Good afternoon, I’m working on a rundown that contains many lower thirds, and some of them use the same template, but I want to be able to distinguish them quickly. Is there a way to include the text values in the name (“template name” + _ + “text1” + _ + “text2”)? Or is there somewhere else I can quickly view this other than the Inspector window?
Thank you very much.
I had the impression, that it shows the first few fields in the second line of the templates display. But I don’t use the official client not regularly, so I don’t remember exactly.
No, it only appears on the right, but I want it to appear on the list. What client do you use?
You are right. - I usually build my own clients.
Do you have any of your clients publicly available? Or do you know of a way to showcase the value of the text more quickly?
In the “standard” SVT client there is a Metadata Label field at the top of the Inspector panel. This is a free-text display whose content is shown on the top line of every rundown item. This text is visible in both normal and compact display views. When a new template item is added to the rundown the client defaults to making the label content the same as the template name. I frequently (manually) edit the label content to show the two main template key values.
If you have several template names you regularly use you could edit the label field to include the template name and placeholders for the key values. Store the edited template as a preset. Then add the rundown item entries using the presets, followed by editing the display names and copying those to the label.
The rundown is stored as an XML file. It has a simple structure for each item. The first few lines of an example template item are shown below.
<item>
<type>TEMPLATE</type>
<devicename>CasparCG GFX 1</devicename>
<label>STORYSTRAP_2L</label>
<name>STORYSTRAP_2L</name>
The key names and values are further down the item block:
<templatedata>
<componentdata>
<id>f0</id>
<value>Christopher Columbus</value>
</componentdata>
<componentdata>
<id>f1</id>
<value>Explorer</value>
</componentdata>
</templatedata>
A simple software process, for example something written in Node.js, can read the saved raw rundown and auto edit the label to be the last part of the template name (missing any folder elements) plus the contents of the key fields then save the edited rundown ready to be read into the CasparCG client.
Perfect, I’ve achieved it with a .js. Thank you so much.
Now, I just need to ensure that when I import a template into my rundown, the layer in which it runs is set to layer 3 by default, for example.
I already set it in Blueprint, but it doesn’t seem to be working.
The channel and layer used by the template are also part of the XML definition
<channel>1</channel>
<videolayer>20</videolayer>
So you would have an option to set your own default layer by changing the <videolayer> to your wanted layer.
There is also a <color> tag that can set the backround colour of the item. Would using color (colour) help you locate which type of template is in use? Of course there may be insufficient available colors in the client code for the number of template types you require in one rundown.
But isn’t there an option that when I put a template in my rundown it is directly placed in x layer?
The default channel number and layer for each media type are not controlled by user-set options. The settings are defined in a C/C++ header file used during client compilation. The file is src/common/global.h in the client source distributions. The channel and layer values are part of the namespace Output segment. The following block shows that section from the Client version 2.3 source code distribution.
namespace Output
{
static const int DEFAULT_CHANNEL = 1;
static const int DEFAULT_VIDEOLAYER = 10;
static const int DEFAULT_AUDIO_VIDEOLAYER = 30;
static const int DEFAULT_FLASH_VIDEOLAYER = 20;
static const int DEFAULT_DELAY = 0;
static const int DEFAULT_DURATION = 0;
static const bool DEFAULT_ALLOW_GPI = false;
static const bool DEFAULT_ALLOW_REMOTE_TRIGGERING = false;
static const QString DEFAULT_REMOTE_TRIGGER_ID = "";
static const QString DEFAULT_DELAY_IN_FRAMES = "Frames";
static const QString DEFAULT_DELAY_IN_MILLISECONDS = "Milliseconds";
static const QString DEFAULT_PLAYOUT_COMMAND = "Play";
}
If you want to change the values you will need to download and install the correct version of the QT system to compile and build the updated client - one install for each host used to build the client for the operating system of interest.
But inside the template files there is no place where I can tell the layer?
No setting within the template file - the target channel and layer are set by the AMCP command that loads the template for replay. You may operationally require the same template twice - once in a low layer and the second on a higher numbered layer with different data. The visibility of the instances is then controlled by mixer commands.
The CG ADD definition is shown below.
CG [video_channel:int]{-[layer:int]|-9999} ADD [cg_layer:int] [template:string] [play-on-load:0,1] {[data]}
[cg_layer:int] is ignored by HTML templates.
But I have two templates, named (Template A) and (Template B). I want all Template A instances to go through layer 3, and Template B instances to go through layer 4 by default.
Auto selecting a layer is not a feature supported by the standard client. Your only options with the SVT client I can think of are:
I have several templates in my rundown, and some are running simultaneously. How can I distinguish which ones are active and which ones are not?
The client does not indicate which layers are currently active, but the server does via status information output in Open Sound Control (OSC) messages. The SVT client uses OSC data to drive the clip progress meters in the rundown item(s) and show the audio amplitude meters.
There is a summary of the OSC data here on the CasparCG Wiki, including settings that may be needed in the server for dedicated OSC processing units.
There are OSC messages for each defined channel and each active layer of the channel. For example when channel 1 layer 10 has a clip loaded there is a message with address /channel/1/stage/layer/10/foreground/producer which tells you the type of producer in use on the layer - “ffmpeg”, “image”, “image-scroll”. For a template layer the producer name is “html”.
A layer with a loaded template includes an OSC message with an address of the form:
/channel/1/stage/layer/20/foreground/file/path
The property sent in the message is the full path to the template. Example:
file://c:/casparcg/ccg/template/HTML/CAMDEN-DOTMATRIX.html
When the template layer is stopped (client key F1) the producer name remains “html” but the …file/path message is not in the report.
So your program will need to capture and process the OSC data, sending indications of your choice onto a display system of your choice. The intercept can be either via a system such as node.js or using a C# or similar support library written and released for CaspaCG.
One caution - the format of the OSC messages is significantly different for the version 2.1 server system, but there are also some subtle variations between servers versions 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4. A good network probe tool such as WireShark is a major benefit when developing OSC receivers and processors.