Quote Originally Posted by gillekes View Post
Hello everybody,

Another is external triggering. The show must start with the push of a button.
What's the best way to do this?
Is it possible for the Catalyst to recieve rs 232 commands?
Would it be better to use a mac Pro for running the movies and a mac mini for the showcontrol part?

Thanks
Hello,
You can program all this in Catalyst.
You need to make up a sequence in a cuelist. Set the clock source to internal or incoming timecode or timecode off a catalyst layer, whatever your install requires. Then drag whatever you need to into the cuelist; external 422players/switchers/presets/applescripts/commands for triggering other cuelists.

The sequence can be triggered from a push button, but you'll need a little bit of hardware. I've done it in the past using a midi relay box. Wire a non locking "push to make" switch accross the relay and program the box to output a midi note or a program change when the relay is closed. plug the midi output into a USB midi interface and plug that into your mac.
In catalyst set the midi triggers section of the control window to look at the midi interface you're using and assign the first event/cue in your cuelist to the midi note/program change output by the relay box.

As far as i know you cant trigger catalyst using RS232, however if you ask nicely in here on the feature requests section in may get included in a future update. You can of course control external equipment using RS232 or 422.

I dont think it would make that much difference performance wise if you seperate the show control onto another machine, it would depend entirely on the reasources being drawn by the movies playing, and how complex your show control sequence is.
Personally if I had the option I would seperate them, not only from a reasources point of view but because it can often make things much easier. Also if your mac pro dies, you not only loose your video you also loose your show control and hence all the external kit you're controlling.

Hope this is helpful,
Please contact me if you need to know more

Paul