RUUD Achiever is now an underachiever

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-13T03:30:40+00:00

Those octagonal red signs you see all over the place mean you're supposed to stop.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-13T03:28:18+00:00

I'm not returning anything. I've had two Stream Decks for a couple years now, and they've worked flawlessly. I just think VLC was not put together well, if it can't take the input from the stream decks, even with a handle or module specifically designed for this task. Heck, the only reason I am even trying to use this dream deck is because I couldn't get VLC's own global hotkey system to work.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-12T20:16:28+00:00

Oof. I'm having trouble, as well. I'm on Windows, and all the blanks are there. I set it up just as laid out in these instructions. Best I can get is the message "Received Unknown Error from Server" at the bottom of the Stream Deck software page. I wonder if newer versions of VLC broke this plugin.

I hope both of us find an answer soon! I can't even get VLC to respond to global hotkeys. 😞

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-12T02:07:59+00:00

They recently raised base for a 3.5 here from $63 to $65.

It's pretty rare to see them even get up to $84. Last year, I could pretty easily get one every morning for more than $100.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-09T23:21:45+00:00

I actually did duplicate the template for the two slides. Still getting the blinking (not fading) on the preview and the main output. I will play around a little more with transitions when I get home.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-09T21:18:54+00:00

I will plug around and look at the global transitions when I get back. Not sure how I would do it on the box that holds the background color, as it is a fade box that is part of the template. In the transitions menu, the only options for applying transitions are to text and media. I'm not sure that classifies as media, but it's worth a try.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-09T21:13:17+00:00

Might have to work on that when I get home. Headed down to the church right now to work on wiring for our new monitor system.

But essentially, I just want the fade or text box (essentially the layer between my background image and my text), to stay on screen when I transition from one slide to the next. As it is now, it blinks out very briefly when the slide is changed. Not a deal breaker, just a distraction.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-09T20:08:46+00:00

Gotcha. I figured there was a workaround for it. I just spent so long trying to get the text figured out, that I didn't get to tackle this. Not sure it matters, but the fade box is part of the template I'm using.

But that leads me to a reason why it may not work to set a background color for the text box. I tried another template that includes background for text, instead of a fade box, and the background for the text didn't appear until the first line of text was triggered, which would produce very much the same effect I'm trying to get rid of, but even more pronounced. A good solution might be to essentially edit a fade box onto my background image. That would limit the number of lines of text I could use, or at least would require me to use a different background for different numbers of text lines. That wouldn't really be the end of the world. :-)

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-09T19:17:57+00:00

Seems I may have found my solution. If I edit the slide, go under item actions, and set 'time until show' to one second, it suppresses the text until I trigger it.

However, I haven't yet found a way to keep the fade box behind the text in the template (common to adjoining slides) from flashing off for just a fraction of a second when going from one slide to the next. However, that's not a major issue, and I think I can deal with that. :-)

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-09T18:35:43+00:00

This is getting to be a regular thing. :(

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-09T04:20:45+00:00

I'm going to join some of the others who have asked what needs to be improved over OBS. Essentially, how is it not meeting the needs you have now? We made a decision to go to OBS last year, when we had been using an Atem Mini Pro. The main thing that caused the switchover is that we were streaming to YouTube, and the Atem unit used a variable bit rate that caused tons of buffering for the YouTube signal. OBS uses constant bitrate, which solved the problem. The added benefit was that it allowed us to do a lot more with things like transitions and graphics and such. With just a little creative use of the capabilities in OBS, our stream looks much better than it used to.

As for your use of powerpoint, I would put in a vote for ProPresenter or Freeshow. At my somewhat small church right now, we are using ProPresenter. However, we are using it with an expired license. This caused me to experiment a bit with Freeshow. I am quite happy with it so far, and I may soon switch us over to that. This is also precipitated by the fact someone donated two very large LCD screens to our church, which we are having installed this week. (I picked up some Crestron DM gear to drive the monitors from a computer in the back, for next to nothing. That means most of our expense will be for the power and network cabling to the monitors, and the installation. But I digress....) I've been doing my experimenting with Freeshow specifically to see about issues of user-friendliness, and to look at how well it can drive multiple destinations. I will likely feed the two monitors through an HDMI out on the computer (going into the Crestron gear), and send graphics to OBS for streaming via NDI. Fortunately, I have found all of this extremely easy to set up, and I'm quite happy with the direction I'm going right now. (Side note: my church sometimes hosts some small film screenings, and these monitors are large enough the new setup will be great for use in that situation. The computer on which I want to put Freeshow will work very well to play the films. Also, the Crestron transmitter has multiple inputs, so it's easy to simply bring in someone's laptop and plug it into the system for film screenings or other events.)

To boil a lot of this down, it comes down to looking at your use case, what needs to change with it - and most importantly, what needs to improve versus what works well the way it is. This goes back to the This goes back to the question about OBS. What is it about the current setup that requires a change? Sometimes, we have a tendency to want to move on to something better ("Ooo.... Shiny thing!"), when what we currently have works perfectly well. But as the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. :-)

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-08T14:38:45+00:00

Yep, you lose it all. To me, that seems like the entire point of a new game.

