Titan Mobile Fader Playback problem

[pmcadams]

Hi guys,

I sent an email earlier to the Avo repairs team and thought i'd re-post it here as well to see if anyone could help.

"I bought Titan Mobile approximately just over 3 weeks ago and have pretty much been on tour ever since. It has been running excellently until my last two shows when i've noticed performance has been struggling when releasing a playback on fader. You can physically see in the playback information that it takes quite a few seconds to fully load the playback (% to reach 100), and then the lights physically jitter whilst waiting on the playback to fully load. For example dimmers will stutter as they get brighter, shapes will freeze until the playback has loaded completely.

At first I thought it may have been a result of a couple of weeks constant show morphing, merging playbacks etc. but the same problem occurred on a new show. The touch PC i use is solely for use with Titan Mobile and has not given me any problems before. The spec of the PC meets the recommended specification on the AVO website, details at the bottom of the email. I'm just wondering have I maybe triggered a particular setting that slowly releases playbacks? Flash buttons seem to be working OK, mainly just faders, but at times i have noticed flash buttons begin to lag also.

Unfortunately my PC remains packed in the van over night in a case so only time I will get to address the problem is in the few hours between set-up and doors.

Also one strange situation, I've never set my operating mode to Run in the last three weeks. Mainly because I don't know how. This section seems to be skipped in the 4.0 manual. It suggests that it will be addressed in section 9 but it isn't. It's very possible that i've just completely overlooked it but I've honestly never seen it addressed in the sections of the manual i've needed to study!


Thanks for reading, and hopefully for a quick response. I really need this issue sorted quickly since i'm on tour with the desk until December!"

PC SET-UP: Asus EeeTop ET1611PUT-B0197 All-in-One PC (Intel Atom D425 1.80 GHz, RAM 2GB, HDD 250GB, Windows 7 Home Premium)

Thanks for reading guys, all help fully appreciated!

Paul

[niclights]

At the moment there is no run mode on Titan Mobile. But that will not be the problem.

Which version are you running? If it is v4 then I suggest upgrading to v5 before anything else.

If you can send the showfile to nick.morris at avolites dot com I will have a look.

In case it is somehow hardware related you could open Usb Console and see if it is reading fader movement smoothly.

[pmcadams]

Hi Nic, thanks for the swift reply.

That's what I assumed with Run Mode but wanted to double check since it is alluded to in the manual.

I received my desk on 4.2 two days before I left for tour, so I haven't had the time to get the update since it's been released. The obvious answer seems to be the PC processing speed but it hasn't been an issue before, and it's the only thing i've installed on to the PC. I'll check the USB Console when i get set-up tomorrow and send the showfile over to you.

[SLS]

Hi, just to answer one question, there is no run mode or play back mode unlike the pearl software.
I have also had the same problem, the play back does not load after raising the fader but gets slow. On one occation the fader was fully up but nothing was showing on the screen and no DMX put out. Only after closing the fader and re opening did the play back run. I could never get this to repeat
I put this down to the PC/laptop trying to do somthing important in the background and froze program while it did it.
I did have a problem with play backs running with no fader up, this was sorted by Avo with a mod. too stop noise. I think this only applied to early ser. no.

[pmcadams]

it has been happening with every playback for my last two shows, not just a sometime occurrence. . i've had to get around it by flashing the cue first, then raising the fader. this is obviously far from ideal, if you take into account fader speeds etc. i'll report back tomorrow once i'm able to get set-up again.

[SLS]

As Niclights said update to V5, there is several bug fix and new features,d run the same show again.
Just to add hat we have left our Mobile in a cold van many times to but not had a problem.

[niclights]

If you get a chance quickly try starting a new show with something basic. This will confirm if it is somehow related to your show or not. Also, if it specifically started happening only in the last two shows then perhaps you have a showfile saved from before you can try. Again this will prove if it is a showfile thing and could give you a workable base to start from.

[pmcadams]

i've tried multiple shows and even created a new show. same problem. basically, it is just taking a few seconds for a playback to fully load and therefore run smoothly. i'll keep you all informed.

[pmcadams]

the update has seemingly solved the problem straight away. there's already a difference with the update in that it doesn't display a % of the playback loading and maybe eliminating any possibility of the lag happening again?

I would like to have to known what the problem was but suppose i shouldn't ask any questions and not look back! thanks for all the help guys!

[niclights]

Given that it's now clearly not showfile or hardware related my best guess is something had broken the install and was conflicting, maybe drivers. I doubt it is a fix in v5 but rather simply the fact you re-installed software.

The % bit of the display was largely meaningless as far as I know. It might have provided a visible indication of the problem but I doubt it was the cause. It sounds more like something was either using a large amount of CPU and/or there was a conflict reading fader values.