Camtwist Automation

[MikeW]

First off, absolutely love your program. Thanks for sharing it with the world.

I've been playing around with the automation feature on camtwist. It is a great tool. However I do have one question. I'm planning on using the automation tool to help schedule a live webcam show. The show will only be available between 6pm-10pm however the cam will be online throughout the day (though I don't want people to be able to see the live footage unless it is between those hours). My solution to this was the following automation sequence:

1. Select Setup: Immediately select setup "Offline"
2. Abs pause: Wait until "18:00:00"
3. Deselect Setup: Immediately deselect setup "Offline"
4. Set Source: Immediately set source "Online"
5. Abs pause: Wait until "22:00:00"
6. Select Setup: Immediately select setup "Offline"
7. Loop (so that it will reset to #1 until tomorrows show)

Steps #1-#5 work like a charm. The issue I am having is that once step #6 happens, the setup "Offline" overlays the source "online". The Offline setup actually has a strobe like effect to it when it runs simultaneously over the online function as if it keeps looping that one offline setup. Perhaps I am misunderstanding the loop action, does this loop the previous action or does the loop reset the automation back to step #1?

Also, is there any way to deselect a source like I can deselect a setup? I think if there was a command like "Deselect Source "Online"" between steps #5 and #6 that would help solve the issue.

To clarify these are the elements within each setup/source:

Setup "Offline" = image overlay showing an Offline graphic

Source "Online" = webcam, graphic overlay with logo and text overlay with twitter hashtag.

Any insight you can offer would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks!!

[SteveG]

It's been a while so I had to go back and read the source code.. I've received to little feedback on this feature I wasn't even sure if anyone was using it. Please send over your suggestions.

o Loop starts over from the beginning.
o The whole source vs setup idea seems strange to me now. I can't really explain why I did it that way. I suppose it may come to me, but as I sit here now, it just seems like a bad design. You're right about needing a Deselect Setup. I'm thinking the best thing to do would be to remove the distinction between a setup with a source and a setup without a source. Treat them the same way. While I'm there, I'll probably change the verbiage to "button" instead of "source". Thoughts?

The solution for now is probably to keep "source" setups to just video sources.

[MikeW]

I like the idea of getting rid of the differentiation. Simply treating sources and setups as the same would definitely simplify the process. Even changing the name altogether to something like "buttons" or keeping it to "setup" (since that is what it is called on the camtwist app "Saved Setups."

Any idea when a fix for this might be coming out? We're a seasonal broadcast so we've only got a few weeks left this year.

[SteveG]

All new development is being done on a Lion (or better) version and will probably not be in any beta form until January at the absolute soonest.

[otisfunkmeyer]

I haven't explored automation much because I don't quite understand it and can't find any documentation.. is there documentation? There is no video in the Youtube about how to use automation as far as I can tell

Do you need help with documentation? CT should be like the most popular software on the whole interwebs... I think more documentation would help...

[SteveG]

No, theres no doc, but good call on the video tutorial. I'll pester Ben about making me one.

I once had someone volunteer to make docs for me, but the problem is that they get out of date unless someone (probably not me) is going to maintain them. Having said that, I'm all for the help!