QLab 5!

[J Pearce]

While the lampies have exciting new desks to talk about, the other news from USITT is QLab 5. Still waiting on a press release, but the initial headlines from other online discussions are:

• M1 Apple Silicon native

• Autosaving

• Zero count slices now easily remove middle sections of audio

• More granular Audition settings

• Playlist group type to simplify creating preshow music type things

• Built in OSC libraries

• Collaboration mode where multiple people can edit a single workspace simultaneously from different computers

• NDI input and output support

• New licensing scheme, tied with with collaboration mode

All of which sounds rather exciting, and starts to put QLab up there with systems like Eos and Disguise for designer/proddy/operator workflows. Start hoarding budget to upgrade your licenses!

Edited March 7, 2022 by J Pearce

[Bryson]

NDI I/O seems like a big deal.  Was there a third-party method of doing that before?

[J Pearce]

QLab 4 (and 3 I think) support input and output via Syphon. You could use Syphon-NDI to convert between, and it works well once up and running, but can be a bit fussy to get going on each day’s power up.
We used that workflow for zoom theatre over lockdowns.

I think collaboration mode is the biggest one for me, bringing us closer to the multi user workflow enjoyed by LX.

Edited March 7, 2022 by J Pearce

[TomHoward]

What’s the licensing scheme, is it subscription now? Do you reckon you can still buy 3 seats outright?

will have to buy an M1 Mac mini to go with it…

[J Pearce]

Those details still to come with the press release I think. I've just bought a M1 Pro macbook for myself, and about to order 3 M1 Mac Minis for work. Very quick, very energy efficient, run much cooler.

[cedd]

Collaboration mode also seems to include "view only", which is very useful for those shows where the SM or LX want to see what's going on. I've done VGA splits before to achieve this but doing it over the network is way better.

[J Pearce]

It's out! - https://qlab.app/docs/v5/general/new-in-qlab-5 

[chelgrian]

On 3/7/2022 at 10:25 PM, TomHoward said:

What’s the licensing scheme, is it subscription now? Do you reckon you can still buy 3 seats outright?

will have to buy an M1 Mac mini to go with it…

So for completion a permanent license now gets you only two seats but those seats can be used for anything rather than the primary / backup / edit for QLab 4.

Having upgraded my personal license having QLab 4 and QLab 5 on the same machine seems to only consume one license seat.

The other models ie rent to own still exist.

One unlicensed machine can remotely control a licensed machine additional unlicensed machines get read only access.