E1.31 Questions [Beta Released 6/8/12]

[LightORamaJohn]

wbottomley wrote:

...Jim St.John has done great work as well. Especially with the incorporation of the ELOR for users that will not upgrade to S3. This single device along with the E68X series are pixel perfect.

I posted about the ELOR in at least one other thread. I'm posting here because we get a lot of grief from people when they buy something that turns out to be unnecessary.

With the ELOR, you have a system that looks like PC -> USB adapter -> RS485 link -> ELOR -> Ethernet to your show. With current network speeds, we find that this will support about 300 very active pixels. With a superspeed network this would increase to 900 pixels. If your display is lethargic, then it could be many more pixels.

Each bump in the number of pixels supported would require another USB adapter/cable/ELOR w/power supply. So you have to buy, configure and maintain hardware.

S3 has E1.31 working now and will be released by mid-summer. You can pay the upgrade price ($30) once for S3 and get all the benefits associated with that and eliminate the sets of hardware needed for ELOR connectivity. There is no hardware required. The system looks like PC -> Ethernet to your show.

[Charles Belcher]

John,

Questions:

1)What are the specs of the computer on which you will test your new superspeed S3?

2)How many pixels will the superspeed handle on your test computer in the following situations:

A)All pixels fading from 100-0% at the same time over a 5 second event
B)All pixels twinkling at the same time over a 5 second event
C)All pixels changing from red to green to blue over a 5 seconds in .05 events

Charles



LightORamaJohn wrote:

wbottomley wrote:

...Jim St.John has done great work as well. Especially with the incorporation of the ELOR for users that will not upgrade to S3. This single device along with the E68X series are pixel perfect.

I posted about the ELOR in at least one other thread. I'm posting here because we get a lot of grief from people when they buy something that turns out to be unnecessary.

With the ELOR, you have a system that looks like PC -> USB adapter -> RS485 link -> ELOR -> Ethernet to your show. With current network speeds, we find that this will support about 300 very active pixels. With a superspeed network this would increase to 900 pixels. If your display is lethargic, then it could be many more pixels.

Each bump in the number of pixels supported would require another USB adapter/cable/ELOR w/power supply. So you have to buy, configure and maintain hardware.

S3 has E1.31 working now and will be released by mid-summer. You can pay the upgrade price once for S3 and get all the benefits associated with that and eliminate the sets of hardware needed for ELOR connectivity. There is no hardware required. The system looks like PC -> Ethernet to your show.

[LightORamaJohn]

Charles Belcher wrote:

John,

Questions:

1)What are the specs of the computer on which you will test your new superspeed S3?

2)How many pixels will the superspeed handle on your test computer in the following situations:

A)All pixels fading from 100-0% at the same time over a 5 second event
B)All pixels twinkling at the same time over a 5 second event
C)All pixels changing from red to green to blue over a 5 seconds in .05 events

Charles

Superspeed is such a minor load on the PC that we can't imagine anyone needing new PC hardware if they bought the PC in this century.

Remember that superspeed is a LOR network only capability. (We can't change the speed or channel counts on DMX networks.) This means that fades/twinkling/color-fades are actually being done in the controllers so its just the initial fade commands to the controllers that load the network. For 5 seconds after that there wouldn't be any network activity. For the red -> green -> blue color change, you're going to command all channels every 50ms.

I think it takes about 8 bytes to direct 16 consecutive channels with the same command(fade,twinkle,...) So if you tried to start a lot of fades simultaneously, you're going to start seeing the comm speed. If you're running at about 30K bytes/sec, it takes 8/30000secs to do one fade on 16 consecutive channels. So a 1000 channels would take about 17ms. Depending upon how your channels are laid out, you might see this. I think the red/green/blue transition would be much worse because we couldn't consolidate the commands. However, since you're on a LOR network, you're probably using one of our pixel devices. You can change the resolution of the pixel device and it will do the red/green/blue transitions with far fewer commands than even the fades. Of course, you could use resolution with the fades as well and cut down on those commands.

[edvas69]

LightORamaJohn wrote:

Charles Belcher wrote:

John,

Questions:

1)What are the specs of the computer on which you will test your new superspeed S3?

2)How many pixels will the superspeed handle on your test computer in the following situations:

A)All pixels fading from 100-0% at the same time over a 5 second event
B)All pixels twinkling at the same time over a 5 second event
C)All pixels changing from red to green to blue over a 5 seconds in .05 events

Charles

Superspeed is such a minor load on the PC that we can't imagine anyone needing new PC hardware if they bought the PC in this century.

