openprompter-beta

Beta version of the OpenPrompter Software (OPR/OPS) suite

Introduction

This project provided the teleprompting software for Whitney HS Live, 2022-23. The deployment there was with 3 prompters and 1 CNC.

OPS-beta is an open-source teleprompting software, primarily designed for *nix (tested on Linux and macOS) devices. It's a simpler piece of software, as it was particularly tailored for the Whitney HS Live use cases.

Installation

Download the repository (requires Git):

git clone https://github.com/amyipdev/openprompter-beta

Command-and-control

Copy and edit the server control file:

cd cnc
cp cncsets.json.example cncsets.json
$EDITOR cncsets.json

Create a virtual environment and install Requests:

cd ..
python3 -m venv venv
cd cnc
source ../venv/bin/activate
pip3 install requests

(For future loads, just run the source command)

Run the client:

python3 cnc.py

Teleprompters

Run the setup script:

cd server
./setup.sh

Modify the config files:

$EDITOR discovsets.json
$EDITOR appsets.json
$EDITOR pygsets.json

Configuration

cncsets.json

• network_broadcast: broadcast address for the network (such as 10.255.255.255)
• challenge: challenge phrase for discov (should match discovsets.json:trigger)
• resp: success response (should match discovsets.json:response)
• timeout: timeout for discov
• discovport: port to send discov broadcast on (standard: 61910, should match discovsets.json:port)
• appport: port to send commands on (standard: 61911, should match appsets.json:port)

appsets.json

• host: bind address for server (recommended either 0.0.0.0 or [::])
• port: port for commands (standard: 61911, should match cncsets.json:appport)
• pid: default name for server
• prev_lines: number of lines to send as a preview

discovsets.json

• host: bind address (recommended: "")
• port: port for discov (standard: 61910, should match cncsets.json:discovport)
• trigger: challenge phrase (should match cncsets.json:trigger)
• response: success response (should match cncsets.json:resp)

pygsets.json

• mode: current viewing mode (AUTO)
• scriptfile: current script viewing file (AUTO)
• lpos: line position (AUTO)
• fontfile: file containing screen font
• fontsize: font size
• dim_x: window width
• dimA_x: camera width
• dim_y: window height
• dimA_y: camera height
• inset: top padding for text
• fps: screen fps (set lower on low-power devices)
• fullscreen: whether to use fullscreen

Operation

In the OPS model, there are many teleprompters on a network, all served by a single command and control node. At any given time, only one prompter can be active; you can also have no prompters be active. When a prompter is inactive, it shows the camera view being fed into that prompter; otherwise, it shows whatever script is currently loaded.

First, on each teleprompter, launch the server:

./launch.sh

You should get a prompt along the lines of:

[cnc@ops None]$

This is the OpenPrompter prompt. All the following commands should be run there. To leave the prompt and close the CNC, run q or quit.

By default, OPS assumes you have a teleprompter running on your CNC server. This is a rare use case; if it applies, you don't need to do anything. Otherwise, run drop lo. In general, to remove a prompter, use drop <name> (alternatively, delink <name>). You can list your prompters using p, conns, or showdev. To test that a connection works, use ping <name>.

To find teleprompters on your network, run discov. It will pick up the first, and only the first, teleprompter to respond. If you don't want to add that teleprompter, press Ctrl-C. Otherwise, give it a name (leaving it blank uses the default name) and press enter; this name will be used for selecting the prompter. You can run discov as many times as you need to add all your prompters; this will need to be done each time the CNC is restarted. If you're having issues getting your prompters online, we recommend selectively connecting them to the network, one at a time; as long as the IP addresses don't reset, the connection will be maintained.

Before you activate a prompter, you need to load a script on it. You can transmit a script from your CNC's local directory using csc <servername> <filename>. Once a script you want to load exists, you can load it using lsc <servername> <filename>.

Activating a prompter will deactivate the current one. To deactivate all prompters, run flush. To deactivate the current prompter, run s None, sel None, or select None. To activate a prompter run s <name>, sel <name>, or select <name>. This will jump the script to the first line, even if loaded previously; to perform the same jump at any time, run z.

You will consistently get a preview of the lines being shown on the screen; it may not be fully accurate depending on the size of the display. This is configurable in appsets.json:prev_lines.

To advance the current prompter's line by 1, run 1; to rewind it by 1, run 2. These are considered fast commands, and recommended for usage when manually moving a prompter. To jump by a certain amount, use d <num> to advance, and u <num> to rewind by <num> lines.

If you know the rough pace of your speaker, you can use mt <lines> <interval>. This will automatically advance 1 line every <interval> seconds for <lines> lines. This can always be interrupted with Ctrl-C.

Known Issues

On lower-power hardware, crashes can occur if the files are not updated before the modification date changes. If this happens regularly to you, contact me; I can provide you with a patch for your particular hardware/troubleshooting support.

You must have a camera connected, and working (thus not taken up by another application) to launch OPS. If you lose camera connection, OPS will crash.

If the teleprompter's IP address changes, you will need to drop that prompter and re-add it.

Fullscreen is broken on many devices, and has even been shown to require a device restart if activated. It is known to work properly on Raspbian and Ubuntu, however.

License and Copyright

Copyright (C) Amy Parker, 2022-2023. All rights reserved.

This project is free software; it is distributed to you under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2, or (at your option) any later version. See the LICENSE file for details, or go to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/ for a copy of the license.