turns up with wmv at the last minute it takes next to no time to whistle off. The first time I used Qlab which must have been very soon after launch, the incoming company's macbook struggled to run an audio and video cue at the same time. We ended up running the video from a second mac. I can't completely remember the specs but the second machine that was found was a G3 and this wouldn't quite run the show on its own either. But then again the G3 must have been quite old as IIRC the G4 came out in '99. In my experience, if Qlab can play the video then it plays fine. If it can't (e.g. wmv) then I handbrake(.fr) into h.264. Edit: The OP edit occurred before I had posted. So I my next guess is heat. My TiVo box did not like the recent hot spell at all in my TV unit. HD channels were slide shows until I moved it out in the open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack B Drury Posted May 31, 2012 Author Share Posted May 31, 2012 Thanks so much for your help :) After my breakthrough with turning it off and on again, I received this from qlab "Hi Jack. Thanks for your question!Most likely, this is a result of changing your displays while QLab is open. QLab gets its video settings from the Displays pane of System Preferences. Any time those settings change, such as plugging in an external display, changing its resolution, or adjusting the arrangement of your displays, QLab needs to be quit and restarted, so that configuration can be in place when QLab launches. If those settings change while QLab is open, it can behave unpredictably, often in ways like showing a frozen first frame of the video.Let me know if there's anything else I can help with.Thanks,luckydave" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Edwards Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Ah. That cropped up in another very recent thread.Personally, under those conditions I get no output at all, not even the first frame. To be honest I don't know why I didn't think it could be that issue. I also foolishly assumed that you had already done the IT mantra thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyld Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Just to add: Making changes to video settings while Qlab is running causes all kinds of weirdness including one in which both screens are shown visually in the Preferences and Inspector, but don't behave properly or output. So, just because you can see two blue boxes doesn't mean it's all fine. As is suggested, a reboot of Qlab with all the video outputs set up and connected properly usually does the trick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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