Director Control
by 
A control surface for Dataton WATCHOUT 7. Lay out your own buttons, sliders and readouts, then drive timelines, cues and variables live — on a laptop at front of house, or on a phone at the back of the room.
What it does
Timelines and cues
Play, pause, stop and jump on any timeline. Fire cues by name, read the playhead live, and see what is actually running — the state comes straight from the Director, not from what you last pressed.
Countdowns to markers
Pick any marker in the show and get a live count-down to it, or a count-up from it. The markers are read from the show itself, so they stay right when the Producer file changes.
Variables and sliders
Drive WATCHOUT input variables from sliders, steppers and buttons. Put two sliders on the same variable on different pages and they stay in step with each other.
Bitfocus Companion
Press Companion buttons by page, row and column, and show their live graphics on your own surface. It also listens for OSC, so a Companion button can press a widget here. Works with Companion 3, 4 and 5.
Projectors and power
Wake machines over the network with Wake-on-LAN, and open, shutter or lamp-off projectors over PJLink, Panasonic and Barco Pulse — from the same buttons that run the show.
Web remote
Serve the same surface to a phone or tablet on the show LAN. Useful for a walk-around check or for handing a single button to someone who should not have the whole desk.
Getting started
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Install
Windows: download and run the installer. It is not code-signed, so SmartScreen will warn you the first time: choose More info, then Run anyway. It installs for the current user, so no administrator rights are needed.
macOS: a single universal build runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M-series) and Intel Macs. Open the
.dmgand drag the app to Applications. It is not notarised yet, so the first time right-click the app and choose Open, then Open again to confirm. -
Ask for a licence
Send a mail to license@avtrade.nl and you get a key back. Paste it under
Settings → License. Without a key the app still runs, in demo mode, for two hours per session — enough to try it against a real show. -
Point it at your Director
Enter the Director's IP address, or press Discover to scan the local network for machines answering on the WATCHOUT 7 API. Turn on feedback and the app follows the show live.
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Build your surface
Drag in buttons, sliders, readouts and countdowns, and give each one an action. Your layout is saved continuously and comes back when you reopen the app; you can also save it to a
.wdcfile per show and double-click that file to open it.
What you need
- Show software
- Dataton WATCHOUT 7. The Director's REST API on port 3019 must be reachable from the machine running this app.
- Operating system
- Windows 10 or 11, or macOS 11 (Big Sur) and later on Apple Silicon.
- Network
- Same LAN as the Director. For the web remote, the phone or tablet must be on that LAN too.
- Optional
- Bitfocus Companion 3, 4 or 5 for button integration. Projectors speaking PJLink, Panasonic or Barco Pulse for lamp and shutter control.
Help
The full manual lives inside the app — press Help in the top bar. It is written against your own settings, so where it mentions a port or an address it quotes the one you actually have configured, not an example.
It covers building a surface, actions and multi-action buttons, timelines and cues, countdowns, variables and sliders, the scheduler, projector and power control, Companion, OSC, the web remote, and licensing.
Something not working?
If the app cannot see your Director, check that WATCHOUT 7 is running and that nothing is blocking port 3019 — a Windows firewall prompt on first run is the usual culprit. If the readouts freeze, turn feedback off and on again; the app reconnects on its own, but that forces it.
Questions, bugs and feature requests are welcome at control-support@avtrade.nl.
Licence & privacy
A licence is free at the moment. That will not stay true forever, so it is said plainly here rather than discovered later: the intention is to charge for the app eventually, either as a subscription or as a one-off purchase. How licences issued today are treated at that point has not been decided yet, so please read “free now” as exactly that, and not as a promise of free forever.
You will hear about it well in advance, and it will be priced to be affordable — this is a tool for the people who run the shows, not an enterprise line item. It is not going to break your wallet.
What is stored about you
Your email address, and nothing else. It is held so that a licence can be issued to you and renewed, and it is not shared with anyone and not used for mailings. Asking for a licence is your consent for that (AVG/GDPR). Write to license@avtrade.nl and it is removed — your installed licence keeps working.
What the app sends
Once a month, and only when you start it while online, the app asks the licence server to extend your key. That request carries the key and nothing else. There is no telemetry: no usage data, no show contents, no addresses of your equipment. Being offline is not a problem — nothing is lost, it simply renews the next time you start with a connection.