Show Cue System

I'm working on an upcoming show where I plan to use 2 installations of SCS to run video and sound effects as well as remotely control an ETC Express. In doing some testing with all 3 devices next to each other, I've discovered that the Express doesn't always pass on MSC commands destined for devices on its Thru port if the previous command was destined for it. I will be calling ETC next week on this, but for a 25ish foot control run, would I be better off investigating the use of RS-232 to remotely trigger one of the SCS installs? Also, will SCS respond to RS-232 or MIDI cues if it does not have focus?

The current planned setup: SCS-Video -> ETC Express -> SCS-Audio. The Video playback machine is in the lighting booth next to the Express, and Audio is 1 floor down where its also used as an interface to the mixing desk. I can't combine the SCS systems for a couple different reasons including the SCS-Video machine not having a sound card of good enough quality, the SCS-Audio machine not having enough horsepower to play video (or a second output), and the theater's desire to, when I'm not involved with a production, retain the ability to run lighting, audio cues, and video cues independently of each other with no MIDI or RS-232 links.

Thank you very much for any advice/tips. I've done this before, and ended up using the video play back's onboard sound which just did not have enough of an output level to be useful.

I know this is no help for the ETC issue or RS-232 issue, but I wonder about a work around. Since the ETC doesn't sometimes put the midi messages through, would you be able to make the ETC the third device in the chain rather than the second? I realize that its physical location makes it the second device in the chain, but could you run another midi cable to the other booth and use the midi through on the audio computer?

Oh, and decent sound cards are cheap these days, so putting a sound card in the video computer could be an option, if the theater would spring for it. (I know that it's usually a pretty big IF when talking about theaters spending money.)

Bob Healey wrote:... would I be better off investigating the use of RS-232 to remotely trigger one of the SCS installs? Also, will SCS respond to RS-232 or MIDI cues if it does not have focus?

First of all, I agree with Eric's suggestion of running a second MIDI cable and making the ETC the third device in the chain. But to answer your question, SCS does not need to have focus to respond to RS-232 or MIDI - in fact it only needs focus for keyboard or mouse control simply because Windows sends keyboard and mouse events only to the window that currently has focus. RS-232 and MIDI input messages are sent to which ever program has opened the respective interface, so if SCS has opened the interface then SCS will receive the messages, regardless of focus.

Note that to use RS-232 you will need an RS-232 serial port on both the sending and receiving computers, which these days is not something that comes as standard. Alternatively there are some emulators available such as VSPE.

Thanks for answering the focus question. As for changing the order, I'm going to have to sell the theater on getting a different USB->MIDI interface for video playback. The M-Audio unit they have plugs directly into the target device with no provisions for extension cables. The audio PC has a regular MIDI port set on it. I've got all the needed RS-232 parts - my day job is running super computers for a university so I have all the requisite USB dongles, null modems, DB-9->RJ-45 adapters, etc on hand. Is RS-232 not recommended compared to MIDI for this use?

Bob Healey wrote:Is RS-232 not recommended compared to MIDI for this use?

RS-232 should be fine, so if you've got all the necessary hardware then certainly use RS-232.