[QLab] Welcome to QLab 2

[Christopher Ashworth]

Ready?  Let's dive right in:

+ New GUI. QLab 2 offers a single integrated layout with streamlined  
controls to help you work faster.

+ 48 channel output.  Each Audio Cue now supports up to 48 independent  
channels of output and can read up to 16 channels of a multi-channel  
file.

+ Sample-accurate audio synchronization.  QLab 2 provides guaranteed  
sample-accurate sync across all Audio Cues assigned to the same output  
device. You can pause and play the entire workspace, and it will all  
remain sample-accurate synced.

+ Video is also synced.

+ Audio waveform display.  Visually trim the head and tail of your  
audio files. Visually set a looping section of the file.  Add a fade  
envelope directly to the waveform.

+ Dead-simple vamping.  Define a looping section in an audio cue and  
then pop out of it with a Devamp Cue.  Chain multiple cues together to  
create arbitrary numbers of looped sections in a music track.  (You  
can "stitch" multiple cues together because of the guarantee of sample  
accurate sync.)

+ Draw your own fade curves.  Completely customizable.

+ Animate your videos. The new Animation Cue allows you to animate  
opacity, translation, scale, and rotation.

+ Camera Cues. Add a live video feed to your workspace. Animate it  
just like videos from a file.

+ Custom video rendering with Quartz Composer.  You can render your  
videos and camera feeds through your own Quartz Compositions.  Apply  
image filters, warping--anything you can do in Quartz Composer you can  
now do in QLab.

+ Trigger cue lists from timecode.  QLab 2 can follow either MIDI  
Timecode or Linear Timecode--or both at the same time. Each cue list  
can follow a different timecode source.

+ Generate MIDI Timecode with the MTC Cue.

+ Full application scripting.  Thorough scripting hooks let you  
control QLab 2 with AppleScript, Python, or Ruby.

+ Arm / Disarm your cues.  When a cue is disarmed the pre and post  
waits will still run, but the action will not be fired.  Can be set  
from the inspector or with the handy Arm Cue and Disarm Cue.

+ New auto-follow mode in addition to auto-continue.  Preshow music  
creators rejoice.

+ New "Fire random child" mode for the Group Cue.

+ QLab 2 honors incoming MSC parameters, so you can fire specific cues  
in the workspace with MSC commands.

+ Default volume levels for Audio Cues.  Default Group Mode for Group  
Cues.  Added more MIDI patches (you can now patch up to 12 MIDI  
devices in the workspace).

+ Editing audio devices is now done with a full matrix mixer, rather  
than just on/off check boxes.

+ Preferences are now saved with the Workspace, not with the computer-- 
so your device patching and device routing stay with the workspace.

+ Overhead does not accrue.   Have you ever tried to chain together a  
whole whole bunch of short cues, and by the end of it the timing was  
slightly off?  This is because in QLab 1 the small overhead of firing  
each cue adds up. In QLab 2, however, the overhead does not add up. If  
you build a thousand 1 second waits and chain them all together, the  
last wait will finish almost exactly one thousand seconds later.  
(Within a millisecond.)

+ The playback position of the cue list is no longer required to be  
the same as the selected cue.  You may turn off that association, so  
that you can edit cues without changing the playback position.   
Helpful for editing during tech without disturbing your operator.

+ No more working directory.  Files are found via an alias mechanism,  
so while you're on the same computer you don't have to think about the  
directory structure.  The bundle feature will still allow you to  
easily transfer to another computer.

+ No more plugins.  No more trying to figure out which version of many  
different pieces you've got.  It's all a single package, with a single  
build number.

+ More, more, more, and more.  But you don't really want to hear me  
blab about it, do you?

Here you go.  Knock yourself out:

http://figure53.com/qlab

Chris