Open Source Show Control System V-Control

[vman]

Hi Show Control guys,

for those of you, looking for an open source show control system, I want to introduce V-Control. V-Control is free software licensed under GPLv3. It runs on Windows, Linux and MAC OSX (OSX support still needs a little work) . We did many car shows for Audi, Mercedes and Volkswagen as well as concerts, venues and Museeum installations. V-Control has device drivers for professional devices such as DVS Pronto, Barco Encore, Image Pro and others. In addition there is the ability for the user to develop/add its own drivers.

Until July 2013 V-Control was a commercial product. Now we decide to make it a community driven product. I hereby would like to invite all of you to

• use it
• improve it
• earn money with it
• and of course to support the project.

Support can be as simple as telling others about it, up to contributing code to the project. If you are interested in V-Control you can visit the project home at www.v-control.com.

Thanks, Dierk

 

[vman]

V-Control Version 3.71 is out. We have no new features but some bug fixes.

For those who are interested in a feature list, here it is:

• frame synchronous control of devices
• interactive
• easy to use cuelists
• build in scripting
• build in calendar for scheduling
• control devices that are attached to other V-Control nodes
• handle external events (button trigger, sensor trigger)
• Open system
• write device drivers with the build in driver editor
• V-Control itself is controllable via TCP, UDP, HTTP and RS232. This enables integration and interaction with 3rd party control systems

 

[vman]

We have a new Version 3.7.13 with theese changes:

• Threads are not allowed to make GUI updates any more. Instead of making GUI updates, the thread statuses are written to a list (EngineEventList). A Timer reads this list and updates the GUI as instructed in this list. A new label “Engine Event Message Stack” under the Acknowledge list shows the number of waiting messages in the queue.
• HexCalc window closes now on V-Control shutdown if the window was visible.
• PromptMessage command removed
• Timer Events can now be disabled or enabled by script or cuelist.
• New Main Menu item “Events→ Disable All Timer Events”
• New Main Menu item “Events→ Enable All Timer Events”
• New Contextual Menu Item in Cuelists “Disable Timer Event”
• New Contextual Menu Item in Cuelists “Enable Timer Event”
• New Contextual Menu Item in Scipts “Disable Timer Event”
• New Contextual Menu Item in Scipts “Enable Timer Event”

 

[cisgrig]

just got it a couple of days ago and will set up shortly, looks a bit difficult. Can a user with just regular computer knowledge program this without going nuts ?

 

[vman]

just got it a couple of days ago and will set up shortly, looks a bit difficult. Can a user with just regular computer knowledge program this without going nuts ?

V-Control is a show control software, so beside basic computer knowledge you need to know the devices you want to control and how to set them up to accept commands. Once you understand the main concept how V-Control works, it should be not so hard to begin controlling shows. For non interactive shows (meaning only the V-Control operator fires the cues) there are no programming skills needed. If your projects are more complex then, of course, the programming part becomes more complex as well.

If you are stumbling or have any questions you can contact our forum.

 

[vman]

V-Control 3.7.14 is out

Since we released V-Control under GPLv3 in JULY-2013 we have more then 1000 downloads until now. 60% download the Windows Version, 20% MAC and 10% Linux. However, we have very little feedback. I expected that with more then 1000 downloads there should be some people with questions or comments, but we have only two of them.
OK, I also expect that most people who download V-Control do it like this: Download it, install it, give it 2-5 minutes a try, don't succeed and remove it. That's OK, because people who want to program complex shows without investing one or two days in reading the documentation and playing with V-Control will not be happy with it. But if someone invest one or two days in playing with V-Control, and still does not succeed, I expected that he want to save his investment and asking some questions in the hope he will get a qualified answer (at least thats the way I do it).

OK, you are all very clever people, our documentation is perfect, our software is perfect, so there are no questions and all of our users are happy. Well, this is our goal, but I don't believe that we have reached it. I still see much room for improvement. I would be very happy if some of you could give us some feedback (hopefully positive, but if negative we also interested in this).

And here are the changes in V-Control 3.7.14:

• New: The integrated web server supports websockets. We introduce websockets in our Blog here
• New: Playlist fires Timestrips as well
• New: Remote protocol for the playlist (Up / Down / Fire). With this feature in conjunction with a IO Box such as V-IO one can control the complete Playlist with three GPI contacts.
• New: 45 CallButtons in addition to Playlist. A User can open a Call Button window and have up to 45 buttons, each of them can be assigned to a task. This is for people who prefer buttons to click instead of a list with available tasks such as the playlist. To access the CallButtons window select Playout→CallButtons from main menu.
• Fix: Playlist and CallButton windows now remember the “Stop All before playing a new one” checkbox status (only until the program starts again)
• Fix: Calendar could show wrong weekdays or crash
• Fix: V-Control crash during termination if Webserver is active