I know that the Hog III consol has the ability to play audio tracks from the built in cd rom drive. To my knowledge it is not available on the H3PC. I would like the ability to play any audio file from my H3PC. It would also be nice to not be limited to using the cd drive. I would like to store the audio files in the same folder as the show with the ability to back them up along with the show.
I agree with this. would like to be able to timecode a show with CDs I have at home. I thought it was already possible and that the sound pane of the control panel had just moved in v3. :headbang:
The ability to control the CD is in the H3 software. However, it does not include the Hog3PC software since the CD is not attached to the console.
About the only option I can think of right now would be to load iTunes (or your favorite media player software) and use something like Rosco Keystroke to trigger iTunes.
That's about the only way I can think of off the top of my head.
Anyone know if there is a technical reason why this feature hasn't been implemented with the windows based systems? I have always assumed it was a marketing decision to add value to the full H3 console (iPC, RH, RHFB have attached cd drives too, but do not support this feature). As mentioned above, being able to trigger .mp3's and the like (not just CD's) from H3PC would be awesome.
I recently purchased the LTC widget to get around this problem. When I don't have a source from a player, I am able to do a workaround.
I have a LTC signal track which I recoded into my PC. I lay that down as the Right audio channel on a song and keep the song on the Left channel. This only gets me a mono mix, but it is a quick workaround.
It would be much easier to have this feature availble, and I asked about it a couple years ago, and HES said it is on their list of things to implement sometime soon. I never thought of using the keystroke for something like this...Interesting idea.
If it is a marketing thing with HES I would be willing to pay for this option as an upgrade. It would make for seemless playback without having to have the other periferials. Mabye it could be part of the LTC widget ie the LTC could act as the dongle to allow the feature.
[QUOTE=spcentral]I never thought of using the keystroke for something like this...Interesting idea.
I have, on occasion, used Keystroke as a "cheap" media server triggering some of my files from iTunes and spit it out on the DVI from my Mac full screen. Surprisingly, it did a pretty good job. :)
[quote=jxgriffi]I have, on occasion, used Keystroke as a "cheap" media server triggering some of my files from iTunes and spit it out on the DVI from my Mac full screen. Surprisingly, it did a pretty good job. :)
Thanks for the suggestion. I am looking into that as an option. It may work great for what I need to do. With this option you still have to have the LTC widget to get the time code back into hog.
[quote=spcentral]I recently purchased the LTC widget to get around this problem. When I don't have a source from a player, I am able to do a workaround.
I have a LTC signal track which I recoded into my PC. I lay that down as the Right audio channel on a song and keep the song on the Left channel. This only gets me a mono mix, but it is a quick workaround.
It would be much easier to have this feature availble, and I asked about it a couple years ago, and HES said it is on their list of things to implement sometime soon. I never thought of using the keystroke for something like this...Interesting idea.
I have also had the same response from HES a few years ago. I would love to hear from Brad on this.
[QUOTE=Kenneth Bell]Thanks for the suggestion. I am looking into that as an option. It may work great for what I need to do. With this option you still have to have the LTC widget to get the time code back into hog.
If you convert it to MTC, you can go directly in on the MIDI port. If you need true LTC (SMPTE), then yes, you need the LTC widget.
[QUOTE=Kenneth Bell]So what if any advantages are there of using SMPTE verses MTC?
MTC is basically, for lack of a better term, "dumb" timecode. Once it gets its initial "frame", it counts. However, if you're true timecode changes during the run without a pause, MTC will NOT pick up on this and just continues to count frames.
Ex: Timecode coming into PPS2 starts at 00:59:50:00 and runs. At 01:11:12:00 (1 Hour, 11 minutes and 12 seconds) it changes to 02:00:00:00, MTC will NOT pick up on this and will continue with 01:11:12:01 and so on. It HAS to have a pause in there to catch the timecode change. Other than that, it really works the same.
[QUOTE=Kenneth Bell] So if i use the key stroke and the PPS2 do you recomend the SFX audio playback as the play back device?
This can be anything...iTunes, whatever. If you code your tracks with TC on Left and Music on Right, you can just take a stereo out of the computer and split it to 2 mono sources. One goes to Audio and one goes to PPS2.
I have used the pps2 before and it works, but like Jon said, it just starts and runs.
I have a way that will allow you to hard sync an audio track with SMPTE / Midi. It requires a mac, midi device to run to your console (or a midi over Ethernet for hogpc which is a driver on both computers that connect to eachother) and a better audio output device if needed.
Also need a multitrack audio editor. I have the one below and works well. www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/amadeuspro.html
Install all of the programs, doing soundflower last since it needs to reboot. Use a multitrack editor to take the 2 channel audio file that you have, and add a 3rd track of SMPTE timecode. Assign the audio file to be left and right (front) and the timecode to center or something like that. I would allow a little bit of time code to lead before the audio starts so it can lock. Export the audio tracks to AIFF format.
Now open Qlab. Drag the clip into qlab. In the preferences, connect patch 1 to the soundflower 16 channel interface. In the cue list, select the newly added multi channel audio track. In the inspector under the levels tab, change the levels of the cross points to change what audio is going where. On Amadeus, 1 was the timecode (set to center when I encoded it) and 2+3 were left and right of the track. I assigned Left and right to 1+2 for playback and 3 for timecode.
Now open SMPTE Reader. Set the audio input to Soundflower 16ch and the stream to which ever channel the timecode track is being sent. Chose where the MTC will be sent to.
Now open up LineIn. Change the Input from to the soundflower 16ch then select your output device. Click advanced and assign the correct channels that the left and right stream are being sent through. Then click pass through.
You now have a hard synced timecode system. When you stop the track, SMPTE reader stops as well as the MTC. As you move around in the track, it will lock to where you are. It does take about a second to lock back in, but its still going to stay the same place every time. I also have 20 tracks of 20 minutes of smpte (hours 00 – 19) and 4 tracks of 30 minutes of timecode (hours 20 – 23).
I would be more then happy to share for anyone that wants them. If you get lost or need help let me know. There are a lot of steps, but once it is all done, it works nicely. You can also set up Amadeus to output to the soundflower as well so you can change the place in the song by just dragging the playback bar. Qlab is just a playback program. But the nice thing about it is that you can use it to start and stop certain tracks at specified times, or you can have midi control, which would allow the hog to start and stop it. Its really cheap for a midi license for it.
Also, the MOTU Midi Timepiece is a 1u box that will convert LTC to MTC, can also connect to your computer via USB. It is relatively inexpensive.
Well its not so much a problem with midi time code. Its mostly that pps2 device.
I helped a friend with a project where he needed a computer with protools to track SMPTE coming from video people. We originally got the pps2, and found it to not work well at all. What would happen is that we would start the timecode at a spot and then it would begin to freewheel. It basically looked for a starting point and start counting until it was reset on the unit itself by a switch. That didn't work because they were going to be starting and stopping the clip all day, and my friend wasn't going to sit by it and reset it. So we got the timepiece. It will convert in real time, allowing it to start and stop at any point. You can set it to freewheel if you wanted it to though.
The SMPTE converter posted above will not freewheel, only lock together as well. If the SMPTE stops, the MTC stops.
