Auto fade after playout of sequence of video clips

General
1

I am using CasparCG client (master branch), and, I have a sequence of video clips I want to play out.

That works fine.

I would like though, to have a layer with a static graphic, and play out the video clips on a higher number layer, and, when the video clips are done playing, have the video layer fade to transparent, revealing again the underlying static image.

It seems to me that this should be very simple.

It seems there are commands that will do this, but they don’t have the ‘auto play’ capability, so there’s no way to trigger it to happen without being there to manually trigger it at exactly the right time.

So, how is this done?

Is it also possible to trigger the fade out with a negative time, eg, to mean: before the end of the previous item in the rundown, the fade can easily be started before it hits the hard stop / end ?

Seems there should be a way to auto-play almost every command, but very few seem to have the option to do so?

2

This will mix to empty for 50 frames automatically after the last video:
LOADBG 1-10 EMPTY MIX 50 AUTO

3

I presume it’s meant to be supplied as a ‘custom command’.

Thank you! That gets me part way there.

Is there no way to have it trigger before the playout of the previous clip finishes?

Best Regards!

4

You could also schedule a fully transparent image file after the last clip. It will be triggered so, that the clip that runs before it can be fade out, that means, if the fade (or other effect) has a duration of one second, the effect starts one second before the clip ends.

5

Sounds good. But: how is that done, exactly?

6

As I understand your use case you have a list of clips made to run one after the other, correct? As a last entry to the list you add a image file (PNG or TGA) that is fully transparent. You can add that like a video clip, except you need to switch to the image pane. Then you set the properties (on the right) to a fade effect of, for instance, 12 frames and make it to play after the last clip using autoplay. That should fade out the video, if done correctly. Basically it is only a way to not use a custom command, when you are unfamiliar with the AMCP protocol.

7

You should also be able to use Solid color in the official client #00000000

1 Like
8

Add an empty video from the Tools - Library section of the client library to the end of your group of clips.

Edit the output properties for the clip to have metadata “Fade Out” (not essential, just a nice to have), set the server id, channel and layer as needed and enter the clip name EMPTY into the Target box. Set the Video properties to MIX and your required mix duration (e.g. 50 frames), and enable Auto Play.

When the last clip is played it sends the command suggested by @hreinnbeck to the server.
LOADBG 1-10 "EMPTY" MIX 50 AUTO

This mechanism leaves the chnnel faded out. Before you can see any further videos in the channel you need to issue a layer clear command.

9

Just to be clear “EMPTY” is a colour name for “#00000000” - so there is no need for any files. If a file named EMPTY.XXX exists it will be used, but if one doesn’t exist LOAD/LOADBG/PLAY goes to the colour producer and it will output 100% black with 0% alpha.