Stopwatch that can be syncronized across a network of computers?

Question

Does anyone know of a program, utility, web-app etc, that can be used as a stopwatch to track/display the amount of time that has passed since the user clicked the start button?

The utility must additionally track/display the same amount of time on the other observing computers; i.e. when I click the start button on the first/master computer, the other two computers will receive a packet telling them to start their stopwatches as well; and the same will happen when I click the stop button on the first/master computer the other two computers will receive a packet telling them to stop their timers.

I have seen a similar functionality in Work Rave however it cannot be started/stopped.

My intention is to use the functionality to record a screencast that spans multiple computers, and to use the syncro-timer so that I can tell later in video editing when each scene occurred.

Update I found a link to a program which seems to fit the bill (although it doesn't sync between the two computers, it does sync between an atomic clock and the local machine).

It's not entirely accurate, after a little while the clocks get out of sync, but it's good enough for what I'm trying to pull off here. It also provides the seconds, which was also a requirement for me.

Answer 1

You haven't specified the operating system.

I don't know of any prepackaged solution. I'm thinking about two possibilities:

Solution 1

VNC protocol using single-window mode: On the master computer set up and start a VNC server supporting single-window mode and launch any stopwatch application. To display the time on other computers use a VNC client and connect it to the VNC server/remote window.

Solution 2

If you can work on a terminal it can be done with a stopwatch/counter and netcat to pass the result (e.g. elapsed time) to other computers.

Example:

Stopwatch example using a command-line stopwatch from here and a netcat for windows binary from here:

Batch file on the master computer (it should be on the same directory as stopwatch.exe and nc.exe).

@echo off
stopwatch start > timestamp.txt
pause > null
stopwatch stop < timestamp.txt > elapsed.txt
nc -d -w 1 remote-pc-1 4444 < elapsed.txt
nc -d -w 1 remote-pc-2 4444 < elapsed.txt
...
type elapsed.txt

(replace remote-pc-N appropriately, press any key to stop counting)

On the remote computers:

nc -L -p 4444

Also replace port 4444 if used.

Answer 2

It seems you could simply make sure that the clocks on all the participating computers were in sync, and then just use the clock time instead of a stopwatch to identify scenes. You could easily convert this into elapsed time.

Answer 3

You might try this program (haven't tested it myself though): http://download.cnet.com/MultiTrack-Stopwatch/3000-2350_4-10122220.html

Answer 4

I found a link to a program which seems to fit the bill (although it doesn't sync between the two computers, it does sync between an atomic clock and the local machine).

It's not entirely accurate, after a little while the clocks get out of sync, but it's good enough for what I'm trying to pull off here. It also provides the seconds, which was also a requirement for me.