Slot User Interface

The slot UI summarizes all information for a slot, and acts as a tab user interface element to switch between tabs. The selection of a tab is indicated by a blue background.

Slot details

Slot name:

Each slot has a character and a label. You can edit the slot character and the slot label in the device manager.

Clip identifier:

The clip identifier can be used to uniquely identify shots in the look library. It can be considered as the default name for an entry in the shot library, and acts a the default name for exported looks, CDLs, stills etc. A common clip identifier format consists of a camera character, reel number, and clip number (e.g. A003C012).

There are different ways keeping the clip identifier updated, so that each created shot gets a meaningful and unique clip identifier:

  • Increase clip and reel numbers: By default the clip name is assembled from the slot character, the “Clip” field and the “Reel” field of the slots metadata. There are shortcuts in the main menu for increasing the clip number and increasing the reel number (and resetting the clip number to 1) in the “Slot” menu.
  • Clip name from camera metadata: If the attached devices provide camera metadata, the actual clip name from the camera is often available. This automatically will use the clip name of the camera as the clip name for a saved shot.
  • Edit the clip name manually: You can also edit the clip name manually.

You can configure clip identifier updating for each slot separately in the menu of the “Configure metadata” button of each slot. Clip identifiers can be “Slot-Reel-Clip” (as a clip filename), the clipname metadata field coming through HD-SDI ANC data, or your custom wildcard configuration, e.g. made up of shot and scene names. There is also a setting for the default behavior for new slots in the preferences.

Summary of configured devices:

Small icons represent the configured devices in a slot. The number of icons shown is limited to three, if more devices are configured, only the first three are shown.

If a device has a connection problem, a yellow warning symbol is shown. The device icons offer tooltips for quick access of the device name, and the warning message in case of a problem.

Below the clip name, a summary indicator is shown, that is also visible, when the slot is in “Tabs only” mode.

You can configure the devices, add new and remove devices of a slot in the device manager.

Reload devices:

Clicking this button manually triggers a reconnect to all devices of a slot. Sometimes this can solve connection problems, e.g. when a connection was lost due to bad Wifi.

Current image:

If one of the configured devices of a slot provides framegrabs (e.g. from a LUT boxes or attached camera) or live image (e.g. from a capture device), the current image is updated in the slot.

The image shown here can also be shown larger in the viewer window.

The image shown here is also the image that is analyzed by the videoscope.

You can use any framegrab stored or imported image from the shot library to be shown here. This can be used to review the current look of a slot with other images. Choose “Set as Image for Current Slot” from the context menu of a shot row in the shot list, or drag a shot from the shot list on to the image of the slot.

A little “A|B” icon on the current image indicates, that a reference image is set, that is used in the image viewer for comparison. You can remove a reference image by choosing “Remove reference” from the context menu of the current image.

Update framegrab:

With the update framegrab button you can manually request a new framegrab from the attached device. If the shown image is a live image (e.g. from a capture device) or no current image is shown, the update framegrab button is hidden.

Save still image:

With the save still image button you can save the current image as an image file to the file system. A temporary overlay will show the path the image file is saved to.

You can configure the file system location, the format, as well as the naming convention of the still image file in the preferences.

Display options for slot:

In a slot you can switch between different look display modes. Look display modes temporarily enable and disable specific grade nodes:

  • Graded: All nodes are enabled. The result image shows the original image with all nodes applied.
  • Bypass: Only 3D and 1D LUT nodes are enabled. The result image shows the original image with only these nodes applied, this will result in a “neutral” image.
  • Original: All nodes are disabled. The result image shows the original image with no nodes applied.

Disabled nodes are greyed out.

With the “False Color” control you can enable and disable the false color mode. The false color mode is always applied to the current result image.

The controls for the display options of the currently selected slot are also accessible from the bottom bar of the main window.

Slot metadata:

The fields in the slot metadata table can either be edited manually, or updated automatically with camera metadata from the attached devices:

  • An “A” icon indicates, that the metadata field is updated automatically from the device,
  • a little pen icon indicates, that the metadata field is edited manually, although metadata for that field is sent by a device, and
  • no icon indicates, that the metadata field needs to be edited manually, because no metadata for that field is available from any device.

You can switch between editing and automatic update by clicking on the little icons.

For the “Clip” and “Reel” fields you can use the up and down buttons to quickly increase the clip and reel numbers.

You can configure which metadata field is shown in the menu of the “Configure metadata” button.

You can reorder the displayed metadata fields by dragging and dropping the fields to another position.

You can configure how many rows of metadata are shown in the menu of the “Configure slot appearance” button.

You can configure, which device should be the source of the metadata (if multiple devices provide metadata) in the menu of the “Configure metadata” button.

Time code:

Time code is shown, if one of the attached devices provides time code information.

You can configure which device should provide time code (if multiple devices provide metadata) in the menu of the “Configure metadata” button.

Timecode can later be used in workflows where stored shot and look information shall be matched to recorded camera clips.

Configure metadata:

When clicking the “Configure metadata” button, a menu with all available metadata fields is being displayed, as well as options for the metadata processing, merging, and display.

“Metadata from…” and “Timecode from…” let you choose what should be used as the source for that information in case multiple devices provide that information. When “Combine metadata from all devices” is checked, metadata fields from multiple devices are merged.

The “Clip identifier” submenu lets you choose a scheme for the updating of the clip identifier. You can choose either predefined schemes, or create your own by choosing “Edit custom clip identifier…”.

The metadata fields are grouped in sections, you can show and hide a single metadata field by checking or unchecking it. You can show and hide entire sections by clicking on the section heading.

If a metadata field’s value is automatically updated from a device, the value is shown behind the field’s name.

“Add entries with values from devices” adds all metadata fields that currently have values from devices.

“Apply selection to all slots” will set the selection of displayed fields of all other slots to the selection of displayed fields of the current slot.