Remember that superspeed is a LOR network only capability. (We can't change the speed or channel counts on DMX networks.) This means that fades/twinkling/color-fades are actually being done in the controllers so its just the initial fade commands to the controllers that load the network. For 5 seconds after that there wouldn't be any network activity. For the red -> green -> blue color change, you're going to command all channels every 50ms.

I think it takes about 8 bytes to direct 16 consecutive channels with the same command(fade,twinkle,...) So if you tried to start a lot of fades simultaneously, you're going to start seeing the comm speed. If you're running at about 30K bytes/sec, it takes 8/30000secs to do one fade on 16 consecutive channels. So a 1000 channels would take about 17ms. Depending upon how your channels are laid out, you might see this. I think the red/green/blue transition would be much worse because we couldn't consolidate the commands. However, since you're on a LOR network, you're probably using one of our pixel devices. You can change the resolution of the pixel device and it will do the red/green/blue transitions with far fewer commands than even the fades. Of course, you could use resolution with the fades as well and cut down on those commands.

This may be fine with the data transmission, but how will LOR S3 actually handle sequencing 10's of thousands of channels in a grid based software package with the load of the frontend and GUI , this is where i see possible limitations depending on what CPU is used. Or does LOR have some plans in the closet for LOR S4

[LightORamaJohn]

edvas69 wrote:

This may be fine with the data transmission, but how will LOR S3 actually handle sequencing 10's of thousands of channels in a grid based software package with the load of the frontend and GUI , this is where i see possible limitations depending on what CPU is used. Or does LOR have some plans in the closet for LOR S4

At this point, sequencing 10s of thousands of channels represents such a tiny number of people it would be silly to invest a lot of effort there. Even in the near future, how many people are going to buy 10,000 pixel displays? We are a business so we're going to look to our customers and potential customers to see what's best.

People doing this use Madrix style solutions which is a different kind of show. I've seen shows where some area is covered with pixels and they run images over it. It's nice, but I've seen far better shows using animatronics or simple multi-image wireframes. I am probably prejudiced because I find video games boring and people's displays start to look like big TV screens. I want something more visceral -- I'm really a Halloween guy at heart.

We recently added a matrix tool(SuperStar) to the grid tool because sequencing even 600 pixels is too time consuming. SuperStar is an ongoing project where we will continue to enhance it to do the types of things for which our users ask. As I've said in other posts we continue to look at S3 to see where we need to change it to handle more channels, but I don't think this is the direction that will yield the best results. I also mention in this thread that we will have a different kind of solution for 10s of thousands of channels. We have also looked at Madrix and it wouldn't be difficult to duplicate parts applicable, especially since SuperStar knows the layout of your pixels. Priorities...

[edvas69]

LightORamaJohn wrote:

edvas69 wrote:

This may be fine with the data transmission, but how will LOR S3 actually handle sequencing 10's of thousands of channels in a grid based software package with the load of the frontend and GUI , this is where i see possible limitations depending on what CPU is used. Or does LOR have some plans in the closet for LOR S4

At this point, sequencing 10s of thousands of channels represents such a tiny number of people it would be silly to invest a lot of effort there. Even in the near future, how many people are going to buy 10,000 pixel displays? We are a business so we're going to look to our customers and potential customers to see what's best.

People doing this use Madrix style solutions which is a different kind of show. I've seen shows where some area is covered with pixels and they run images over it. It's nice, but I've seen far better shows using animatronics or simple multi-image wireframes. I am probably prejudiced because I find video games boring and people's displays start to look like big TV screens. I want something more visceral -- I'm really a Halloween guy at heart.

We recently added a matrix tool(SuperStar) to the grid tool because sequencing even 600 pixels is too time consuming. SuperStar is an ongoing project where we will continue to enhance it to do the types of things for which our users ask. As I've said in other posts we continue to look at S3 to see where we need to change it to handle more channels, but I don't think this is the direction that will yield the best results. I also mention in this thread that we will have a different kind of solution for 10s of thousands of channels. We have also looked at Madrix and it wouldn't be difficult to duplicate parts applicable, especially since SuperStar knows the layout of your pixels. Priorities...

This is understood, i asked only because of the future implementation of superspeed and how this could benifit those taking advantage of superspeed and how this would impact on the actual sequencing as superspeed appears to be disigned to drive many pixels/channels/controllers. If not then what is superspeed for?

[LightORamaJohn]

edvas69 wrote:

This is understood, i asked only because of the future implementation of superspeed and how this could benifit those taking advantage of superspeed and how this would impact on the actual sequencing as superspeed appears to be disigned to drive many pixels/channels/controllers.  If not then what is superspeed for?

