Ideas on Scheduling for Permanent Art Installations

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CaseyJ
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 06:52

Ideas on Scheduling for Permanent Art Installations

Post by CaseyJ »

Hello,

I am getting more into permanent installations and I wanted to open up a chat about a few specific tasks that make Resolume Avenue / Arena easier to use in these circumstances.

First let me define a few points on what kind of installations we are talking about.

1) Permanent. As in it's up for weeks, if not months or years.

2) Installation. It is automated and requires minimal intervention.

3) Art. Like video screen, projectors, or LEDs / DMX stuff.

4) Probably runs on a Windows 10 PC that is also well positioned for long term use.

Okay, so what do we want to be able to do?

A) Playback unique media for each weekday, weekend, and holiday.

B) Easily be able to change schedule or media for a given day.

C) Anything else?

...

*) Before we get crazy is there maybe a better piece of software? I see Open Broadcaster Software https://obsproject.com/ is pretty popular but it doesn't do DMX and it also doesn't send Spout (like to MadMapper, etc).

...

Right now I have a solution for A & B but it is kind of clunky.

The whole thing revolves around Windows 10 Task Scheduler. Which is free, and it works, but it needs some refinement and hopefully we can all come away with a better workflow!

So, to load unique media for each weekday, weekend, and holiday you need to at least have a different Resolume File. So lets say we have "Weekday", "Weekend", "Halloween", and "Karen's Birthday".

Windows 10 Task Scheduler lets you create tasks for everyday, only 1 day, every day of the week, etc.

So then we have the "Weekday" file load via a task every S, M, T, W, T, at 8 AM or whatever. Great. Then we have the "Weekend" file load via a task every F & S. Great.

But what about a Holiday?

This is where I am having some trouble.

Ideally you want to just make a new file, called say "Halloween", and have that be loaded via a new task on 10/31/2021. Well, if you do that we already have a "Weekday" or "Weekend" already scheduled.

So you either have to make a special instance for that regular day, or do some trickery to get it to close and then load the correct "Halloween" file afterwards. Trickery such as having two tasks for a holiday spaced a minute apart. 1 that closes the previous Resolume file. Then another that opens the correct file.

This works okay but...

This is the beginning of where Task Scheduler (or my abilities within it) begin to crumble as you get 20 plus holidays plus an intern at the local library managing it and it quickly gets weird, broken, and doesn't play the dam Jack-O-Lantern video on the right day.

Anyways, so maybe there is a better piece of software?

Or maybe there is a better way to use Task Scheduler?

Maybe even a way to integrate calendar or something to load the desired file each day?

Ideally you just want a simple interface, like a calendar or something, and for each day you can drag in a Resolume file and then you are done.

Any ideas on how to make this part easier?

Thanks and I hope this is helpful to someone!

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Arvol
Might as well join the team
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Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2015 17:36
Location: Oklahoma, USA

Re: Ideas on Scheduling for Permanent Art Installations

Post by Arvol »

I'd find someone local who's already getting paid to do this and intern for them. They get help and you get the info you need to start making your own money. If you're in the Oklahoma/Texas area HMU and I might find some work for you when the industry returns to normal.

CaseyJ
Met Resolume in a bar the other day
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2019 06:52

Re: Ideas on Scheduling for Permanent Art Installations

Post by CaseyJ »

Hello Arvol,

Thanks for the tip! I'll be sure to sharpen my axe and would enjoy connecting in the future.

I'll keep this thread posted with any improvements I make in the meantime.

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