Auto-Starting a Cue File

If you are using SCS in an environment where the cues are to be started as soon as the cue file has been loaded, then you can do this by setting the first cue to Auto Start 0.00 seconds after cue file loaded, ie like this:

You can, of course, select a time greater than 0.00 seconds. This could be useful for the scenario described below.

Auto-Starting when Windows starts

Windows allows you to nominate some programs to be started automatically when Windows is started. The easiest way to do this is to add the program to the Windows Startup folder. For example, in Windows 7 Click the Windows "Start" button and select "All Programs." Right-click the "Startup" folder in the menu and select "Open All Users." If you want to auto-start SCS when Windows is started, copy into the Startup folder a shortcut to scs11.exe, such as by copying the shortcut that's on your desktop.

By combining these two features, you can have your cues automatically start when Windows is started, which is useful for some environments such as museum exhibitions. Remember that by default SCS opens the last-used cue file when it is started.

If you are using SCS with SM-S then you can add SM-S to the Startup menu as well. You will need to have your SM-S dongle inserted when you start the machine. It doesn't matter in which order SM-S and SCS are started if they are both included in the Startup folder. If SCS is setup to use SM-S and SCS cannot connect to SM-S, then SCS keeps trying for up to 20 seconds, which should be enough time for SM-S to successfully start.

Since your Windows environment may be starting several programs and services at startup, you may find it beneficial to delay the start of the first cue to prevent audio break-up. This can be done simply be setting a higher value in the time field before after cue file is loaded. You could, for example, set this to 60 seconds.