Wer records a live camera feed with an ETC Eos-family console's data burnt into the picture: cue number and label, the command line, the channels being worked on. It is for a lighting designer or programmer who wants a recording of a tech that stays useful afterwards, not a phone video of a dark stage.
Windows only. Version 1.0.0. Free software under the GPL v3 or later. Download: the installer for the current version is on the Releases page; there is nothing else to install. See Installing.
The picture. A camera runs from the moment the app opens and keeps running through a take, so there is no start button to forget: 1080p30 in MJPG where a camera offers it, UYVY from a capture card.
The data. One Eos-family desk (Eos, Ion, Nomad) over OSC -- outbound TCP to port 3032 by default, or UDP -- parsed into the live cue's number, list, label and fade, the command line per user, channels, softkeys and show name.
The overlay. Seven kinds of widget -- text, cue block, fade bar, time-in-cue, status lamp, picture and panel -- anchored to nine points with offsets in fractions of the frame: a 1080p layout is the same size at 4K. Thirty ready-made widgets and ten layouts ship, hotkey-switched, saved as JSON. A new show opens with three of them: Tech, Minimal and None.
The recording. H.264 into MKV (the default; it survives a crash) or fragmented MP4, with four quality presets. Hardware encoders are tested at launch, each recording a frame into a real file, and failures show why. The sound's offset against the picture is kept for each camera and input, typed on the Recording tab or measured by Clap test… from a recorded clap.
Markers. By hand (Ctrl+M, with a note), on every cue the desk fires, or with a snapshot. They go into the video as chapters; an MKV also carries the marker list and a log of everything the console sent, as attachments.
When things go wrong. A take survives ffmpeg dying (it continues into a numbered part), a camera being unplugged (it reopens into the same file) and a disk filling (it stops with room to close the file). An input delivering half its sound, or digital silence, is reported in the status bar mid-take.
Remote control. Nine commands -- record, stop, toggle, snapshot, marker, layout by name, next layout, hide and show the overlay -- that a macro on the desk sends down the connection Wer already has to it.
Recording status over sACN. Off by default: one address (universe 101, address 1 to start) sits at 0 while Wer is idle and pulses to full and back every two seconds while recording, by multicast on the card you pick or the one Windows prefers, with per-address priority on so receivers that honour it leave the rest alone.
- Windows 10 or 11. Other versions are untested.
- A camera Windows can see.
- For console data, an Eos-family desk or ETCnomad running 2.x or 3.x, reachable over the network with OSC output switched on. Everything else works without one.
- For sound, a DirectShow audio input -- a capture device's own audio, or a USB interface. Webcam microphones will do for trying things out.
- Nothing else. Python, Qt and ffmpeg are all inside the build.
Download Wer-<version>-setup.exe from the Releases
page, or use the one
you were handed, and run it: a per-user install into
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Wer, with no administrator prompt on a locked-down
venue machine and an entry in Add/Remove Programs. Wer is not code-signed, so
Windows warns about an unsigned application the first time -- More info,
then Run anyway -- and where Smart App Control is on an unsigned build can
be refused outright. The alternative is the zip: unzip it and run Wer.exe.
Settings live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Wer, the log beside the exe in
logs\wer.log (or under %LOCALAPPDATA%\Wer if that is not writable), and
recordings in %USERPROFILE%\Videos\Wer. Uninstalling leaves settings and
recordings alone, and takes the log folder beside the exe with it.
- The preview takes a few seconds. The camera waits for the format probe and the audio check; encoder detection runs once the picture is up.
- Sound starts on Windows' default input. Change it on the Recording tab; whatever is chosen there, None included, is kept from then on.
- The console is off until you set one up. Connections → Eos: type an address and press Connect, or use Find a console. The default is an outbound TCP connect to port 3032, which needs no firewall rule. A console that has sent data is remembered and reconnected on the next launch.
- Press F1. The help is seventeen searchable topics, partly generated from the code, so the widget and command lists cannot go stale.
