Quote Originally Posted by micpool@mac.com
One other surprising aspect of this is that when the system glitched badly (i.e before I converted the incoming cues to stills) and blanked the screens one of the projectors actually lost sync (the resolution message came up on screen when it regained it a couple of seconds later.) The projectors are fed with Smart E vga to CAT5 systems. I can understand the system not being able to find a frame to output but not this disturbing the output sync.

Mic
there is nothing in catalyst that could cause this to happen.

this might be a power glitch caused by a lighting or video cue.

certainly nothing in software would cause projectors to loose sync.

suggest you look for other factors related to staging or other equipment
Quote Originally Posted by micpool@mac.com

Finally, the only feature of Catalyst I have difficulty getting along with is the fact that it outputs black (or more accurately a transparent layer) whenever it has any delay in loading a clip . If it didn?t do this you could just jump from clip to clip (or still to still) on a single layer when all you wanted were hard cuts which would make programming so much easier. Why can?t the system say to itself ? have I got a new valid video frame to place on this layer?? and just hold on to what it has when the answer is no. If I don?t tell it I want a black screen I don?t expect it to give me one, ever!

Mic
the problem here is that loading a new movie takes a variable ammount of time.
and so if the effect is to switch from one clip running to another.
suggest cue programming strategy like this-

preload the movie clips required into different layers.-- once they are loaded they play frames very quickly.
use "play if intensity >0" play modes on the layers you want to switch between.
then simply move the intensity to 0% if you want to pause it, and 100% for it to play.

this might be a simpler solution for you.

-- control the cutting by using intensity.
this should product the most seemless transitions.

Its much better to preload the required movies onto different layers - than it is to load a new movie onto the same layer.
loading a new movie onto a layer can take too much time

----

its also the computer resources required on older machines to hold copies of the last movie loaded when the next one loads...