GinormoTime Features

Displays Timecode Really Big

GinormoTime's most fundamental function is simply displaying timecode from Winamp in a really big font (one might say, a ginormous font). GinormoTime reads the timecode and filename via the Winamp API. The time font and colour is customisable, and supports multiple highlighting modes.

LAN Multicast Protocol

Right out of the box, GinormoTime acts in Server mode and constantly transmits the displayed timecode and information about the current track via LAN Multicast. Other GinormoTime instances on the network can enter Client mode by selecting any broadcasting Server.

Version 3.5 also allows granular delegation of permissions by the Server to specific Client stations. This allows remote stations to control playback, or even perform timeline editing functions. See the help page for Permissions for more information.

Media Playback

While using Winamp is still supported, GinormoTime now supports fully standalone media playback thanks to the integrated NAudio library. Both DirectSound and WASAPI outputs are supported, providing a useful all-in-one playout solution.

GinormoTime works in a portable style, storing all show data in a data folder alongside the GinormoTime executable. This allows an entire show to be run from a memory stick for example.

Real-time Linear Timecode (LTC) Generator

As described in the History of GinormoTime, working with Linear Timecode (aka SMPTE timecode) embedded in audio tracks has certain drawbacks: primarily, there is no timecode output when the track is not playing, and baking timecode into the audio tracks can be onerous.

To answer this, GinormoTime now incorporates a built-in, real-time, configurable LTC Generator which outputs the timecode using your computer's sound card or USB audio interface. All GinormoTime stations, including Client stations can output LTC. Generating the timecode in real-time also has some additional benefits:

• Since there is always some amount of latency involved in sending timecode from a PC (Windows audio buffers, delays in the receiving hardware), generating the timecode on-the-fly allows a station-specific frame offset to be configured.
• We have found this useful in situations where we're feeding LTC into different hardware devices, eg. an Avolites desk and an MA desk which have minor variances in how they process the timecode.
• Sending timecode all the time also removes the need for glitch detection, which can be needed to prevent spurious not-actually-timecode noises from being processed as unexpected timecode. This removes the delay at the start of tracks needed for glitch detection algorithms to "trust" the timecode.

GinormoTime's LTC generator can be configured to output timecode only when the track is playing, when this is desirable.

As a bonus, GinormoTime can also be configured to output Linear Timecode based on the PC's system clock, or an arbitrary timecode of your choosing. This makes it a fully standalone, completely free Linear Timecode Generator should you require one.

Per-Track Linear Timecode Offsets

The BUDS Dance Show for which GinormoTime was built consists of over 30 dance numbers. For sanity when programming the show we offset the timecode so that the track number is encoded in the hour element of the timecode. Since there only 24 hours, we offset the dances in the second half by 30 minutes. This means that the timecode 04:30:01:22 represents 1m22s in the 4th dance of the second half.

The timecode offset can be quickly and easily selected using the digit spinners in the top left of GinormoTime's interface. The values are saved with the timeline and replicated to all connected Clients.

Timeline Cues and Notes

GinormoTime includes two timeline views: a "whole track" timeline showing the overall progress, and a zoomed-in timline which scrolls and shows upcoming cues, including a countdown timer to help manual stations such as pyro accurately hit their cues.

Each cue can be assigned to any or all stations, which allows Clients to highlight only cues applicable to them. In addition, numbered cues can act as triggers for external software.

Every cue has an accompanying note text which can be used to describe the cue, useful when programming to keep track of what happens where.

Media File Distribution

As part of the multicast transmission stream, the GinormoTime Server also broadcasts audio files from the current playlist in the background. While the transfer rate is quite slow compared to (for example) simply transferring the files directly over the LAN, it requires no interaction from the user.

The currently selected or playing track is streamed repeatedly in a loop, other playlist tracks are broadcast in round-robin fashion. Due to the nature of UDP some packets may be lost, however client stations retain the portion of the tracks they have received and simply "fill in the blanks" each time until they have a complete file. Received files are written to the \data\tracks folder.

What this means in practical terms is that all stations participating in the GinormoTime network have a consistent set of audio data to work with, and Client stations that want to - for example - switch temporarily to local mode in order to rehearse or program, can do so without having to manually ensure that the audio files they have are up-to-date.

Customisable Colour Scheme

You're not just stuck with angry red, GinormoTime lets you choose your foreground and highlight colours to customise the UI, you can also choose a foreground colour to use when in Client mode in order to quickly tell whether you're working locally or remotely. Here are just a few examples:

Colours can be configured in the options, or can be quickly changed by right-clicking the filename banner or progress bar.

Integrated Help System

Since GinormoTime is almost entirely keyboard-driven, having to refer to a cheat-sheet or external documentation can be tiresome, so pressing F1 displays the interactive Keyboard Command Reference. This can be used to quickly remind yourself of the shortcut keys and also displays the command names for use with the remote control API.

• For additional user guides, check out the online help
• Download GinormoTime here