I'm New From Spectrum And I Need Help!: Scheduler Question

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Scheduler Question

Printed From: Aurora
Category: The Vault
Forum Name: I'm New From Spectrum And I Need Help!
Forum Discription: General usage questions from former Spectrum users
URL: http://www.aurorashow.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=544
Printed Date: 04 Nov 2025 at 1:49am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.06 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Scheduler Question

Posted By: Richaford
Subject: Scheduler Question
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2008 at 11:58am

I have a massive display that clicks off every half hour from 5-10pm in which I run a mixture of 7 shows. On the half hour I run just one show which is about 3.5 minutes or so. On the hour I run 3 shows and sometimes more adjusting the timers acordingly. I can do this easily with spectrum which can be adjusted to the minute on start times and stops with no looping.

An example of my schedule (Timers set acordingly)

5pm - 3 shows @ 11 minutes

5:30pm - 1 show @ 3 minutes

6pm - 3 shows @ 12 minutes

6:30 - 1 show @ 4 minutes

and any mix of shows even up to 30 minutes at any given time untill 10 p.m.

Kinda crazy I know.

When the shows not on I've got (just a guess) 50,000 Plus lights, a dozen or so inflables,tons of yard art such as deer,rocking horses seals,frogs,polar bears and a collection of trees which among other things are double and triple hung with lights for both show time and non show times.

Question.. Can Auroras scheduler pull this off ? So far I can't see that it would..

Thanks

Rick

Replies:

Posted By: Jonathan
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2008 at 12:43pm

You can, but not in the way Spectrum's scheduler did it. With Borealis (Aurora's scheduler), you'll need to change the way you view "show" and "non show" sequences. You'll want to ignore the start of show sequence, and simply use the loop. Just select the sequences you'd like to play, and during "non show times", create a blank audio file for whatever time you need to keep the show times on track (which you can create in Audacity) and program any lights to be on or off as you see fit. In Aurora, there is no difference between a blank sequence (equivalent to Spectrum's "animation" sequence) and a normal show sequence (Spectrum's "music" sequence), except the fact you are using a .wav that has no audio.

So at 5pm, play sequence 1,2,3, blank 19 minutes. This puts you at 5:30. Then play sequence 4, blank 27 minutes, which gets you to 6:00. Play 5,6,7, blank 18 minutes to get you to 6:30. Then play 8, blank 26 minutes to get to 7:00.

So if we were to name your blank audio sequences B19, B27, B18, and B26 (the numbers indicating the time in minutes, your loop would look like this:

1,2,3,B19,4,B27,5,6,7,B18,8,B26. This will get you from 5pm to 7pm, at which point the loop would start over. Schedule that show to end at 9pm. From 9pm to 10pm, create another show that is only an hour long, and your show will end at 10pm. Another way of doing this which gives the random song feel (even though there is no random playlist option) is to add enough songs to the loop that by the time the show ends, the loop has played only once.

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~Jonathan

Posted By: Richaford
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2008 at 3:38pm

I'm not sure what you mean by the way Spectrum works because I can call it to run a unlooped single sequence and tell it 4 minutes and it does exactly that. Then 3 seq's and thell it 13 minutes and it does that all on the same day. I put in 11 different schedules of show in different orders on the same day and thats what makes it a scheduler. Aurora seems to be nothing more than a looped timer and not a real scheduler.

I think this needs to be in the features request because I am not gonna through all that. I have thousands of lights to work on and up keep, I added another 16 channels so more progaming added to my original seq's and I want to write another show before mid December sooo.. I'll keep up with my Aurora for now if or untill it gets to be more time specific. Spectrum did me good in the past and will get me where I need to be for now. I like the Aurora Sequencer. Too bad I can't use it. Thanks Rick

Posted By: Jonathan
Date Posted: 28 Nov 2008 at 4:59pm

I guess then it's fortunate that Spectrum's scheduler works for you. I never successfully got it to run my shows even once. Spectrum was certainly a fancier program, but for a lot of people, it simply didn't work. Aurora by contrast is a much simpler program, and as such it works for more people because there is less that can go wrong. I too would like to see Borealis have the capabilities that Spectrum's scheduler did, but I'm more interested in having it work without error than I am in having it full of features that crash the program every time I try to use it. I'm sure that next year new program features will be implemented. Check back then to see if anything has changed.

Good luck with your show.

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~Jonathan

Posted By: Richaford
Date Posted: 29 Nov 2008 at 12:20am

Will do, I'm looking forward to using aurora in the future. As far as spectrums scheduler goes,I'm nobody special and neither is my P.C.'s. I am an auto mechanic not a computer programmer. But I'm pretty sure I know exactly where people make the mistakes. I made the same ones. Had a hella time at first. Think about it. I run 25-30 shows a day. All time exact in a 6 hour time span and I mix them up everyday as I go. just don't ask it to do more then one day at a time... see yea on the news.. lol..

Rick