Tracking vs. Cue-Only

[sclausenETC]

Ok, I wasn't going to jump into this, but I can't help myself.
First off, always save your shows. Always. For all the reasons mentioned here. Please.
Back to the original subject...
And a word about my console of choice most of the time, since it was called out by name - the Congo. Congo is a preset style console, specifically for Intensity. Preset is a console philosophy, like tracking. In a Preset system, basically, all values are recorded into each cue, instead of recording only the moving values. "Cue Only" is a recording term used on tracking consoles, just like "Track" is often a recording term used on both Tracking and Preset consoles. Preset consoles often offer "Track Editing" which is not the same as being a Tracking console, just like setting a Tracking console to "Cue Only" mode does not make it a Preset console. Whew...
As far as LTP parameters are concerned in Congo, you can choose how you prefer to have them recorded - preset style or tracking style. In my case, I prefer to have them record as tracking data, most of the time. You see, tracking and cue only are RECORDING concepts and they can greatly impact how you edit your show data later on. If you are working sequentially, then tracking makes perfect sense. If, however, you work in a non-sequential way, having to manage all those block cues can be just as annoying as having to make an edit across a number of record targets. Congo offers track editing for intensity and for moving light parameters, even though it's a preset console. Most preset consoles offer some kind of track editing to make those multi-cue edits easier, just as tracking consoles offer cue-only editing for those times where an edit is a one-off in the cue list.
In general, most folks aren't taught, nor do they inherently understand the difference between tracking and preset consoles, or why one is better for some things than others. They each have their place, and each have strengths and weaknesses. And, if you have moved from one console type to another without really understanding why they're different, you probably thought "this console just doesn't think the way I do" and you swore never to use one again. Or if you have had to use one in a situation where the other would have been the better choice, you probably said the same thing.
The best thing to do is to learn how your console wants to work - what its core philosophy is (or if you are shopping, get to know that core philosophy of all the consoles you are looking at). That way, you'll have a better idea if the way you work is in fact the same as the way the console works. I grew up on Expression consoles - so, even though I know how tracking consoles work, they very often drive me nuts - unless I'm working on an event that really benefits from track editing. Even though you say the console thinks the way you do, I offer that it's often the other way around. Whatever you learned on, or whichever console you grew to love, that's what determines your method of working. There is value in understanding all philosophies.
(FYI, I use Congo's preset nature to the Nth degree - I often re-use my presets within the same cue list, so track editing in that case can actually cause me real problems due to context. Your mileage may vary.)
This is my $0.02, and its a subject that I take to heart as a console developer. Thanks for listening...
Sarah

 

[porkchop]

Ok i work in the industry but my major in college is computers, I love technology but in the end it fails, usually at the worst possible time. I've been known to be lazy and not save the show EVERY night before going home but I wouldn't think of not saving most days. I also agree with Tim's method of multiple disks but for a different reason.

Case and point, in high school we left one night save the show onto a disk that we left in the console. Shut it off and went home, we had some serious problems with power fluctuation in the building that night and when we returned to work the next day we found out that the console was cleared because the back up battery was dead, and that somehow in the power fluctuations the console and managed to WIPE the floppy clean, we had to rebuild the show oh and did i mention this is thursday before a friday opening. Fun time let me tell you rebuilding a show with ML's on a crappy Innovator 48/96. So let me repeat what has been said save SAVE SAVE!!!!!!! and then save again.

So this thread is about Tracking vs. Cue-only right? I learned tracking it's how I think, and I like it. My first thought actually has nothing to do with the operator, tracking minimizes the amount of thought the board has to do. Think about it, if you have 50 channels up and you just want to move a ML from focus point A to focus point B in tracking all the board has to do (and all that is saved into memory aka the part you care about) is the change in pan and tilt of that ML, in Q only the board saves EVERYTHING which doesn't make sense from a memory management perspective.

Now that I am don't being a computer nerd for the moment there also the fact that in my design experience tracking comes in handy especially after I've written the cues. All the time I go back and decide, well thats not really the speed i want the gobo to be rotating or, maybe they need a little more light in area X, my changes tend to last the whole scene and with tracking its a matter of changing one or at most two cues where in Q only who knows how long i'll be typing the same command in.

