Show Control

Show Control connects Studio to the rest of a show rig: a timecode clock that your cues follow, a lighting desk that triggers them, and LED fixtures that display your picture. Timecode and pixel maps are set in Settings > Show. DMX in is set in the External Control window.

What you can do

A feature that your plan does not include shows a note saying so, and nothing is sent or received. A change to it is refused with "Needs {feature} in your plan. Upgrade on cliqer.io." Timecode and Art-Net and sACN are in the Free trial, Studio 8K and Enterprise. See Plans and limits.

Timecode

Open Settings > Show > Timecode. The timecode setup is saved with the show, and every change is one undo step. Running, stopping and locating the generator are live actions: they are never saved and never undone.

Source chooses where the show's timecode comes from:

The other rows on the tab:

Frame rates

Rate offers 24 fps, 25 fps, 29.97 fps drop frame, 30 fps, 50 fps, 59.94 fps drop frame, 60 fps, 100 fps, 119.88 fps drop frame and 120 fps. The readout shows hours, minutes, seconds and frames, with a semicolon before the frames at a drop frame rate.

LTC, MIDI Time Code and Art-Net timecode carry 30 fps at most. At a higher rate the show's timecode goes out on them at its 25, 29.97 or 30 fps base, with every second or fourth frame.

LTC over audio

Pick LTC as the source and choose the mixer channel that carries the LTC signal in LTC input. To send LTC, choose an output in LTC output. LTC goes out on the audio of a Blackmagic output, so only Blackmagic outputs are listed; NDI outputs are not.

Freewheel through a dropout

An external source can drop a few frames: a cable knocked, a MIDI hiccup. While the gap is shorter than Freewheel, Studio keeps counting on its own clock and chasing timelines keep playing. When the gap passes Freewheel, the clock stops and chasing timelines pause where they are. Set Freewheel to 0 to stop at once.

Run the generator

With Source set to Internal, Studio runs its own timecode. Run and Stop in the Generator row start and stop it. Type a number of seconds in Locate and press Return to jump it, up to 86399.999 seconds, one second short of 24 hours. Locating also sends a MIDI Time Code full frame to the MTC output port, so a receiver jumps with it.

PTP network clock

Pick PTP (SMPTE 2059) as the source to follow a precise network clock. Set Rate to the rate of your show.

Chase timecode on a timeline

In the timeline inspector, turn on Chase timecode. The timeline then follows the timecode source chosen in Settings > Show > Timecode:

• when timecode starts rolling, the timeline jumps to the matching time and plays;
• when timecode jumps backwards, or more than 250 ms ahead, the timeline jumps with it;
• when timecode stops, or drops out past Freewheel, the timeline pauses where it is.

Offset shifts the timeline against the timecode in milliseconds, from -86,400,000 to 86,400,000. With an offset of 3600000 the timeline's start sits at 01:00:00:00. A timeline never goes before its start. How long chase rides out a drop in the source is the Freewheel setting of the Timecode tab.

Control timecode over OSC

The generator answers External Control like every other action. Locate takes milliseconds, from 0 to 86399999.

/cliqer/studio/timecode_gen_run
/cliqer/studio/timecode_gen_stop
/cliqer/studio/timecode_gen_locate 3600000

A message that cannot run comes back as /cliqer/error <address> <reason>.

DMX in

DMX in turns a lighting desk into a control surface. Studio listens for Art-Net (UDP 6454) and sACN (UDP 5568). Each DMX channel is a level from 0 to 255.

1. Open the External Control window and choose the DMX tab.
2. Turn on the receive toggle (Receive Art-Net and sACN on macOS, Receive DMX on Windows).
3. Choose the network Interface to listen on. The default is all interfaces.
4. Choose Add Binding, then move a fader on the desk. Studio learns the channel and shows its protocol, universe and channel.

On macOS a status line reads "Off", "Starting...", or "Listening," with the protocol and address, or the error when DMX in fails.

Desks resend every universe many times a second. Only a channel that changes fires its binding, so a frame with nothing changed does nothing. sACN in joins universes 1 to 16, so patch the desk's cue channels into those universes; Art-Net in takes every universe. Studio ignores its own packets, so pixel map output never fires a binding.

Pixel maps and Art-Net timecode do not need the receive toggle: they work whether DMX in is on or off.

DMX in needs the Art-Net and sACN feature on your plan.

Pixel maps

A pixel map sends your picture to LED fixtures over the network: LED bars, battens and pixel tape follow the picture. Open Settings > Show > Pixel maps and choose Add pixel map. The button is greyed out until the show has a canvas or a screen. A new map starts on the whole of the first canvas, switched off. Pixel maps are saved with the show and every edit is one undo step; switching Output on or off is live.

Picking a different canvas in Source resets the region to the whole canvas; picking the same canvas keeps it. A screen is always sent whole. Use Duplicate to copy a map and Remove to delete it. Pixel maps need the Art-Net and sACN feature on your plan.

How cells become channels

Studio splits the region into Columns by Rows cells and reads the centre pixel of each, row by row from the top left. Each cell is one fixture pixel:

• RGB, GRB and BGR use 3 channels per pixel, in that order.
• RGBW uses 4. White is the lowest of red, green and blue, and is taken out of the three colours, so a pure colour sends no white.

Pixels fill the start universe from Start channel. A pixel never splits across two universes: when the next one does not fit, it starts at channel 1 of the next universe. A full universe holds 170 RGB pixels or 128 RGBW pixels. Each universe carries channels only up to the last one in use.

200 x 1 RGB from universe 0, channel 1
  universe 0: channels 1 to 510   (170 pixels)
  universe 1: channels 1 to 90    (30 pixels)

Art-Net and sACN on the network

Windows and macOS

Show Control uses the same tabs, rows and wording on both platforms, with these differences.