Review: NewBlueFX Titler Live 4 Complete

Populating Attribute Fields with Excel

Populating all of the available fields in a particular graphic is made easy by the ability to connect attribute fields to data in Excel spreadsheets, social media feeds, and scoreboard data from Daktronics, Stat Crew, or Sportzcast scoreboard controllers.

In my tests with Excel (Figure 3, below), this function worked well. It was easy to map the various attribute fields to the data in the source rows and columns. However, I was a bit confused as to why I had to connect two different spreadsheets to a graphic before I could start mapping and using one as a source. It wasn’t even that I needed any data from the second one, but until the second data source was connected, I could not use the first one to populate fields.

Figure 3. Attribute fields populated using Excel spreadsheets

Once connected, updating the mapped fields in the graphic proved as easy as changing the value in the Excel spreadsheet and hitting Save. The graphic pulled the new data automatically and instantly. At any time, I could also unmap the source field and manually enter a value in the Attributes tab.

Custom Clock

One feature that took me a bit of time to figure out was the custom clock, mostly because I ran into the same issue with the field-mapping where I had more ability to map fields when I connected two inputs to a graphic than when only one was connected. One of the graphics I was working with had both a game clock and penalty clock (Figure 4, below).

Figure 4. Titler Live’s Clock Input Controller

During the upgrade process from V3 to V4, my clocks were no longer linked, and I had to figure out a way to relink them. Uninstalling V3 seemed to do the trick, but it was also good practice for me to be able to figure out how to relink a clock field with the Custom Clock tab if ever needed.

To relink my clocks, I had to type in the clock name that appeared in the attributes field (destination) in the Clocks: Custom Clock tab (source). This worked, but I also found a better way. The moment I linked the same scoreboard graphic with a second input—in this case the Scoreboard Tool: Hockey—the Attributes tab gave me drop-down options to map my fields (Figure 5, below). It was much easier to connect attributes to the sources using the drop-down menus.

Figure 5. The Scoreboard Tool in NewBlueFX Titler Live 4 Complete can be used a data source.

This was similar to the issue with the Excel data source working only when a second source was connected. Regardless of whether it contained relevant data or not, linking a second source to the graphic made it easier to relink the clocks because the attributes fields now contained drop-down options with values coming from the available sources.

My other feedback with the clocks is that they didn’t display time evenly. The issue was very noticeable when I had two clocks running at the same time. In V3, I noticed that the two clocks didn’t advance seconds at the same time and in V4 they did, but every few seconds one of the clocks would appear to freeze for a second before catching up. The result appears to be more an issue of rendering the graphic, as this affected only the graphic output and not the timer on the controller, which was rock solid.