timeline not staying in sync with video

[bshoc]

Hey guys, I have imported a .mp4 lyric video into my timeline. I zoomed and in and added light scenes to key parts of the song. As I made my way thru the song adding scenes and replaying it from a few seconds before, everything was on time... yet when I go back to the beginning of the song, the scenes become NOT on time, it seems the longer the song plays, the more OFF time it gets... yet, if I go to any random place in the song and start from there, it is on time, but the longer it plays the more off time it gets. Thanks for your help.

[bshoc]

I wanted to add one more thing to this post. Check out this picture. You will see where I have the green marker, which is where the light scene changes, but notice the wave file, this scene is supposed to turn on with that beat that is coming in. I'm having to start the scene before the beat for the timing to line up, and that's even with starting it only a few seconds before. Is this delay normal? Thanks!

[bshoc]

UPDATE: I'm finding that is is NEVER consistent. Either the lights are all Early, all Late, and sometimes on time. There is no rhyme or reason as to if it will or will not be on time. I tried it with video and with WAV audio. What is causing the inconsistency, and how can I fix it? Thank you for your help.

[JohnRichards]

From my experience, once you have loaded all your light scenes in the correct places, disable showing the waveform, and it will then run perfectly.
John

[Alan_G13]

Hi

I don't have an answer for you, just want to know you're not on your own as we also have this issue all the time. We've tried various formats of video (including .avi, .mov, .mpg, .wmv) and making sure the compression of the video is minimal to none in an effort to find a solution but as of yet nothing is even getting close to solving it.

I believe the issue is caused by the fact that ShowXpress doesn't actually play the video from within the software, rather it 'requests' the operating system to play it. Depending on what the OS is doing at the time there may or may not be a delay before the video starts but SX has already started traversing the timeline and outputting the DMX to your lights, hence the seemingly random out of synch issue. We've even tried it using a high spec machine running nothing else but SX to make sure there's no other background processing going on (other than services or the like that we have no control over) to no avail. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong with that explanation

It's a serious issue for us and is almost making the software unusable, which is a real shame as in general I really like it and believe with a few tweaks here and there it could be a real world beater. This out of synch issue though is one that I think should be addressed as soon as possible. I'm not looking to have things timed correctly to the millisecond, at the moment just somewhere close and/or consistent would be a huge step forward

[support]

Yes, TimeLine is definitly not as accurate as "Adobe Premiere" or "Final Cut".
For some users, TimeLine is ok, and for some others not. It depends of your requirements.

Anyway, to be honnest, after reading this:

I'm not looking to have things timed correctly to the millisecond

We are afraid TimeLine is not pro enough for you.

To reach such accuracy, we suggest you an external media player able to send midi commands to our software. We already saw lightshows made like this, and this is more accurate.

[bshoc]

Alan_G13, thank you for your response. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with this issue. I have been speaking to a few others that are also having issues. I really LOVE Show Xpress in general, the interface, and pretty much everything about it I LOVE IT!.... it's just this timeline thing... it's important that it stay on time for us. Have you personally found any other solutions?

[bshoc]

To reach such accuracy, we suggest you an external media player able to send midi commands to our software. We already saw lightshows made like this, and this is more accurate.

Support, thank you for your suggestion of using an external media player able to send midi commands to your software. That sounds interesting! Would you mind explaining a little more or suggest some external media players that you have seen used?

[Alan_G13]

Hi bshoc

No, I haven't found a solution to the synch issue sadly. Like you, I thoroughly enjoy the software and recommend it to others, so much so that I currently have it installed in 24 of our venues (some running multiple universes) with potentially a further 48 installs to follow, but that's very much dependant on finding a solution to the timeline issue. Bugs and 'quirks' I can live with, but something that clearly doesn't work as it should is a different thing.

I'm a little bit surprised and disappointed by the response from Support saying that timeline isn't pro enough. According to the feature list on Chauvet's website

Synchronized multimedia creator with lighting, audio and video

it can be assumed that the software does indeed do exactly what we need - which after much research and having some affinity to the Chauvet brand in general is one of the reasons we went with ShowXpress. There's no mention of it not being able to consistently synch media and lights. As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm not looking for millisecond accuracy, somewhere close and consistent would be good enough right now.

Support As mentioned by bshoc, do you have any knowledge of a media player capable of outputting midi notes/controller that could be used to solve this issue, as I've not come across any that fit the bill. There's plenty of video editing software (I use Sony Vegas Pro v11 for example) that can accurately play a video file and output midi timecode and/or a midi clock, but not midi note on/off or controller information. It would be great if you could suggest something that we could use. I'm not knocking ShowXpress in any way, as I said I love what you're creating and using it, just we could really so with a workable solution to this synch issue

[support]

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