more SUGGESTED FEATURES FOR SCS

[eduardo]

mike, thanks for the great prog.

I've already sent you this as a private email but figured maybe the users out there can further comment/refine these ideas. Sorry it is a bit long.

SUGGESTED FEATURES FOR SCS

A "Media Pool" accesible/playable at all times. This would be a box into which you could drag sound files that you may want to preview without having to build a Cue first, just left-mouse clicking would start playback. It would be really nice if this "media pool" could have assignable outputs so you could cue up stuff without having to go to the House.

This "media Pool" should not interrupt the flow of the Cues if they are playing - it should be like a separate device. Similar to the "Hot Buttons" but without having to build a cue for each sound. And it should be possible to browse and add sound files to the Pool even as cues are being executed.

Ideally, once triggered each file would show some playback info such as time remaining, levels. A scrollable Progress Bar would be nice - better yet, a small waveform display. This would also be a nice addition in the regular cues, in place of the Progress Bar, perhaps as an option to aid with slower machines.

The "Media Pool" concept could be expanded to several "Pools" or boxes to organize your sounds, for example music in one libary, SFX in another etc. This could make building a show a lot easier.
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Level Meters would be nice to have in the Cues as well. Nicer still, be able to show them pre or post fader.
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I'd like to be able to "Hot Key" Level Change cues, stop cues etc so these could be triggered without having to stick to the cue sequence. I know you can manually change levels in cues but it would be nicer if one could have a programmed level change available.
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I'd Like to see composite cues available for quicker show building. The ones I can think of are:

Level Change, then Stop.
Currently this takes two separate Cues. If you put the Stop in the same Cue it stops before the Level Change. I guess an option to execute the Stop *after* the Level Change would be OK too.

Level Change, then Pause.
This could also be implemented in the same way as above but we need a "Pause Cue" to be available. This could also be an option of the Stop Cue, meaning you couold choose to Stop or Pause.

Of course having Pause available would be useful only if you could have a "Resume" cue available, and also composite cues so you could go "Resume, then Level Change" (typicaly resume, then fade-up)
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I'd like to see a little mark on the Level Fader to stay and show the programmed Level if one were to manually change it. Sometimes I want to manually play the fader but would like to evenually return to the programmed setting and sometimes you forget where exactly it was.
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I'd like to be able to Navigate Back or Ahead in the Cue sequence without stopping a Cue that is playing.
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I'd like more flexibility in configuring the display. Being able to choose Font size for the different parts would be really nice. Manual resizing (and moving) of other areas would be nice. I find the Go, Escape, top, back next and end Buttons a bit large in my Laptop for example. I know you're setup for best viewing at 1024 x 768 but LCD displays don't look good if setup at anything other than their native resolution.
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I would also like the ability to select and edit cues without having to stop the show
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I would like to see the Stop Cues shown in place with the "live" cues, I find it a bit confusing that my stop cues only show in the top area and also in the Go! button (but only if they are the next manual triggered cue). I like getting a sense of the next few cues as the show goes along by looking at the "live" cue area. This is also why I'd like to see level meters and waveforms, as an Old Sound Guy, meters and waveforms are much more what I'm used to seeing as visual indication of where and what the action is (as opposed to scroll bars and text). I know that the Spreadsheet shows that a cue is "ready" or "playing" but it is not as intuitive as looking at the lower area with a more graphic display of what is going on.
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It would be nice to be able to record fades as an alternative method of building a Level Change Cue. Just play the cue then manually change level while listening. This would be an easy way to build more complex Level Change cues that would be cumbersome to build with the current "offline" type editing. But I know this may be too difficult too do.
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Exporting shows as .txt or .csv or other Excel-compatible file format to allow more control of printouts or integrating with other show stuff
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eduardo

[Mike Daniell]

Thanks for your detailed suggestions, eduardo. As many users will know, enhancements to SCS are mainly driven by user requests, so I keep a record of all such requests.

Media pool: this is a new idea which will require a bit of thought. Sounds like you are selecting effects on the fly?

Level meters: no plans to incorporate these at the moment, but SCS 9 will display dB values. The main issue is real estate, especially as in SCS 9 you will be able to have up to 4 separate devices per cue.

Hot keys: SCS 9 will allow hot keys on cues of any cue type.

Composite cues: SCS 9 will have composite cues. I'll consider modifying my plans for these, however, in the light of your comments. I had planned that the components of a composite cue would fire sequentially, but effectively 'simultaneously'. I can see your need for sometimes waiting until a component ends before firing the next component.

Mark fader with programmed level: coming in SCS 9.

Navigate without stopping currently playing cue: coming in SCS 9.

Flexibility in configuring display: no plans for this at the moment, except for ability to choose your own colors. I will look at reducing the size of the buttons, especially as most users do not click the Go or Stop Everything buttons, but use the right mouse-click or Esc key respectively.

Select and edit cues without stopping the show: coming in SCS 9.

Display stop cues with live cues: coming in SCS 9.

Record level changes: no plans currently, but have thought about this and will consider for a future enhancement. Have thought about including this in conjunction with '3D' sound, so you could move a sound around the theatre.

Exporting shows as .txt or .csv files: no plans at the moment. Could possibly include this as an enhancement to the printing facility.

OK, so now you want to know about SCS 9! I'll give some details of this in a separate posting.

[eduardo]

well, it looks like we got a bunch of good stuff coming!

thank you for the heads up.