Minor display, reset and fixture naming niggles (7.8.5)

[kgallen]

On 7.8.5

 

When I did a Reset All, I just get a full blue screen on the external monitor until I flick to palettes then back to programming, only then the split channels/playback window is drawn (black background).

 

Then when I allocate some dimmers or fixtures, I get grey boxes around random channel numbers (different each time I do Reset All) - just the odd channel number here or there! If I page up then page down (ch/pb page up/down desk button), this gets sorted out, and the grey box draws around the 24 channels for that page (in sixes for the generics). Also with a variety of fixtures patched, the grey boxes draw in groups that I don't understand. They aren't in sixes and they aren't in fixture type groups. I get some grey boxes around pairs and threes and I'm not sure what the significance is! This is before I've set much up, other than a Reset All and patch some dimmers/fixtures.

 

Also in Fixture Edit setup, if you select a fixture name but don't have an external keyboard attached you can get in a mess with the names disappearing if you aren't careful with Clear. You can only get any sort of name in with the numeric keys. There is no way to "Escape" out and leave the name unchanged that I can find. So no on-screen keyboard to help out here. With an external keyboard, no issues, can type a name. (Covered in part here too: http://zero88.com/forum/topic/7240-show-keyboard-when-naming-fixtures/#entry28291)

 

Tech this week, show next - hoping I know enough about the desk! Panic!

 

Kevin

[Jon Hole]

Hi Kevin,

 

When I did a Reset All, I just get a full blue screen on the external monitor until I flick to palettes then back to programming, only then the split channels/playback window is drawn (black background).

Recorded as ZOS-6930, scheduled for ZerOS 7.9

Then when I allocate some dimmers or fixtures, I get grey boxes around random channel numbers (different each time I do Reset All) - just the odd channel number here or there! If I page up then page down (ch/pb page up/down desk button), this gets sorted out, and the grey box draws around the 24 channels for that page (in sixes for the generics). Also with a variety of fixtures patched, the grey boxes draw in groups that I don't understand. They aren't in sixes and they aren't in fixture type groups. I get some grey boxes around pairs and threes and I'm not sure what the significance is! This is before I've set much up, other than a Reset All and patch some dimmers/fixtures.

Recorded as ZOS-6097, scheduled for ZerOS 7.9

Also with a variety of fixtures patched, the grey boxes draw in groups that I don't understand. They aren't in sixes and they aren't in fixture type groups. I get some grey boxes around pairs and threes and I'm not sure what the significance is! This is before I've set much up, other than a Reset All and patch some dimmers/fixtures.

As you say before, they grey boxes show you which fixtures are on which "bank" of six faders. So, for example, if you only had fixtures five - 10 patched, you'd get a grey box around channels five & six because they are on one of the banks, and then another box around channels seven - 10 as they are on another bank. When you have "gaps" like this, rather than a sequentially numbered patch, they grey boxes aren't as clear which fixtures are on which faders.

Also in Fixture Edit setup, if you select a fixture name but don't have an external keyboard attached you can get in a mess with the names disappearing if you aren't careful with Clear. You can only get any sort of name in with the numeric keys. There is no way to "Escape" out and leave the name unchanged that I can find. So no on-screen keyboard to help out here. With an external keyboard, no issues, can type a name. (Covered in part here too: http://zero88.com/forum/topic/7240-show-keyboard-when-naming-fixtures/#entry28291)

Added another comment to ZOS-6114, and changed it to be scheduled ZerOS 7.9

Tech this week, show next - hoping I know enough about the desk! Panic!

Hope it goes well!

[kgallen]

Thanks Jon,

 

As you say before, they grey boxes show you which fixtures are on which "bank" of six faders. So, for example, if you only had fixtures five - 10 patched, you'd get a grey box around channels five & six because they are on one of the banks, and then another box around channels seven - 10 as they are on another bank. When you have "gaps" like this, rather than a sequentially numbered patch, they grey boxes aren't as clear which fixtures are on which faders.

