Effect Control
Introduction
Effect control can be used to control motion seats as well as water, fog and
light effects for 4D or 5D cinemas. It also allows to open and close the curtain,
turn on and off the light and projector for fully automated presentations.
The Stereoscopic Player 1.5.4 and all later versions support three ways of effect
control: DMX512 output, serial or UDP output and command execution. Effect data
is loaded from an effect file and sent synchronously to the video and audio. To
enable effect control, click File|Settings|Control|Effect Control. Serial
or UDP output, DMX output as well as command execution can be enabled and configured
separately.
Effect control does not work with a private license of the Stereoscopic Player.
Either use an unregistered demo copy, a commercial license or a cinema license.
Any COM port supported by Windows can be used for serial output. For DMX output, a
supported DMX interface is required.
Effect File Format
The effect data are stored in a *.effx file, which is an XML file that can be
edited with Windows Notepad. For a general introduction to the XML format, please
see here. The Stereoscopic
Player automatically loads the effect file if the filename of the video and effect
files match (e.g. Sample.avi and Sample.effx) and both files are located in the
same folder. The effect file starts with an XML header, followed by tags that are
hierarchically structured. The root tag is EffectStream that can have
BytesSamples, DmxChannels, DmxSamples or CommandSamples
child tags.
The BytesSamples tag contains one or more BytesSample tags
that hold the actual data. These data can be sent via a serial COM port or using
the UDP protocol. A BytesSample tag must have a sampleTime attribute
and a text or data attribute. The text attribute contains
plain text while the data attribute contains hexadecimally coded data. Use the
data attribute if you must send mostly binary data. Occasional binary values
can also be included in the text attribute by using an escape sequence.
The text attribute supports the following escape sequences:
Sequence |
Description |
Value |
\\ |
Backslash |
92 (5Ch) |
\a |
Bell |
07 |
\b |
Backspace |
08 |
\t |
Horizontal tab |
09 |
\n |
Line feed |
10 (0Ah) |
\v |
Vertical tab |
11 (0Bh) |
\f |
Form feed |
12 (0Ch) |
\r |
Carriage return |
13 (0Dh) |
\xx |
Any hex code |
xxh |
The DmxChannels tag contains one or more DmxChannel tags that
define which DMX slots are used and how they are grouped together. A DmxChannel
tag must have a slotNumber and a slotCount attribute. If more
than one slot is used for the channel, the byteOrder attribute allows to
define whether the first slot contains the least (value little-endian)
or the most significant byte (value big-endian). By default, the player
holds the output value constant until the timecode of the next value has been reached.
Optionally, a linear interpolation can be defined. To use interpolation, set the
interpolation attribute to linear.
The DmxSamples tag contains one or more DmxSample tags.
DmxSample tags contain the DMX data and work closely together with the
DmxChannel tags. For each DmxSample tag, the channelIndex
refers to the DmxChannel tag it belong to. The channelIndex is
the one-based index into the list of DMX channels. The data attribute contains
the DMX value. Either decimal or hexademical notation (with a leading x)
is allowed. The valid range depends on the slotCount specified in the associated
channel.
Slots |
Minimum data value |
Maximum data value |
1 |
-128 |
255 (xFF) |
2 |
-32768 |
65535 (xFFFF) |
3 |
-8388608 |
16777215 (xFFFFFF) |
4 |
-2147483648 |
4294967295 (xFFFFFFFF) |
5 |
-549755813888 |
1099511627775 (xFFFFFFFFFF) |
6 |
-140737488355328 |
281474976710655 (xFFFFFFFFFFFF) |
7 |
-36028797018963968 |
72057594037927935 (xFFFFFFFFFFFFFF) |
8 |
-9223372036854775808 |
18446744073709551615 (xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF) |
The CommandSamples tag contains one or more CommandSample tags.
A CommandSample tag must have a sampleTime and a file
attribute. The parameters and folder attributes are optional.
The file attribute can specify a Windows executable, script file or any
other file that can be opened by the Windows
ShellExecute function. Applications are started minimized so that they do not
hide the video output.
Important: Enabling command execution puts your computer at risk. When this option
is enabled, verify that there is no effect file or that the effect file does not
contain any harmful commands before opening a video from untrustworthy sources!
Sample File
The following
sample file
illustrates the features of the effect file format and is a good starting point
to create your own effect files.
Troubleshooting
If effect control does not work, then check the points below. To find out if
the effect file has been loaded, click File|Video Properties|Filters. The
3dtv.at Effect Source and one or more 3dtv.at Effect
Renderers should be in the filter list.
- Is effect control enabled in File|Settings|Control|Effect Control?
- Are the file names of the video and effect file identical?
- Are you using a license other than a private license?
- Are the COM ports configured properly (correct port, baud rate, stop bits
and parity)?
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