You need Python 3.12 x64 and git, and a checkout outside OneDrive,
which will otherwise try to sync .venv, build/ and dist/.
git clone https://github.com/hudcolighting/wer.git C:\dev\wer
cd C:\dev\wer
py -3.12 -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install -e . --no-deps
.\tools\fetch-ffmpeg.ps1 # pinned ffmpeg, SHA256 checked; not committed
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m wer # run it from the source tree
.\build.ps1 # one-folder dev build -> dist\Wer\Wer.exe
.\build.ps1 -Installer # setup.exe to hand over (needs Inno Setup)
.\build.ps1 -Package # the same payload, zipped instead
.\build.ps1 -Release -Clean # one-file exe -> dist\Wer.exe
.\build.ps1 -Force # stop a running Wer.exe rather than refusing
.\build.ps1 -Run # build, then launchHand out the installer or the zip, not the one-file exe: both keep the Qt
DLLs loose in _internal\PySide6\ and replaceable, as the LGPL requires.
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pytestSeveral tests drive the real bundled ffmpeg and pace frames into it, so a full
run takes minutes; run fetch-ffmpeg.ps1 first or those skip. The suite builds
a real QApplication and wants a desktop session. The two tests that record from
a real audio input skip unless WER_LIVE_AUDIO_INPUT names one. There is no CI.
src/wer/
core/ no Qt. DataBus, show file, markers, bus log, A/V offsets
connections/ no Qt. Eos over OSC, console search, commands from the desk,
sACN status out, network adapters, clock, typed fields
video/ no Qt. capture, encoders, recorder, chapters, snapshots,
device enumeration, clap test analysis
overlay/ Qt. widgets, compositor, layouts and the ready-made sets
ui/ Qt. application chrome
core, connections and video must import with no Qt in the process, so
the protocol parsers stay testable headlessly; tests/test_architecture.py
enforces it. Connections publish to the DataBus and widgets subscribe to it.
- No sACN input, no Art-Net and no MIDI. Console data arrives only as OSC from an Eos-family desk, and sACN only goes out.
- No control of the desk: the only bytes Wer sends it are a user binding and a subscribe request when it connects.
- SLIP framing on port 3033 is implemented and searched for, but has never been seen to answer. TCP 3032 in OSC 1.0 framing is the proven path.
- An MP4 take cannot be self-contained: it gets its chapters, but MP4 holds no attachments, so the marker list and bus log stay beside it as files.
- Markers only exist inside a take. Ctrl+M when idle says so.
- Only the first nine layouts get a Ctrl+number hotkey and a place in the Layout menu; the rest are on Ctrl+L, the Overlay tab, or by name.
- Nothing looks at the picture: a camera delivering flat black at full rate is not a fault, because a blackout is black too.
- A second copy of Wer runs but cannot save settings, and says so.
- Remote control has been measured only over TCP, and against Eos running as software rather than a hardware desk. The sACN output has not been tried through a gateway, or beside a console sending the same universe.
- Multi-part cues, and shows running more than one cue list, have not been observed. The overlay shows whatever list the address carried.
Send problems to wer@hudco.lighting with wer.log attached (Help →
Open Log Folder), what you were doing, and the version and build from the
Environment tab. There is no issue tracker. For patches read
CONTRIBUTING.md first -- there is a contributor licence
agreement -- and ask before starting anything larger than a fix.
Wer is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later. Copyright © Hudco Lighting LLC; see LICENSE. It bundles FFmpeg 8.1.2 unmodified, itself GPL v3, so one licence covers the whole distribution; Qt is used under the LGPL v3 with its DLLs shipped loose so they can be replaced. THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md names every bundled component and its licence. Anyone handed a build is entitled to the source: Wer's at https://github.com/hudcolighting/wer, tagged per release, and FFmpeg's at https://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-8.1.2.tar.xz.
1.0.0 is the first release. It has been installed and used to record on both Windows 10 and Windows 11, including a machine with no hardware encoder, where it recorded 1080p30 on software encoding.