Hi Alex,
I understand your frustration with the creative options in Watchout, but I think you'll find that all the solutions in its class have similar weaknesses; they are essentially media servers/compositors, rather than content creation tools. I've found Watchout to be pretty stable, though—what sort of reliability issues are you having?
AVStumpfl makes Wings Platinum, a product very similar to Watchout—perhaps this is the product you were asking about before. I think you'll find its architecture, strengths, and weaknesses are quite similar to Watchout's.
If you haven't used Watchout 4 yet, you should check it out. There are some big improvements over v3 in content creation, including compositions, auxiliary timelines, and show control. Timeline layering has been inverted, too, so items on the top layers of the timeline are composited on top of the image, just like in Photoshop and After Effects. Version 4.1 is expected to include blend modes. If Dataton ever added a titler, that would go a long way to addressing my frustrations in designing Watchout.
That said, my Watchout workflow is pretty much the same as yours—a lot of After Effects, a little bit of Watchout. I haven't found any standalone product that gives me the power of AE in realtime, synched over multiple displays.
One option that's not commonly suggested is Apple's Quartz Composer, a node-based visual programming language. It's used to make all of Apple's screen savers, iChat effects, and iMovie effects and transitions. It's probably not suitable for structured storytelling, but it could be an option if your content is eye candy. It's very powerful, realtime, and network-aware, but I've found the learning curve to be pretty steep. Also, I'm not sure it will address your screen-warping without additional programming.
Walter Soyka, Principal
Keen Live, Inc.
Presentation, Motion Graphics & Widescreen Design
RenderBreak: A Blog on Innovation in Production
