QLab or mac problem?

[LSTM]

I've been using Qlab for a year now and am just starting to admit that I can be classed as having entry level experience. I run it on a macbook pro which after a few hiccups is running ok (for the time being). The issue I have is with the brand new macbook air I have to run another show. Firstly, when fired some of the video clips lag and stutter for less than a second. Not very long, but long enough for an audience to notice. Secondly I have had the mac 'rainbow wheel of death' appear during two shows on the last three weeks, causing me to shut the machine down, re-boot and then start from where it all stopped. I'm running Qlab 2 on a MacBook Air 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i5. I have loaded no other programmes on the the machine apart from Adobe reader and Qlab. I have been told to convert everything to .wav which I'm more than willing to do, but obviously I'd like to know if anyone else has had the same problem and if there is a solution.

 

Thanks

[Andrew Edwards]

Hi Giles and welcome to Blueroom.

 

Lagging when firing cues can be avoided by making sure they are loaded ready. However, as this is an Air, the load time should be almost instantaneous from a SSD anyway. Raw audio can help but again your machine should be more than capable of working with compressed files. There is a bug in quicktime with MP3 that Qlab sometimes hits with long files but you should get a warning about this anyway.

 

My suggestion would be to contact Figure53 and look at their forums. I would also consult Apple as it could be a hardware fault.

[soundiesam]

Hey LSTM,

this isnt a derect answer to your question im sorry but try dropping Fugure53 the guys who built Qlab they are very good at helping solve problems like this... It does seem like your machine should be more than powerful enough to run it but there maybe something they can shed light on about about Qlab on a certain model of mac we dont know drop them an email there very helpful

sam

[paulears]

Id' be interested if you can solve this one, because mine does the same - the Apple solution is to make sure you have plenty of memory and are not running too many programmes - really helpful! The more useful solution (as I have plenty of memory and there is just one programme running) was a restore. I did it, lost a couple of weeks of important files, found 50% of them, and it was cured - BUT I lasted two days, and now the wheel of death is back even worse! It means all the video and audio programmes stutter or stop. It does not seem to be worse if you change file types. Qlab is less of a snag to me than Audition - but both have the same issue with almost any command triggering a waiting time before the ball goes and playback resumes.

[TomHoward]

Are you running the video files from the start of the file or do they have a start position set? I find with a start position the computer can take a few frames to scan forward you you sometimes get spurious frames from before so I trim in Quicktime rather than using the start position value.

 

Also video fade ins I find can be pretty processor intensive and cause it to hang. We are running on a 2007 Macbook though so not cutting edge technology.

[mackerr]

My suggestion would be to contact Figure53 and look at their forums. I would also consult Apple as it could be a hardware fault.

 

The QLab folks are very responsive, and active on their forums. Right now the forums are flooded with QLab 3 questions, but ask on the forum and then email Chis if you don't get a response quickly.

 

QLab User Forum

 

Mac

[Andrew Edwards]

Just a quick update about their response. I posted a question in their forums yesterday and Chris Ashworth responded within hours.

[LSTM]

Thanks for all your responses. I'll get on the Figure 53 forum and see what I can get from there. All your comments are very much appreciated.

[dbini]

have you bundled the show? I find I get the best performance out of Qlab2 when it's looking for the files all in the same place. it takes up a load of space because it copies all the files, but then - if you're sure you are happy with the show - you can delete the old stuff. also makes it easier to transfer to other machines, or backup.

[groggy]

How much free space do you have on your Mac Hard drive? its recommended to keep at least 10% of your hard drive free. try not to have too many large files on your desktop as this slows performance. Also turn of wifi, Bluetooth and anything else you can. Empty the trash and delete any programs you don't need anymore. Also if you have the time maybe try and compress the video files, of course without compromising the quality.

 

As for the ballooning I've only ever had this once: and discovered it to be my fault. I made a stop cue which was trying to stop something that had already stopped. Once this was corrected the show ran perfectly. Although I have crashed qlab while programing a few times. If it does Ballon during a show you don't need to reboot just press ALT CMD ESC at the same time and force quit Qlab.

[Dan T]

Hi there,

 

A mac book air with a 1.7ghz CPU is not really suitable for running video on qlab I would say despite the SSD. What format and codec is your video running in? Chaging this and creativly using loads may help you out.

 

Dan