Shuttle / MCS3 Preferences

This page is a comprehensive description of what each specific preference in VirtualVTR and VirtualVTR Pro will do. It does not offer overall guidance on particular setups.

General Information about Remote controllers
VirtualVTR is extremely controllable from the outside world. It supports 9-pin control, MMC (Midi Machine control), mouse and keyboard control (including Avid-Style shuttle mode numeric keypad transport), Apple event control, and also several USB connected jog/shuttle devices. The 2 main ones are the JLCooper MCS3 (USB) controller, and the Contour Shuttle Family (Shuttle Pro, Shuttle Pro 2 and Shuttle Express). The USB controllers offer a remarkably slick interface to control VirtualVTR, and the jog and shuttle performance is as good, or better than any other Video playback device at any price point. To get such great performance, VirtualVTR bypasses the traditional methods these devices use, typically emulating keystrokes in host applications. Instead VirtualVTR talks directly to the wheel. In the case of the Shuttle Family, you should NOT install the contour device driver for the shuttle, since it will interfere with VirtualVTR's direct connection to the shuttle. For the MCS3, we interface with the JLCooper driver, which you should install, although you must setup the MCS3 software to use 'Midi mode' in OSX and 'developer Mode' in OS9. These allow VirtualVTR to receive raw messages from the MCS3.

Parameter assignment
Once VirtualVTR gets this timely information about the status of the controls on the Shuttle, or MCS3, it needs to know what to do with it. This is all user assignable from the dialogs accessed in the Prefs window, as shown above. For each button on the devices you have a wide array of functions which can be assigned to that button. Many of these functions are not available in any other way in VirtualVTR, so a Shuttle or MCS3 really unlocks some hidden power inside VirtualVTR. Below, there is a brief summary of the assignable commands.

Basic transport
Play, Stop, Fast Forward, Rewind, Goto Start, Goto End, Record, Reverse Play,
Rewind 4 x, Rewind 10 x, Forward 4 x, Forward 10 x

Bin Navigation, open close movies
Close Movie
Cursor Up in Bin
Cursor Down in Bin
Open Selected Movie from Bin

Clip Window Navigation
Cursor Left in Clips
Cursor Right in Clips
Cursor Up in Clips
Cursor Down in Clips
Grab current Frame to Clips
Delete current clip

Spotting, Sync marking (For VirtualVTR Pro)
(ADRStudio) Mark In Pt - Also used for VirtualVTR Pro foley-roll in point
(ADRStudio) Mark Out Pt - Also used for VirtualVTR Pro foley-roll out point
ADRStudio Spot - Communicates with ADRStudio to spot the marked section
Play Selection
Clear Selection
Goto Mark In pt
Goto Mark Out pt
Delete Sync Point
Toggle Jog Mode (frame bump/scrub)- This makes the Jog wheel 'scrub' with audio, rather than performing a video frame bump

Specialist transport commands for Foley Roll in VirtualVTR Pro (see documentation)
Roll Back
Roll Back and Play
MMC Record On
Play and MMC Record Off
Stop and MMC Stop
MMC Play and MMC Record Off
MMC Stop
Roll Back and MMCPlay
Roll Back, Play and MMC Play
Play and MMC Play
Review

Other preferences relating to Shuttle Wheels
Jog Sensitivity determines how many degress of rotation on the MCS3 are used per video frame. On the Shuttle, the wheel moves in precise detents (much coarser than the MCS3) and in this case, each detent represents one frame. This changes when you engage the 'Jog wheel scrubs with audio' pref, which stops frame bumping (with no sound) and starts 'jogging' the picture with sound. The speed of wheel rotation determines the jog speed. This tends to be smoother on the MCS3 with its much higher resolution wheel, although the shuttle Pro generally performs very well too. 'Stop on release if play button held (Play Hold mode)' is useful for people spotting with VirtualVTR and a shuttle or MCS3. It basically adds a new behaviour to the PLAY button. if you press PLAY and hold the button down for more than a second, it will then later automatically STOP when you release the play button. This makes playing and stopping a few seconds later into a one button press operation.

You can also load and save complete setups of parameters.

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