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Synchronized Medialist playback with alternating master and slave

Moe

May 03, 2018 12:40

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Hi everyone,

I am currently working on a project and can't find the correct settings in BrightAuthor, maybe someone can help?

This is what I am trying:

2 channel synchronized playback of short video clips randomly chosen out of a Medialist. The videos shall switch between both screens: first a video is shown on screen A, while the other screen is black, then a video is shown on screen B while screen A becomes black.

The videos are only some seconds long. I tried to make a synchronised presentation with Master and Slave and random Medialists. What I achieved is that the Master and Slave play randomly through the medialist sending sync commands at the end of each media item (at least I think they do, or at least the master).

However, how can I manage to get the blacks in between the videos? As said before, the idea is that when the first video on the master unit (screen A) is over screen A becomes black, at the same moment the next video on the slave unit (screen B) starts, and when this one is over it triggers the master to play the next video on screen A while screen B becomes black again.
The videos have different lenghts, and since they are supposed to be randomly chosen I cannot just put them into a simple playlist.

Wouldn't it be necessary in this case that the Slave triggers the Master with a sync command, or in other words: Master and Slave would change every time a video is over... is this possible? Or any other idea how can I configure the presentation to achieve the goal?

Any help would be highly appreciated!

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5 comments

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  Lyndon May 03, 2018 20:09

   

  This isn't really a synchronization project. You just need each player to send a message when its' finished playing, via udp, to tell the other unit to play. 

   

  The master starts with a media list. That plays 1 video at a time. Use a media end event to go from the media list to the eventhandler that stops playback.  In the media end event, send a play2 udp string that's for the second player. On the master, listen for a udp string "play1" while sitting on the event handler. This will take you back to the media list when the second player is finished playing. 

   

  On the second player your event handler will be the starting state...

   

  

   

   

  

   

  

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  Lyndon May 03, 2018 20:10

  Since it's a medialist, it automatically advances to the next item in the list each time it's entered. This is default behavior. 

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  Mlschuetz May 07, 2021 17:08

  Hi Moe and Lyndon!

  Thanks for this post- it is very insightful, and right up the alley in terms of a project I am trying to troubleshoot. However, I am running into some issues- I can get the Master player to play its file and then stop playback, although the second player (slave/follower) is not doing anything; and Master playback is stopped- both blank screens. I obviously have some things mixed up, but don't know what to do. I do have some questions, which may seem rudimentary:

  Does the Video List for the Master player contain only the file it is supposed to play or does it have the complete playlist for all files on all players (both Master and Slave/Followers)? Secondly, and related- does the subsequent Slave/Follower players have just the file it is supposed to play on it's Video List or does it have all the files for all players.

  Any help, advice, guidance would be most appreciated! I feel like I am getting closer to my desired results but obviously very stuck.

  Thanks!

  Mike

   

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  Moe May 07, 2021 17:51

  Hi Mike,

  no, the media lists only contain the files that are supposed to be played on that specific player. I wonder why your second player (it's not a slave, like Lyndon pointed out, just another player that waits for the UDP command from the first one) doesn't start. Maybe you forgot your UDP Input Event at the Event Handler on the second player? Or the first player doesn't send out the UDP Event for the second player?

  My version ran, but the latency of the UDP commands was too big, so the idea to have two screens playing alternating content didn't work out - there was always a delay of a second or more, which was too long for the extremely short video clips I wanted to play.

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  Mlschuetz May 07, 2021 18:10

  Hi Moe-

  Thanks for your comments- I appreciate them.

  Right now I have one player set up (under presentation properties) as a Master with enhanced synchronization; and the other player set up as a Slave. However, based on what Lyndon pointed out and what you say- should all the players be set up as a Master (without enhanced synchronization) and each have their own assigned domain number- or all set as Masters with the same domain? 

  I will double check the UDP Input Event at Event Handler on the second player, but I thought I had that covered. 

  As for the latency, that is too bad- but I suppose that would be expected if the players aren't synched? Luckily, all of my videos are fairly lengthy, so a bit of latency would not be a problem- long as one played, went black- the second played, went black, etc. etc.

  Thanks!

  Mike