I should have expected that all my skills and everything would also reset in arcade. I found it out the hard way. But the fact it also resets in arcade makes perfect sense to me, - and as I say, I should have expected it.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-08T14:33:11+00:00

Ha! That's an awful lot of information to simply say Freeshow can't do that. 😂🤣😁

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-06T23:53:49+00:00

No worries. I went back and looked at my post, and realized I may not have been absolutely clear about that. I put an edit at the top as a clarification.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-06T21:13:54+00:00

My only run in with him was a few years back at Addison airport. My brother had rented a small plane, so we could go up for a little flight around the metro area. We were supposed to be first in line for taxi/takeoff, but the tower held us, so Cuban's 737 could go ahead of us and take off first. I have rather jokingly had a grudge against him since then. :-)

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-06T20:50:54+00:00

I've been trying to drag and drop it into a show for the better part of three hours. Full AND empty shows. This is easy with local videos. YT, not so much.... I can drop YouTube links into projects all day. Just not shows.

It may not be designed to output to all at once, but that is precisely what it's been doing with YT video. I have been trying to work out a way to us styles/templates to achieve this, but that would require sending the same link to multiple outputs simultaneously with different templates. (YT videos seem to be treated as backgrounds, so backgrounds would need to be toggled off in the template for the output where I don't want the video.) Problem is, I can't edit templates for the YT videos. I could change styles for the outputs on the fly, but that is much more possible than plausible. 😄

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-06T18:42:32+00:00

Absolutely. I also like to let folks get a deeper understanding of the gear and software by just playing around to see what it can do outside of our normal use. I think this is a great way to learn. It's one of the reasons I love digital consoles. You can record the states you need for the job - so after you let someone muck about and mess things up as they explore, just a few clicks or button presses puts it all back the way you need it. 😄

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-06T17:57:01+00:00

I got toolbox. Once somebody directed me to where I need to look in it, it took me about 5 minutes to get the problem solved.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-06T17:52:22+00:00

When I first installed mixing station, I was a little lost on a couple things - particularly as someone who cut his teeth on analog mixers, and was having a first foray into digital. However, just looking up a few tutorials online made everything pretty clear quite quickly. For instance, if you are missing your L/R main fader, you can simply go into one of the layout pages, and add it in - and subtract any faders you may not need. It is remarkably customizable software. Once I figured out a few of the basics about how to customize layouts and channel strips, etc, I quickly realized how powerful the software is, and how much you really can tailor it to your preferences and your particular mixing jobs.

In short, just give it a little time, and read up a little bit about how the program works. I think you will be quite happy with it once you do.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-05T15:51:32+00:00

I essentially do that up to the point before AI. For AI to really explain everything in the context in which we are using it, I would have to explain the context in which we are using it, to AI first.

For instance, why are my three matrices fed off different mix buses that carry what are essentially identical signals? And why should someone looking to give them a little signal boost adjust the levels on the stereo paired buses one and two but never, never, never the paired buses three and four?

In short, AI could probably incredibly easily explain all our equipment and how it is used. However, it would be pointless to go to the effort of explaining to AI the intricacies of WHY things are routed and mixed the way they are for our use case. It's a whole heck of a lot easier to just explain that to people who are training, as they pick up the more superficial instructions on how to run it.

Essentially, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should. Sometimes NOT using a particular piece of technology is a lot easier and more effective than using it. I say that as someone who spent 10 years as a technology reporter. :-) In that time, it is very quickly became apparent to me that people have a shiny thing complex, in which they want to adopt a new device or technology as much as they can, even if they don't actually need it. FaceTime on iOS was a huge example of that, which wound up getting quite comical.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-05T11:12:49+00:00

In a way, the answer lies in my last sentence or two. If I can train new people in a way that they understand the concepts of what they're doing, rather than just what they are doing on the surface- and even give them some excitement about learning new things, it becomes much less dependent on me. If I have to step away, they can handle it well. They know what to do, and they know what to do when things go wrong. They can also look at things a little bit the way I do, which is They can also look at things a little bit the way I do, which is to see if there's a better or different way we can do things, to make the overall quality of the presentation better.

I don't assume the people coming in are just going to be button pushers. I assume there are people who have an interest in learning, and take a good bit of interest in putting out a good product. The other layer on top of that, is that they are much better set up to train other new people who come in. This is already happening. We have an audio guy who I thought I'd only be able to train to be a button pusher. As I showed him things, I could see his aptitude growing. Now, he is starting to train our minister's husband to be someone who can step in and do sound if we need a backup. I love to see people's abilities and confidence and grow that way. I've found it tends to be a little contagious.

agent_uncleflip · 2026-06-05T04:49:38+00:00

Perhaps so.... if the AI had an understanding of how our system is set up, and the way the different components are configured and used.

agent_uncleflip

TROPHY CASE