 

Ah, of course, makes sense!

 

With the fixtures I had patched, the grey-boxes make sense in the sixes!

 

49 50 51 52 53 54 55 60 61 62 63

\_____________/ \___/ \______/

 

 

I like the attention to detail, nice one!

 

Kevin

[kgallen]

Added another comment to ZOS-6114, and changed it to be scheduled ZerOS 7.9

 

Whilst we're here, also in Setup on the Defaults pane, with an external keyboard you can set a split fade time (say 3.0/5.0) for "Intensity Delay" "Cue".

 

This can't be done without an external keyboard as there is no physical or soft-key for "/". Maybe e.g. THRU could act as a "/" key?

[kgallen]

We had our Tech/LX plot over the weekend, using the FLX, and first Dress last night.

 

7.8.5 software.

 

Most was good with the FLX regards programming - worked very well. Much less stressful than with the Fat Frog now I've a fair few LED fixtures and needed to be using Tracking.

 

Some usability comments (Tracking-Advanced with SmartTag):

- Overall very good!

- Groups from the touchscreen were a God-send.

- Shift-Record great for blocking cues.

- Record <num> Name <type> great for a one-pass record/name.

- Update <num> worked a treat.

- UDK4 with some strobes on, nice! However, I'm not sure it always released all channels as I expected when the button was released - but couldn't reproduce what I thought I saw, will keep an eye on this.

- Auto-palettes on LEDs, great!

 

Some more display niggles however:

 

- The green and yellow bars do get in a muddle when you're programming i.e when there are no cues after the one currently being worked on and both bars are at the bottom of the cue list screen.

- There's a "half line" problem where there is a vertical line misalignment and this causes the previous two cue lines to get obscured - needs some up/down arrows to get that sorted and the list redrawn.

- When doing a Shift-Record, the just-programmed cue become current - fine. However, when just doing Record, the previous cue stays current and it needs a Go to get to the same place as Shift-Record would. This might be as intended but it's inconsistent. Also the yellow next bar jumps back up to the first cue (because there are no more following, so the first cue is "next"). This is a pain during programming when you want to update fade times in the just-recorded cue - need to do an up-up operation (because cue 0 appears) to get back to the last one just programmed so you can spreadsheet edit the timing parameters.

 

Playing back the cue stack at Dress, the current/next cue are centred on the cue list and this works fine as does on-the-hoof spreadsheet edit of fade times.

 

Button feel is nice.

 

Double-click seems a bit variable on the master Go. When programming, needed to do a very positive/separated Go-Go to move forward. But during the Dress I did a bit of a half-baked press on one cue and skipped a cue and had to go back in the cue list.

 

I had some AND issues, where I'd type 56 AND 57 but the following action only applied to 57 for some reason. This was when I'd got a number of selects in the programmer - selected a couple of groups via the touchscreen, then needed to add 56 AND 57. Often 56 didn't get the @ or the touchscreen palette selection. This happened a few times.

 

As commented in another thread, one USB on the front is awkward when you want a desk light and want to save to USB stick. I have a small Belkin 4-port USB hub for keyboard and mouse in a rear port, and plugging the USB stick in there wasn't always detected. Also have touchscreen USB in the other rear desk port.

 

Mouse pickup on the screen is a bit slow - have to wiggle the mouse a bit to get the desk to respond to it. Not too much of an issue as didn't need the mouse during programming. External keyboard no issues and worked well for cue naming.

 

Only got bit by the ENTER-starts-to-edit-the-cue-number once!

 

Nice to be able to record a part cue (73.5 in my case) before subsequent cues (e.g. 74) has been programmed. (Couldn't do this on FatFrog and it was a bit of a pain [needed to program a junk following cue first before being able to insert the part cue], as I come prepared with a lighting cue synopsis with numbered cue list and draft marked-up script but sometimes the director wants to add an extra cue or two during Tech).