General Options

Initial Folder: Here you can nominate a folder (directory), or select one using the Browse... button, that will be the initial folder opened when browsing for sound files and cue files. For example, you could have a folder on the C: drive called scs_files, and in that folder create a folder for each show plus a folder to be a repository for all the sound effects wave files you download off the web or record off sound effects CD's etc. Then by setting this Initial Folder to C:\scs_files you will find setting up and editing cue files much easier. The default Initial Folder is "Documents" or "My Documents".

Mouse Double-Click Timeout: Many computer users are so conditioned to double-clicking the mouse that sometimes they double-click when they mean to single-click. If SCS didn't specifically watch out for this, you could end up firing two cues instead of one, because the first click would fire the intended cue and the second click would fire the next cue assigned to the 'Go' button. To prevent this happening accidentally, SCS ignores a click that occurs within a set time of the previous click. The default timeout value is 0.4 second (400 milliseconds). However, you may adjust that timeout using this 'Double-Click' Timeout field. Typically you would reduce this timeout if you have consecutive cues that you do need to fire rapidly. However, be careful not to reduce this too much. You may well find that just reducing the timeout to 0.3 second is all you need to do.

If you change this timeout then one other setting you will probably need to change is the Windows setting for the Double-Click speed of the mouse. Under Windows XP you can set this from Start / Settings / Control Panel / Mouse. I guess this is similar under other Windows versions. I have found that if I double-clicked within the Windows Mouse double-click time then SCS didn't get notified of the second click. So I had to make the Windows Mouse double-click time shorter - then it worked OK. One problem with this is that if you make the Mouse double-click time so short that double-clicks are not recognized as 'double-clicks' then you can no longer double-click to start a program from the desktop! You can, as always, start a program by a single click on the icon followed by pressing Enter.

Apply double-click timeout to other 'Go' methods, eg spacebar, MIDI control, etc: By default, the Mouse Double-Click Timeout is also applied to other methods of activating the 'Go' button, such as by the space bar on the keyboard, MIDI control, etc. If you need to fire consecutive cues rapidly using the keyboard, MIDI control, etc, then clear this checkbox.

Max. No. of Audio Files to Pre-Open: SCS pre-opens audio files so they are immediately ready for playback. By default the number of audio files pre-opened (excluding hot key files) is 5, but you can specify a higher or lower number in this field. The number must be between 2 and 50. By specifying a low number you may save memory and improve performance on some computers.

Max. No. of Video Files to Pre-Open: SCS pre-opens video files so they are immediately ready for playback. The maximum is 2 for SCS Standard users (and for the demo), but the maximum is 5 for SCS Professional and higher license levels. The default values are set to the maximum for the license level (2 or 5). Changes to this field take effect the next time you start SCS.

Video Playback: By default this drop-down list is set to "Use DirectShow for video playback". If you want to fade video images you will need to select xVideo. Other options are available if videos you want to play will not play using the option you have chosen. To select an alternative Video Playback option, select from this drop-down list. See the Troubleshooting topic Video Problems for an explanation of the differences between the different Video Playback choices. If you change the Video Playback option you must then close and restart SCS.

Max. No. of Files to Pre-Load Whole File: You can ignore this field unless you set the Audio File Cue property Pre-Load Whole File, and the most likely need to set that property is if you are having playback problems with ASIO outputs. Pre-Loading whole files into memory can take a lot of memory, especially as the files are stored in memory in WAV format (the fastest format for playback from memory). To help control the total memory requirement, SCS limits the number of files currently in memory to the value set in this field. The default is 3, but you can specify any number between 2 and 50. [This option is only used with BASS - it is not used with SM-S.]

Tip: Whenever a cue or sub-cue completes, SCS looks through the cue list for audio and video files that can be pre-opened. However, to minimize interference with currently playing cues, SCS will generally not pre-open an audio file while another audio file is playing, and will not pre-open a video file while another video file is playing. This is particularly important for video files, as buffering a video file can noticeably interrupt the playback of another video that is playing. So if you need to run several videos back-to-back then ideally you need to set Max. No. of Video Files to Pre-Open to at least the number of videos to be played back-to-back, up to the limit available with your license level. If SCS has not pre-opened a video file when it is required for playback, there will be a slight pause while buffering is started.

Time Format for Cue Lengths, etc: Here you can indicate how you want cue lengths and other times displayed. Basically it is a choice of displaying minutes if the cue length is a minute or more; always displaying minutes; or display in seconds only.