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A Specific Question For LOR Software Developers


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Well here we go! It needed to create a compressed sequence to playback in the show I guess so that is the long pause between songs so I shot a second video showing the transition once it had created the compressed sequence, uploading it now. However even after it created the compressed sequence it still had some playback issues at the start of the sequence with all those color fades (for those of you who have opened it know) but everything else played flawlessly.

Second video is uploading now.

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How big is the sequence with the 65 universes?

And how long did it take you to copy and paste? Did you have any issues?

Ummmmm huh have you been drinking? :P

Have a look at post #28 for a full description of all my pasting issues tonight and a download link for the 65 universe sequence. Total size was 479MB and audio length is 4:37 long.

On a side note I'm going to try and set all my controllers to unicast and see if that cleans up my playback issue. I'm thinking the jerky playback is because there is just way to much data going out the line to each controller. Hoping if I specify each controllers address it will cut down on traffic running to all the controllers.

I did a few more tests tonight to see if I could find the sweet spot of how many universes LOR would output on multicast with no hiccups. The result was a little shocking, I started turning off 5 universes at a time and hit play. Got down to universe #25 and it was almost perfect but I could still spot some lag here and there so I then started turning off one universe at a time and hit play. Universe 22 was the sweet spot! Anything above 22 universes with every channel sending data I saw issues. However 22 universes on multicast blasting data out to every channel played smooth.

I still need to test unicast and possibly change the speed on the controllers as well. If there is a way to output 65 universes smoothly I will try and figure it out. Stay tuned!

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No, but sounds like a good idea.

Didn't see that post.

Wow, been here for years, never noticed the # on the posts!

Looks like my issues. Hmmm. i have 25 universes and about the same length of the song but it's almost double the size. I'm new to the "compressed" sequence thing, is that a compressed size? or just regular? my internet connection is terrible, it says it will take 16 hours to download, PASS!

I guess the big question is what matters most? I am sure that the nosebleed universe numbers are doable, you just may have to limit the amount of data. Does a 20 universe 4 minute sequence that comes in at 400MB lag the same as say a 65 Universe 4 minute sequence that comes in at the same size? I am no computer expert but I would venture a guess that it would be the same.

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I still need to test unicast and possibly change the speed on the controllers as well. If there is a way to output 65 universes smoothly I will try and figure it out. Stay tuned!

This I think is what the answer is for the hardware to keep up with were asking it to do, the software I dont see any issues other than load up. We should expect a 400+ meg file to take some time to load up and layout in the SE. LOR couldnt see this coming this fast, we asked for 1.31 support and go it. Im sure they expected expansion, but on this scale?

Has Jim from Sansdevices said anything about unicast setup on the E682's in a future firmware update?

I posted a few posts back it took my i7 3770k sandy bridge all of 36 seconds to load up, and on first play was pretty quick. You i3 handled that sequence like a champ.

Edited by WilliamS
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I haven't heard anything about running the sandevices boards in unicast but luckily all mine are Eds J1sys boards so I can assign unicast to each one and test it out. The sequence editor has a few issues with copying and pasting large channel counts but in experimenting last night I did find a cool work around. Once you have copied a huge amount of channels save the clipboard before you paste, close the sequencer, reopen and paste your massive saved clipboard. I didnt thoroughly test it but it worked several times last night. Other than that the sequencer is pretty rock solid. I'm with you it should take a few seconds to load that much data.

I also think the issue is multicast. The controllers are having to discard all the packets that they don't need. They weren't designed to have 65 universes dumped on them to sort out. They were designed to handle 8 and they do that effortlessly. I think around 22 universes on multicast we are hitting a saturation point where the total number of packets exceeds the controllers ability to inspect them. Beyond that point packets are going to get randomly dropped resulting in my jerky playback above.

I will try and switch them to unicast ASAP. If that doesn't fix the issue my next guess would be the switch getting overloaded. Stay Tuned!

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I will try and switch them to unicast ASAP. If that doesn't fix the issue my next guess would be the switch getting overloaded. Stay Tuned!

This was my next question, looks like your on it. I notice on my small setup I have about 4-8 mbps upload, nothing for my computer but could be for an older or improperly setup switch or router. I know my home network goes insane once the show start. My wireless devices suffer when its on.

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Has Jim from Sansdevices said anything about unicast setup on the E682's in a future firmware update?

The E68X series are only multicast. Unicast is not supported right now.

Im just curious to if anyone has heard anything otherwise. In an email I had with Jim this week he wanted to add the unicast code as where the E682 module cant handle the incoming info on a larger scale theres not enough memory on board to handle it. So this goes with what Andy will be testing today with setting up all his JS1sys boards to unicast and seeing if the output cleans up. If it does work we know its the E682 were overloading because of the multicast output. Which Jim stated in an email Ive had with him. We all want it to work right, but Jim from Sansdevices, LOR, and others Im certain were not prepared for what our budgets would allow so quickly. Im working on Jim trying to get the firmware to test out the 8 universe output on the E681 upgrades, and the E682's. The sooner I can test and figure out the the outputs the faster I can get to sequencing. I plan 36-40 univereses in total, Im certain they all wont be full but they will be on the data lines, which seems where the E682 cant keep up. Not Jims fault and hes already on the ball trying to get us Unicast for those devices. Im only curious to if anyone has more info than I on the unicast firmware or how far along it is.

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For next year, we do plan to increase the number of channels we can efficiently handle. The goal is to be able to edit 100K channels with reasonable response times. To me 5 seconds is a long time and is way long to wait for things to happen.