Wow thats long. Theres my two cents

 

[derekleffew]

...My first thought actually has nothing to do with the operator, tracking minimizes the amount of thought the board has to do. Think about it, if you have 50 channels up and you just want to move a ML from focus point A to focus point B in tracking all the board has to do (and all that is saved into memory aka the part you care about) is the change in pan and tilt of that ML, in Q only the board saves EVERYTHING which doesn't make sense from a memory management perspective. ...

Interesting point there, porkchop. But the user should not need to concern himself with the console's memory management. In 1979, when the Light Palette was launched, the board would give memory available as a percentage, not the number of cues, since the console only recorded the changes, number of possible cues remaining couldn't be determined, as obviously a cue that has one channel moving requires less information than one with all channels moving. Many users did not like this, and wanted to know exactly how many cues they had remaining. Light Palette used 5 1/4" floppies. Early ETC boards had a hard limit of cues they could have, and the 3.5" disks stored two, and later five, shows per disk, many times loading the second act (next show) at intermission.

Today's consoles should be able to handle anything asked of them. One console of the past, which had an [odd] key and an [even] key: Record all the [odd] channels at a level in a cue; in the next cue, crossfade all the odd channels out and the [even] channels up. The processor would overload and crash every single time. Not something one would ever use in the real world, but interesting none the less.

When it comes down to it, a lighting console is merely a fast, arithmetic calculator. It outputs dimmer levels at a refresh rate of 44 times/second. During a fade, it looks at where dimmers are, and where they're desired to be in the time spec'd, and calculates what the dimmer levels should be, just a relatively fast multiplying machine. With the advent of shape generators for moving lights, simple geometric formulae have been added, but it's still a pretty dumb machine. Generating and sending 512x 8bit levels at 44Hz is simple; it's the operator interface that uses most of the horsepower.

 

[porkchop]

I knew going in that a modern console could handle the memory requirements pretty easily, I said it mostly for one of those things to think about a little quick math, and if you had 128 channels patched (seems low but the math works out well), assuming a 16 bit stream (8 for address 8 for level) 1.44 MB / 16 bit channel = ~750000 channel changes allowing room for overhead even in Q only thats over 5800 cues. If you have that many cues in a show that's just rediculous. So yah in closing the math point was mostly just a "I bet no one thought of this although some of the older guys might have had to deal with it way back in the day" kind of things. In retrospect the people that dealt with it were computer engineers so we didn't have to.......

oh yah. Have you saved you show yet?????

 

[derekleffew]

Even if I did have a copy of the show file, where the hell am I going to get a spare Strand 300 before curtain?...

So I just found this quote on another forum (Eos) and thought of Charc:
"On that same note, is there a way to have the console automatically save a backup copy of the show to the USB key whenever the show file is written to? Try as I might to get students to save to both on a regular basis, it never quite seems to happen.

Matt Farrow
Technical Supervisor / Ithaca College"

 

[icewolf08]

So I just found this quote on another forum (Eos) and thought of Charc:
"On that same note, is there a way to have the console automatically save a backup copy of the show to the USB key whenever the show file is written to? Try as I might to get students to save to both on a regular basis, it never quite seems to happen.

Matt Farrow
Technical Supervisor / Ithaca College"

Oh Matt, I went to school with him, great guy (we should get him on CB). We didn't have any issues with people not saving when i was there (might have had something to do with the Obsession II and Expression I never being reliable at all!). However, telling the console to effectively make a sort of RAID arrangement with a connected USB device is probably a little hard. Plus, what happens if someone takes the USB device out, or forgets to put it in?

 

[mbenonis]

Cue Only never really made sense to me...I remember always fighting with my Express console back in high school when I wanted to make a change, and then I realized I'd have to re-do every cue (or try to understand its wacky track "feature").

I used an Obsession (serial number 000008, btw) this past year as the board op for a show - I'd never go back to anything else. It "just makes sense" to me.

 

[derekleffew]

As I've said before, those who grew up using piano boards/manual dimmers think in "tracking," while those who learned on multi-scene preset consoles prefer "preset style". On an Express(ion), just learn to use the <Track> key instead of <Record>.

 

[Wolf]

I like tracking for the most part. If you need to rest and start from ground zero with the next cue just clear everything out. I only find it troublesome when someone is not used to thinking with tracking while programing. Also if you design with subs on some boards when you make that cue your in that cue and the subs wont work then, but if you use groups its fine.