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Superspeed came about because the fastest network speed maxed out at about 300 very active pixels. This forced users to have two networks for a 12 CCR tree. I have redone the comm handling in all of our new controllers so that tripling the network speed is nothing for them. It has nothing to do with sequencing, it's just to make it easier and cheaper for our customers to cable things up. A superspeed network should handle about 2,500+ channels which is the majority of our current customers. As more and more use pixels, this will change, but 5000 channels with a couple USB adapters is still going to cover most displays.

If I missed your question I'm sure you won't be shy.

[DanglinModifiers]

Great info and discussion, John! Thank you.

[edvas69]

LightORamaJohn wrote:

edvas69 wrote:

This is understood, i asked only because of the future implementation of superspeed and how this could benifit those taking advantage of superspeed and how this would impact on the actual sequencing as superspeed appears to be disigned to drive many pixels/channels/controllers. If not then what is superspeed for?

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Superspeed came about because the fastest network speed maxed out at about 300 very active pixels. This forced users to have two networks for a 12 CCR tree. I have redone the comm handling in all of our new controllers so that tripling the network speed is nothing for them. It has nothing to do with sequencing, it's just to make it easier and cheaper for our customers to cable things up. A superspeed network should handle about 2,500+ channels which is the majority of our current customers. As more and more use pixels, this will change, but 5000 channels with a couple USB adapters is still going to cover most displays.

If I missed your question I'm sure you won't be shy.

Thanks for clarifying that John, its now clear how and why superspeed is being implemented. You answered my question and im sure it also answered for many others.

[J_Plak]

DanglinModifiers wrote:

Great info and discussion, John! Thank you.

Yes this is, Great info and discussion, John! Thank you.

[Guest Don Gillespie]

Jeff Millard wrote:

LightORamaJohn wrote:

...we get a lot of grief from people when they buy something that turns out to be unnecessary.

It's only unnecessary to those who choose to upgrade to S3. The ELOR makes use of the (now unnecessary) iDMX which is available in S2 with Basic to Advanced licenses. Thereby giving S2 E1.31 capability, even before S3 has it...

The grief you recieve from people who purchase other vendors products, which then become unnecessary, is really thier own grief being deflected at you. I can relate.

Jeff

So am I to believe that you don't need to have S3 to run this??

[edvas69]

Don Gillespie wrote:

Jeff Millard wrote:

LightORamaJohn wrote:

...we get a lot of grief from people when they buy something that turns out to be unnecessary.

It's only unnecessary to those who choose to upgrade to S3. The ELOR makes use of the (now unnecessary) iDMX which is available in S2 with Basic to Advanced licenses. Thereby giving S2 E1.31 capability, even before S3 has it...

The grief you recieve from people who purchase other vendors products, which then become unnecessary, is really thier own grief being deflected at you. I can relate.

Jeff

So am I to believe that you don't need to have S3 to run this??

You can run these with LOR S2 but where the issue arrises is in the actual programming of these because LOR S2 doesnt support RGB and so it would be extreamly difficult and time consuming using any large amount of RGB pixels with LOR S2

[edvas69]

Jeff Millard wrote:

edvas69 wrote:

and so it would be extremely difficult and time consuming using any large amount of RGB pixels with LOR S2

...and again the point John raised... you continually indicate the difficulties that arise when using these devices to the extreme. As in "large amount of RGB pixels"

Many of the people who frequent this forum aren't interested in jumping leaps and bounds into the extreme upgrades you, Phil and all many of the DIY people are so well know for. Charles is an exception to the cross section member of this portion of the hobby. By the very fact that they choose to use LOR products, DIY in extremes is a foreign language to most of them. However, they're all interested in Pixel and LED ribbons and DMX. The membership here is learning in small doses how to solder together controllers (thanks to the LOR kits) Due to the success of a few and regular discussions by those who've had that success, some are starting to branch out and try new things. There are still people here who use the initial release of LOR software. There are also people who choose not to upgrade from S2 to S3. Fo a couple years there were members who controlled and programmed S2 for RGB control. Control of multiple strings of LED C7 mini trees. Glenn Stewart was doing it my first year in this hobby, maybe earlier.

Regardless of the thought that it's a throw away item, it is, in fact the "only" way to control E1.31 with LOR at the time of this post. Any version of LOR. Post any E1.31 upgrade to S3, this ELOR is still the "only" way to control E1.31 devices with S2. In it's capacity as a DMX device it can emulate the iDMX with double the number of intelligent channels. Cheaply.

