NewTek TriCaster TC1 (2 RU) - Manual (Page 288)

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We mentioned earlier that you can move the mouse pointer over blue text in the script pane to see a tooltip
showing how LiveStory interprets
your comment. It’s helpful to know that LiveStory determines the
probability that the interpretation is correct. If the wording of a Comment entry is ambiguous, and could be
interpreted differently, the text color in the script pane is red rather than blue.
Hint: If a comment has multiple lines in it, LiveStory adds an asterisk to any ambiguous lines in the tooltip. The
entry “Output black” would trigger this behavi or, even though it is correctly interpreted, with the result that
black is shown on output.
L IVE S TORY VS. M ACROS
Let’s pause at this point to consider how LiveStory commands differ from the somewhat similar shortcuts
used by macros.
Like LiveStory commands, a macro shortcut is entered on a single line, and may support arguments, or
parameters. Macro shortcuts, however, require you to use very specific syntax. By contrast, though,
LiveStor
y commands are entered using ‘natural language’ – the way you might normally speak or write. A
macro shortcut will generally fail with an error if your syntax isn’t perfect, while, as mentioned previously,
LiveStory uses fuzzy logic to try to find the bes t match for your command, and only fails ‘reluctantly’.
Hint: LiveStory documents are evaluated on loading. When LiveStory determines its evaluation of a specific
command in a Comment could
be incorrect, it posts a message to TriCaster’s Notification pane l to note the
ambiguity, in addition to marking the commented text in red in the script pane.
Additionally, a single Comment command can do things that would otherwise require multiple commands
entered on separate lines in a macro. Consider for example, when LiveStory encounters the simple Comment
entry “ fade tom slow ”, i t results in the following steps:
1. Select an input named “Tom” (or “tom”, or with a similar string, such as “Tommy” in the input
Comment box) on the Switcher’s
Preview row.
2. Set the Switcher’s Background transition effect to Fade
3. Set the effect speed to Slow
4. Perform an Auto.
To do something similar using a macro, you’d need to enter four separate lines, getting the syntax correct for
each macro shortcut – and since macro commands require an input index parameter rather than a name,
you’d need to know in advan ce which camera would be pointed at Tom. If Tom was moved to a different
chair on your set at the last minute, the macro would need to be modified. Using LiveStory, you could simply
rename the camera.
Better yet, continuing with the example above, if – r ather than naming an input “Tom”, you prepared a PTZ
preset (or Pan and Scan preset, for a non-PTZ source) and name d it “Tom” , TriCaster would automatically
select that preset at step 1 above.
Hint: Imagine what this means if you are using a few PTZ cameras to cover a city council meeting, with PTZ
presets prepared for different participants. If two people change seats at the last minute, all you need to do
is update the PTZ presets and LiveStory will take care of everything else for you!