Shutter problems in showtime.

D

Dan UK

Member
When I place a 'Reset Track' command into the showtime timeline I am getting shutter issues when playing sections of a that showtime show in the 'Live' section of showtime.

The section that has the 'Reset Track' just before it on the time line will play at the click of the button in Live but only most of the time, sometimes it will just do nothing. Then the next time you click the button it will play again.

If I move the 'Reset Track' into the same position but into the FX section of the timeline (just as you would with a zoom up from dot for instance), this does not happen (and you no longer hear the shutter opening and closing)

*This does not happen with all lasers only one. I have 2 Arctos 10 watt white light lasers and the other one does not do this*

The reason I am inserting a reset track into the timeline is because the write out effect and some other FX will not work unlesss reset track precedes them on the timeline.

1. Should I be inserting reset track at all or is this just for the end of a show to blank the laser.

2. When inserting reset track, should this be done using the blanking frame, or can you just drag reset track onto the timeline direct.

3. Is this an issue with the laser shutter (Arctos 10 watt white light) and not Pangolin at all.

I need some help here as the show is unstable at the moment.

Plenty of other shows I look at seem to have reset track throughout the timeline. Any ideas?
 
If this happens with one projector only, this is projector-related.

10 watt (!) projectors are very powerful and they for sure have built in safety devices.
I guess you have mechanical shutter and some electronic circuitry that detects size of the projected image. If image is too small, shutter closes and prevents a single powerful beam to be output (it may make some serious damage).

With 3W Arctos projector I had an issue too. The shutter was very slow and sometimes it got stuck in closed position :mad:

My workaround was to draw a black circle instead of Reset Track with frame zero. So the scanners were moving all the time and the shutter didn't close at any time.

Second possible workaround (only if your shutter is controlled directly with Shutter lines on ILDA connector):
Open the Pallete settings for this projector and go Directly to palette editor.
There you will find a slider named Shutter. Select a Black color and move the Shutter slider. You should hear the "click" of a shutter to open position.

Notice - any of such workarounds lowers the security of the whole system.

The best idea is to repair your powerful projector.
 
Live

It happens when the scenes/modules are touching each other on the time line
Try to leave space between the scenes/modules
even a second will do the trick
 
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