Advanced Track Settings
1) Dialog Elements
1 - Timeline
The timeline is designed to give a graphical representation of where your marks are during your track. Each mark will appear as a thick blue line at the specified position in time. When you move your mouse across the timeline, a tooltip will appear showing you the location of the track that your mouse is currently over.
As the track is played using the controls (5) a thin blue line will move across the timeline designating the current position. To see more or less detail, simply press the plus (+) or minus (-) buttons to zoom in and out respectably.
2 - Mark List
This is a simply list of all marks for this track in chronological order. It is designed to give you a list of events that will occur during the playback of this track. The time and action are displayed for each mark. Selecting a mark (by clicking) enables the mark modification section (3).
2 - Mark Modification
This section becomes enabled when a mark is selected in the mark list (2). This section allows you to change the time for the mark to a level of milliseconds, the action that the mark will perform, and any further details that this mark will need. Also, you can enter a note for future reference.
Depending on the action selected, some elements may be disabled. If "DMX Scene" is selected, the dropdown to the right of the action selector will be enabled and contains the numbers 1-35 which will correspond to the scene in Chauvet to activate (this process is described later in this page). If "Output ON" or "Output OFF" is selected, the dropdown to the right of the action selector will be enabled and contains the numbers 1-8 which correspond to the output channel that is desired. Lastly, if "Show Image" is selected, the image box and "Browse" button become enabled where you can select an image.
4 - Notes
This text box will allow you to enter notes for this entire track. These notes will be displayed during the playback of this track.
5 - Playback Control
This sections controls the playback of the track in this dialog. The "Preview Entire Track" button will set the position to 0 and start playback. It is intended to test the entire track. The "Pause" and "Play" buttons simply pause the track when it is playing and play the track when it is paused. Lastly, the "Fade" button will fade the track just as it would fade in playback mode.
6 - Fade Settings
These settings change what will happen when you press button #2 on your remote in playback mode. If "Fade" is checked the song will fade out. If "Autoplay Next Track" is checked then the next track after this one will play after the fade (if applicable) has finished.
7 - Track Settings
This section contains various settings for this track. If "Autoplay Next Track" is checked, the next track will automatically play if this track finished naturally (runs to completion). If the "Autoplay This Track" is checked, this track will automatically play if queue'd to. Lastly, the volume selector will allow you to choose a volume level 1-100 at which this track will play at.
2) Marks Explained
A mark is simply an action that will happen when the track reaches a certain point in time. For example, if there is a mark at 5.5 seconds with action Pause, then the playback will pause when the track reaches 5.5 seconds. Marks allow you to add rich features to your show and/or presentation that regular playback cannot accomplish.
2.1) Hard Pauses
Hard pauses function like the begining of a new media file. For example, if you were to fade the media and a hard pause exists after your current position, MediaStar will queue to this mark after the fade has completed. Similarly, using Previous will go to the latest hard pause before the current position.
2.2) Outputs
Outputs are proprietary RF receivers that allow you to turn a relay, light, servo, pump or any other device ON or OFF without the need for any wiring. Outputs have 8 selectable channels, and this channel must be selected if using an Output type mark.
Note: You cannot trigger the same output more than once every two seconds.
2.3) DMX Scenes
All DMX works in tandem with Chauvet ShowXpress. You will have to setup you DMX scenes in this software and MediaStar will trigger these scenes (1-35). You will need to refer to the ShowXpress user manual on how to setup your scenes and macros.
2.4) Images
You can have your track show images at any time during playback, and the Image type mark will accomplish this. To show an image, simply create an "Image Show" mark and select the image. To hide this image, create an "Image Hide" mark.
2.5) Volume
You can midify the volume of the track during playback with a Volume mark. This can accomplish the same effect as fading the volume with other editing software.
2.6) Custom
This mark sends a keystroke to the software that was configured during setup. If you are interested in these marks, please contact us for more information.
3) Adding a Mark
Adding a new mark can be accomplished in two ways. The first and easiest way is to find the desired location/time on the timeline (#1) and right click. A menu will appear allowing you to select the action for your mark. This is what the menu looks like:
Another way to add a mark is to simply right-click in the mark list (#2) and select "New Mark".
As soon as a new mark has been created, it is selected for modification (as described below).
4) Modifying a Mark
All mark changes occur within the "Current Mark" window (#3). To modify a mark simply select it in the mark list (#2) to the left. An example mark is shown below:
In this example, this is a Pause mark that will occur at 3 minutes, 39 seconds and 81 milliseconds. To modify this mark you can change the time, action, and sub-action (such as DMX scene, OUTPUT number, or IMAGE). When all changes have been completed simply press the "Update Mark" button to save your changes. To discard all changes simply do nothing.
Note: The time is expressed by Minutes:Seconds.Milliseconds.
Note: If you enter just a number for time, it is interpreted as seconds.
5) Playback Controls
The playback controls (#5) allow you to play this track with all of the marks in the marks list. The buttons actions are described above.
6) Changing Track Position
It may sometimes be useful to change the playback position of the track for testing purposes. To do this, simply left click on the timeline at the desired position.