17. What's missing and frequently asked questions

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This page is a summary of what DL20 does not have yet, or what has not yet been checked on real hardware (no internal reasons — just a fact for planning a show), and answers to the questions operators ask most often.

What's missing

The program installs only on Windows; running on other systems is not supported. Rendering runs on a single graphics card — several graphics cards do not split the load between themselves.

Sources. SDI capture (Blackmagic DeckLink, AJA) and Syphon are not supported. Cameras and USB grabbers through DirectShow have not been checked on real hardware. Reverse playback (REVERSE, PING-PONG) only works for Hap/MJPEG/ProRes/DNxHR files and H.264/HEVC with a key frame on every frame — a regular H.264/HEVC export with a long GOP always plays forward. Stills — PNG and JPEG only, animated GIF/APNG are not read.

Composition. A window's mask has one contour per slice; a PNG-based mask and several contours are not done yet. A window's transition cannot: bind the transition slider to MIDI/LFO, shaped transitions like zooms and mosaics, its own TO COLOR for a window (only for a layer), a resizable or reshapeable transition card. On the timeline, a track cannot be "landed" into a deck window's geometry; if the same file is also playing manually on another layer at the same time, the timeline's sync yields to the deck.

Effects. A window's color and color replacement (the COLOR section) replace the hue, not an exact RGB value, and do not raise brightness above 100% — there is no eyedropper over the composition. STINGER is a built-in wipe — you cannot plug in your own clip as a stinger.

OUTPUT. Geometric calibration and 3D mapping have been tested on monitors, not projectors: corner overlap between screens is handled on one side only, color and brightness are not matched between projectors, black level at the center of a seam on dark content is not solved, lens distortion is compensated only by a radial coefficient. HDR output to screen exists behind a separate flag and has not been checked on a real HDR monitor; an HDR stream is not sent over NDI — this is a limitation of the NDI runtime itself.

Audio. Capturing what is currently playing in Windows itself (WASAPI loopback) as the audio input is not supported — only an external source on the sound card. A timeline block's sound at a speed other than ×1, in reverse or with SPEED keys (even when every key sits at ×1) is silent entirely — live and in export; since 0.8.92 this is visible on screen: the "БЕЗ ЗВУКА: <причина>" (no sound: reason) line under SPEED in the clip panel and the reason in the Detach Audio item (page 09).

Control. Over OSC, the scene and window launch commands are received, and since 0.8.84 also the track and group commands (connect, disconnect, toggle, go, position — by rack number or by id; reference — page 14); a track cannot be addressed by name, and there is no sending OSC out or feedback to a control surface. Art-Net as a control input is built into the engine but is not yet wired into the program. The screen listing every MIDI/OSC binding and the top BPM/TAP/QUANT cluster are currently hidden; syncing Ableton Link with real Ableton Live has not been tested — only a session inside a local network.

FAQ

On first launch, the installer makes Windows show the blue "Windows protected your PC" window — is it a virus? No: the installer is not signed with an Authenticode certificate, and SmartScreen warns about any unsigned file. Click "More info", then "Run anyway".

Defender quarantined dl_composition.exe and the program won't start — what do I do? This is a false positive from Defender's cloud heuristics, not a finding in the file. Add a Defender exclusion for the C:\Program Files\DL folder (Settings → Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Manage settings → Exclusions), then in Windows Security → Protection history find the entry and click Restore.

The installer or uninstaller asks to close the program — why? Before replacing or removing files, the installer checks whether DL20 is already running from the target folder: DLLs locked while in use used to break updates. Close the program and click Retry in the dialog that appears — the installation continues as usual.

OSC or the control surface won't turn on, the status line shows an error — what's wrong? Most often, the port is already taken by another program on the same machine — for example, a second running copy of DL20. Pick a different port number in the corresponding field in SETTINGS → CONTROLLERS.

A clip finished playing and is holding on the last frame instead of continuing — is that a bug? Not if the clip's MODE is ONCE: with AT END = NONE, stopping on the last frame is expected by design. For a continuous loop, check that MODE is LOOP or PING-PONG; if AT END = WINDOW in that case and the chosen target no longer exists or is hidden, the clip now keeps playing according to its MODE instead of freezing (in detail — page 07b).

The color on output differs from the source file — what should I check? First, the screen's SCREEN COLOR section and the slice's SLICE COLOR section (page 10b) — they are layered on top of the clip's color and could have been left set from last time. Then — the file's own metadata: color space and range (BT.709/BT.2020, limited/full) are read from the file automatically, and the program currently treats BT.601 as BT.709.

Do I need a license to start working? No — until a license is installed, the program runs in the free tier, and the output stays clean; the LICENSE card in SETTINGS is covered in detail on page 16.

Where do I send the log and crash dump when contacting support? The SEND FEEDBACK button in SETTINGS sends the text and, optionally, the log tail; for a fuller diagnosis — the session log itself and a crash dump from the %LOCALAPPDATA%\DL\logs\ and %LOCALAPPDATA%\DL\crashes\ folders (page 16).