Remote Editing Setup

In my setup I have a TouchDesigner server in a rack with the rest of our video gear. I have physical access but I can’t see the screens. From the FOH booth I can see the screens and I can remote into the server but its not a great editing experience (VNC is pretty slow on Windows).

I am looking for a good way to build and edit my TouchDesigner files.

Here is what I have come up with. I have 2 TouchDesigner files I am calling control and output. The control files runs on my Mac laptop and the output file runs on the server. There is a single base op that holds everything that is saved to a .tox. The output sends its SDI video feeds into the base op and to an NDI out. The controller sends NDI in to the base op. On the controller I have a controller widget with a button that saves the base op tox file and sends a single over a touch out to the output file on the server. That triggers a re-init of the base op.

This lets me design with the live cameras on my laptop (at a low frame rate but its workable) and then with a click of a button the server updates.

This seems to be working pretty well but it feels like I am missing something. Is there a better way to remotely edit?

any progress with this? perhaps you can share your .tox?

personally I would use a hardware solution. over-IP KVM extender of sorts, rather than any VNC, Teamviewer, etc. You wouldn’t need a control computer, but you’ll be remote accessing the server from the house/seats. take the over-IP KVM receiver with a monitor, keyboard and mouse and you’re set.

i don’t believe TD has any native out-of-the-box remote capabilities for the scenario you describe …or does it?

I can put something together to share.

It has been working pretty well. I did change it so that the save and re-init is triggered by saving the parent TOE. When I save the server updates pretty quickly only dropping a few frames. I end up saving constantly but that is probably a good thing.

The IP KVM route is something we will likely do eventually. We have several other machines setup that way. It is just expensive and the performance isn’t the same as editing locally.

What I am really looking for is an editing experience like Notch where I could connect to the server over the network and edit locally but have my changes reflected on the server in real time.