There are people in this forum who have interest in the device. Pointing out it's inadequacies (or the lack of RGB ability of the version of software it can be used with in this case) is just as important as it's abilities. But the bottom line right now is... there is no other way. Would you care to gamble a year's preparation on the track record at hand?

Jeff

Would you rather that i not point out any of these limitations and have people thinking they can build a mega pixel tree without any limitations. Im not having a go at you, LOR or anybody, what im trying to do is educate people of the current limits they may have to deal with if they have big plans. Nothing else so dont take it personal as you seem to have. The thread has generated some very good information for all to learn and if shortcomings are not highlighted then it becomes an unbalanced thread that is misleading which then may make people buy something that may not meet their expectations. So if you see that as being wrong then im sorry you have misinterpreted the whole point of this constructive thread and discussion.

[aussiephil]

Jeff,

To stay a little on topic i'll just make a couple responses.

Yes ELOR and S2 has looked the only way for a while but S3 with E131 support looks to be nearly out the door, i have followed over the years some of the track record and it hasn't been good and with large numbers of people no doubt already sequencing then it may already be too late. The pricing of S3 did surprise me with it's seeming sensibility and for people moving into RGB regardless of actual channel count this would seem to be a sensible upgrade.
I'm the last to say you need it, I ran 2,000+ pixels the last two years in Vixen, likely less capable with RGB.
However using a program suited to the task will make the average persons life a lot easier.
A lot of people would consider 2000 pixels to be "a large amount of" RGB pixels... and a jump from 300ch to 6000 channels is large BUT i have seen so many posts on so many forums this year talking about buying from 2000 to 5000 pixels (in their first year of this)... these people WILL be shattered and shell shocked trying to sequence these in anything other than completely suitable software.
I for one don't want to see them disappointed and bitter when it all becomes too hard.

Without the guys on the bleeding edge there would be little to no advice to help the wave (tsunami) coming behind us.

and yes i have again jumped ahead this year, 20,000 channels at current count and a leap to new software as well.

I posted here purely to ensure that people making the leap can be somewhat aware of a few issues.

I have played with the LOR S3 demo and see a lot of benefits for RGB people regardless of channel count

Cheers
Phil

[Dan Ancona]

Jeff Millard wrote:

I'll be Frank,

You sure about that??

[Donny M. Carter]

Jeff Millard wrote: If I see one more post saying "this is the best way" I'm gonna explode. The "best way" is the way someone finds to successfully make the magic that results from the way they did it. Bottom line.

Well said Jeff!

[edvas69]

Jeff Millard wrote:

But the continual bashing of Jim StJohn's products in several forums hads me wondering if there's more to it than just pointing out the devices shortcomings.

So you are saying that by warning people that they may have perforamnce issues and not actually be able to use the ELOR and E681 to its full capacity is deemed as bashing. I see it as helping people gain some insight so they can make better choices with their money.

I know what my test results were and I know how the network speed limitations affect it. If anyone else would like to know they can do what I did and get their results by aquiring the hardware, getting an advanced S3 license and test.

So you would expect people to buy things that may not perform to their expectations and instead of sharing that info you would rather people waste their money to test something you have already tested. Sorry but that just goes against my beliefs, i believe in sharing information.

I've grown tired of the post police chopping up the desire to let people make the choice for themselves. If I see one more post saying "this is the best way" I'm gonna explode. The "best way" is the way someone finds to successfully make the magic that results from the way they did it. Bottom line.

Jeff

I think you seem to mix up people discussing shortcoming and limitations as being a bash session when in fact its trying to present all the information. There is no best way and there is no wrong way, but there are better choices than others for individuals based on facts, data, information and cost and not emotion. You chose the ELOR path and thats fine, it works for you and many others, but it may not be the best solution for others and they can choose that when given all the pros and cons, all we can do is present a non emotional factual based discussion so others can then be educated and empowered to make the right choices for themselves.

So lets keep it on track and keep it informative and not emotional as thats when the thread will then become lost and no one ends up learning anything of any value. Because in the end thats why most of us are active in the forums and that is to share information and learn from eachother, isnt that win/win for everyone.

[edvas69]

Jeff Millard wrote:

edvas69 wrote:

Jeff Millard wrote:

So you are saying that by warning people that they may have perforamnce issues and not actually be able to use the ELOR and E681 to its full capacity is deemed as bashing. I see it as helping people gain some insight so they can make better choices with their money.No,

No, this is some stuff you made up in your head when your read my post. You obviously have taken it personally, which leads me to believe there actually is more too it... as I stated in a previous post. The bold font is very threatening and indicates a form of aggressive tone. Are you angry and wish to argue, or am I not allowed to have an opinion when post in deference to your accusatory tone?

