Will OSC Receive and Display Timecode?

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to implement OSC at my current job (in theatre), but there are a few things it must do in order for us to be able to justify using it. One of those things is that it must be able to receive and display SMPTE Timecode, and hopefully perform certain actions when a Timecode stamp is reached.

We are not planning to use OSC for audio purposes, but for a slew of other things - media cues, facilities equipment, special effects cues, etc… The point I’m trying to make is that a simple timeline indicator is not what we need, but rather a SMPTE Timecode indicator that other widgets can look to for certain actions.

Do any of you know if OSC can do this? And do you know how to set this up?

Any tips and advice is much appreciated!

EDIT: SMPTE Timecode uses hours, minutes, seconds, and frames formatted as such - hh:mm:ss:ff

Hi, if you’re referring to MIDI timecode messages, they not fully supported yet : only the sysex full time code can be received (as raw sysex), the quarter frame messages are currently ignored.

While it’s possible to trigger custom actions depending on incoming values using scripting or a custom module, what you describe (ie a cue timeline) sounds possible but may be a bit out of open stage control’s scope (creating control surfaces).

Thanks for the info! Your response is a bit over my head as I am still learning. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but a timeline is not actually my goal. My goal with OSC is to create sort of a "catch-all" utility that can control a variety of different software and hardware actions - some of those actions just so happen to need timecode.

I think MIDI timecode would be a great feature that many could benefit from if you ever find the time to implement it. That said, I can't complain. You are doing a great service to us all by offering this all for free - thank you so much!

Just in case, have you tried Chataigne ?

[Chataigne's] purpose is to be the central hub in a project involving multiple interfaces, softwares, devices and sensors

In v1.3, it will be possible to receive MIDI time code messages as raw sysex messages, the parsing logic will be left to the users.

@jean-emmanuel

I’ve never heard of Chataigne. I’m not sure why it hasn’t come up in any of my research, but I’ve just spent some time looking at it and I think it may be a viable option. The dashboard/server UI isn’t nearly as slick as OpenStageControl is, so maybe I can use them together.

Thanks so much for the help and suggestion!