Adrienne Timecode

Overview

The Adrienne Timecode device drives an Adrienne Electronics timecode card, and uses it to tie the show to LTC/SMPTE timecode. It works in two directions:

Slave: the card reads timecode coming from outside (a sound desk, an audio player, a video server, a master clock), and Onlyview follows it.
Master: the card generates timecode, driven by an Onlyview timeline, and the rest of the installation follows Onlyview.

The card is polled by the Producer machine, so it must be installed there, with its driver. Like the Clock, the device only becomes useful once a timeline is locked to it.

Setup

Create the device in the Content dock -> OBJECTS tab, and give it a descriptive name. One device is needed per card.

Card: the card to use, listed by its hardware address in hexadecimal. The line above the list reports how many cards were found (Adrienne Card Count). If it says 0, the card or its driver is not visible to this machine and nothing else in the dialog has any effect.
Timecode Mode: Slave (the card reads timecode, Onlyview follows) or Master (the card generates timecode, Onlyview leads).
TimeBase: the frame rate of the timecode — 25, 29.97 Drop Frame, 29.97 Non Drop Frame (not recommended) or 30. It must match the timecode you receive (in Slave) or the one your equipment expects (in Master); 25 puts the card in EBU mode, the other three put it in SMPTE mode.
On signal loss: what to do when the card stops seeing a valid signal — Keep playing or Force pause. Only relevant in Slave mode; see Signal loss.
Offset: None, or + / - and a timecode value, added to the timecode read from the card — an incoming 10:00:00:00 with an offset of - 10:00:00:00 puts the timeline at 00:00:00:00. For when the external timecode cannot be changded.

Info

The offset is applied to what Onlyview reads back from the card, not to what it writes to it. In Master mode, leave it at None.

Drop frame and non drop frame

At 29.97 fps, timecode labels still count 30 frames per second, so a non-drop-frame count drifts away from real elapsed time by roughly 3.6 seconds per hour. Drop-frame timecode skips a few frame numbers every minute to stay in step with the clock, which is why 29.97 Drop Frame is the right choice for a long-running show, and non drop frame is marked as not recommended.

No frame is actually dropped, only frame numbers.

This applies to any SMPTE timecode, it is not specific to Onlyview.

Actions

The device can be dropped on a timeline command layer or a QuickKey to command the card directly, with the actions Play, Pause, Locate and Locate Play. Only applies in Master mode.

Locking a timeline to the timecode

A timeline follows the device the same way it follows the Clock. Add a Command Cue (or a QuickKey) with the timeline action Lock Tc, and pick the device (listed as AdrienneTimecode device n°1) in the device list.

If the UnLock Tc action is executed, the timeline will keep playing smoothly, but independently from the LTC timecode.

A red TC indicator is shown on the timeline while it is locked.

Signal loss

In Slave mode, the card reports whether it is receiving valid input, and On signal loss decides what happens when it stops:

Keep playing treats the gap as a transmission glitch: the timeline keeps running on its own from the last known position. Use it when the source is a continuous generator, where a dropout means a cable or level problem rather than an intentional stop.
Force pause treats the gap as a stop. Use it when the timecode comes from a player that stops sending data when paused.

Warning

The two settings behave very differently mid-show: with Keep playing an unplugged feed lets the show carry on and drift out of sync, while with Force pause a single dropout on a noisy line pauses the show.

Drag the device from the OBJECTS tab into an unlocked UserScreen to monitor it. It shows the device name, the current timecode, an indicator that flashes yellow when the timecode changes, and one that turns red when the card is not receiving a valid signal.