So you would expect people to buy things that may not perform to their expectations and instead of sharing that info you would rather people waste their money to test something you have already tested. Sorry but that just goes against my beliefs, i believe in sharing information.

Regardless of your opinions that information should be shared, I clearly stated that doing so flew in the face of this company IMHO. If you'd like the information to be public, you're certainly welcome to reread my post and do as I suggested. However, I choose not to stab LOR in the back. Another thing I clearly stated in my post.

think you seem to mix up people discussing shortcoming and limitations as being a bash session when in fact its trying to present all the information. There is no best way and there is no wrong way, but there are better choices than others for individuals based on facts, data, information and cost and not emotion. You chose the ELOR path and thats fine, it works for you and many others, but it may not be the best solution for others and they can choose that when given all the pros and cons, all we can do is present a non emotional factual based discussion so others can then be educated and empowered to make the right choices for themselves.

And once again, I've read nothing but continual bashing of the product by several people on several forums. My statement was not limited to your discussion here in this thread. But, it seems you've also taken offense to this statement too.

So lets keep it on track and keep it informative and not emotional as thats when the thread will then become lost and no one ends up learning anything of any value. Because in the end thats why most of us are active in the forums and that is to share information and learn from eachother, isnt that win/win for everyone.

Looking back over the thread and my posts, it appears to me the emotional outburst appeared as the text became bold. But that's another subjective opinion.

Jeff

Jeff the bald text was nothing more than seperating your text with mine. the issue with any written text that things can easily become misinterpreted, so no i dont want to argue with you or anyone. If i have read into your post and misinterpreted its tone then i apolagize.

But it did appear to me that you were not happy with me from my response about your original post about your computer performance as your timely PM to me at ACL to terminate your membership was strange. To me it felt like you had taken a constructive response personally. And then the subsequent posts after that seemed like they had a direction

Anyway lets both move on and not degenerate any further than we have, because this adds no value to anyone and in a text world things can be easily misinterpreted and thats why its always good to try and keep it to facts. you have added lots of value over the years and you are a valuable member of the community, so lets just put it down to a misunderstanding and we can then move on and focus on what we do best and thats help educate the community of the different choices available.

Cheers

[WilliamS]

I have the LOR advanced License as well I do have have a few of Jims 681 controllers. I do as well have 2 ELOR's. I have them for a few reasons as Jeff or Frank whatever he is called pointed out, easy guarantee I have the hardware to drive my pixels, as well they do offer a full DMX universe each. I will not sell them even if LOR gives me full control over the 1.31 devices as you never know if I can talk someone local into the lights they wont need the license I have as most wont go this overbaord.

Im excited and hopeful to run LOR only to my E681's if it becomes native I will be buying 2 more giving me control over 2720 pixels or 8160 channels and I will use them all somehow some way. This is my only hobby so budget is whatever it takes as long as I still have food.

There is an advantage the ELOR also has over a E681 (dmx) device as it can read LOR commands. So if I want a shimmer the ELOR is like a LOR controller, it gets 1 command to do for say 3 seconds to shimmer those channels, where DMX would send 40 commands per second for those 3 seconds over all of those channels. This is network heavy but it works. Same with fades so Jim did a great job building and coding this device, so like Jeff I am greatful he built it regardless of if I need it.

Last thing as lately Ive gotten too carried away. The emotion found in these treads is only becuase we want it now. We are human and as humans we love instant gratification. When we see something new, and if its what we want we do not want to wait. So calm down, relax, and as Jeff said "build the show on what you know you can already accomplish" Im building 2, 1 based on what I have, and 1 that I hope 1.31 support will allow.

I thank you guys for keeping this thread alive.

[LightORamaJohn]

GoofyGuy wrote:

...
There is an advantage the ELOR also has over a E681 (dmx) device as it can read LOR commands. So if I want a shimmer the ELOR is like a LOR controller, it gets 1 command to do for say 3 seconds to shimmer those channels, where DMX would send 40 commands per second for those 3 seconds over all of those channels. This is network heavy but it works. Same with fades so Jim did a great job building and coding this device, so like Jeff I am greatful he built it regardless of if I need it.

I can see another advantage to the ELOR and that is that you don't have to use your home Ethernet network. You effectively have another LAN port on your PC that is completely isolated. I really don't like the idea of my wired home network out in my yard (E1.31 directly from the PC) where someone could actually just plug in. You could avoid this by removing the show PC from your regular LAN, but this is a pain.