Hello!
I am a VTR and replay operator for our production and one of the pain points that our crew is having is the inability to display the playback time of Vmix Program view to an external source via API.

As it stands I've been counting down to my director verbally for timeback over comm channels.

My quick fix to this was by using OBS with NDI capture to desktop capture the timecode box underneath program, and NDIing that out to my director to take as a source in OBS over our multiview. This is functional, but it's very convoluted and i'm looking for a better native solution that will eliminate OBS from my workflow.

I was wondering if there's a better way to approach this where I wouldn't need to rely on capturing my desktop as a video source, and take the countdown through the API perhaps?

Yes in fact you can get the data through the API. The Duration and Position is included in the XML. It's a matter of parsing and massaging the data correctly. However, if you want, you can apply some of your current technique directly in VMix without using OBS.

1. Create a new Desktop Capture Input in vMix.
2. Use this new input as a 'multiview overlay' on one of your current inputs.
3. Crop and size this overlay to the 'timecode box' underneath the program as you currently do, and positon it accordingly. Now this input will contain the timecode info for any playbacks.

The vMix multiview output will now contain the 'keyed timecode' over the input you configured. You can also add this same "multiview overlay' to other inputs if you like. Of course the timecode that is shown is that of whatever is playing on the output at the time, and not that of the input you keyed it over.

Not sure if that's very clear, but it will eliminate OBS from your mix. It's not perfect but may be a little less convoluted... :)

cheers,
Richard

Thank you for the kind replies!

I tried some of the solutions above and they all work to a certain degree for our specific use case.

As it stands, my workflow with my Technical director involves going out of my GPU into his capture card, which I fullscreen in vMix to play VTR pieces and replay reels. The end goal is to get this timecode to appear in his OBS, which acts as the main switcher (preferably) as a text source, rather than a video capture source.
I am unable to take it as an overlay in vmix as what's showing on my program out is what will go to our live show. (Unless there's a way I can send a second output without it being a fullscreen?)

Based on the feedback above what I can do is:
1. Have a second fullscreen output from my GPU into the video router of the cropped timecode and send that to be taken as a video source to overlay in his multiview. This works, but it's still using a video source and I would imagine it would stress out the CPU more than a text source.
2. Based on jkones9999's suggestion, importing the vmix API as an XML seems like the best solution, mostly I'd need to code a custom html overlay that pulls from what it puts on the server that checks every second what the state of each piece is, and display the position /1000 based on what piece is active or not. Which, to be fair I'd need to just hit up the lab and start coding that for our specific workflow!



3. raugert's app is very interesting, but I notice at times it frose and I'd have to hit Enter on the IP again to refresh it. I'll need to play around with it more to see what solution works best but this is definatley very neat and could be useful playback needs to be checked remotely at the venue.

Again, thank you everyone for the replies, I've definitely learned a lot on this and appreciate your help quite a bit!

EDIT:

Is there a way to get a unique input key for when a replay reel is ran on the API? As it stands, comparing two files for when I do run a reel, and when I don't have a reel active, there is nothing on the API that states a timecode of the duration left on a replay reel.
However, Vmix clearly shows the duration of the timecode left on the replay reel, under the program monitor, so it exists, but it doesn't push it out to the API. Is there any way to extrapolate this data?
If I'm able to access this data somewhere, then I can build a custom overlay and solve the problem for my usecase.