Dan

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One thing to do when doing large pastes is to turn off UNDO. This will help and speed things up considerably and allow much larger pastes. Make sure to save a bit more often so you have the ability to go back when undo is turned of.

Dan

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One thing to do when doing large pastes is to turn off UNDO. This will help and speed things up considerably and allow much larger pastes. Make sure to save a bit more often so you have the ability to go back when undo is turned of.

Dan

Oh sweet! Very cool and I never would have thought of that. Once I unchecked "enable undo recording" it will copy and paste 18 universes worth of sequence over 1 minuet long instantly over and over again without issue. Good looking out! Thank you.

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Guess this is because it doesnt have to buffer the sequence before the paste, you lose the oh crap I just screwed up factor but still can move quicker into the setup. Good call Dan.

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The cool part about sequencing RGB is there are very few times you will need the undo feature. Its really hard to have those "oh crap I screwed up" moments. Some of my coolest effects from this year were in fact screw ups. Instead of undoing them I just went back in over top of them and sequenced in the beats. Now you have a killer screw up to the beat. You will be the only person who ever knew it was a goof. Everyone else will be wondering how you ever thought to do that.

:ph34r:

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I'm new to the "compressed" sequence thing, is that a compressed size? or just regular?

Sorry I over looked this question. Here is the LOR help text on compressed sequences:

The layout of a Light-O-Rama sequence file is somewhat verbose. This is intended to make it easier for third party tools which use LOR sequence files to be created. However, it has a drawback: Large sequences may be fairly slow to load. When loading a large sequence in the Sequence Editor, this may be an inconvenience. But the real problem is when loading a large sequence in the Show Player: It may take several seconds, during which time your show is effectively paused.

To resolve this issue, Light-O-Rama now supports the concept of a "compressed sequence". A compressed sequence is a separate save file, associated with a sequence but containing only enough information to play the sequence in the Show Player, and optimized for loading speed. This can speed up loading times dramatically - for example, for a certain large sequence that takes eight seconds to load on a certain computer, the associated compressed sequence only takes a small fraction of a second to load on that same computer.

Light-O-Rama will automatically create compressed sequences whenever appropriate, and the Show Player will automatically use them instead of the associated sequence file whenever they are present. So, you should not have to take any steps in order to start taking advantage of this feature. You can, however, prevent the Show Player from using compressed sequences (for example, if something unexpected goes wrong with them), in which case it will simply use the sequences instead. This can be controlled through the LOR Control Panel's "Use Compressed Sequences" option.

Not all sequences can have compressed sequences associated with them; if a sequence contains loops, or if it contains two or more tracks that have different time lengths than each other, it cannot have a compressed sequence. There are no other restrictions on what sequences can have compressed sequences. So, since musical sequences also cannot have loops or tracks of different lengths, note that this means in particular that all musical sequences can have compressed sequences.

Assuming that a compressed sequence can be associated with a sequence, then the Sequence Editor will automatically save a compressed sequence whenever it saves a sequence.

Assuming that you do not turn "Use Compressed Sequences" off, the way that the Show Player handles sequences and compressed sequences is this:

When your show calls for a certain sequence to be loaded, the Show Player will first check to see if there is a compressed sequence associated with that sequence. If so, and if the compressed sequence is more recent than the sequence, it will load the compressed sequence instead of the sequence.

Otherwise, it will load the sequence. After loading the sequence, it will check whether or not a compressed sequence can be made for it, and, if so, it will create the compressed sequence. This is so that in future runs of the show, it can simply use the compressed sequence instead of the sequence.

To sum all that up, LOR will create and use a compressed sequence as long as you haven't disabled it in the tray icons menu. This is what was taking place in the first video with the long pause between songs. Since it was the first time I ran that sequence in a show it was creating a compressed version of it and when it finished it started playing. I'm a fan of it.

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Guest wbottomley

For next year, we do plan to increase the number of channels we can efficiently handle. The goal is to be able to edit 100K channels with reasonable response times. To me 5 seconds is a long time and is way long to wait for things to happen.

Dan

One thing to do when doing large pastes is to turn off UNDO. This will help and speed things up considerably and allow much larger pastes. Make sure to save a bit more often so you have the ability to go back when undo is turned of.

Dan

Awesome. I can't wait. Is that part of the S4 release this Spring?

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Awesome. I can't wait. Is that part of the S4 release this Spring?

Stirring the pot early?

Edited by WilliamS
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Guest wbottomley

Nope.

The cool part about sequencing RGB is there are very few times you will need the undo feature. Its really hard to have those "oh crap I screwed up" moments. Some of my coolest effects from this year were in fact screw ups. Instead of undoing them I just went back in over top of them and sequenced in the beats. Now you have a killer screw up to the beat. You will be the only person who ever knew it was a goof. Everyone else will be wondering how you ever thought to do that.

:ph34r:

That's why my sequencing is flawless.... or full of flaws. :lol:

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hahahaha Sure yea I planned every bit of that sequence :blink:

With the undo option turned off the sequence editor is rock solid. I wish I would have thought of that months ago wow. I can copy and paste all day long now. Use ItsMeBobs clipboard flipper paste some more and everything performs like I was using 16 channels. Sure it takes a few seconds to open them and save but in all fairness I get excel spreadsheets at work all day that take longer to open. I wish it wouldn't of rained today so I could have switched all my controllers to unicast. If that fixes the lag problem then I'd say the software is ready now for anything you want to throw at it.

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