Any rumors for LOR 2011?

[csf]

Wow Dan I really have to thank you, I was definitely not expecting that detail of information, you really do prove time and time again just how great your ideas and customer service are:)

I definitely can see 2011 being a game changing year in the world of light animation.

Well now back to the drawing board knowing what I can now get from LOR, what I will need to perches else where, and a whole bunch of new ideas I was not even thinking about

[LightORamaDan]

kingsislandtechservices wrote:

Will these new controllers be available in kit form as well?

Yes, the will be available in kit form. In all form factors we have today. Solder, no-solder and some assembly, etc...

Dan

[LightORamaDan]

HowardShank wrote:

Dan,

Can you comment if the Cosmic COlor Bulbs will be available for purchase in January? Trying to figure out my prepurchase of lights and if these units can replace my LED order then I'd prefer to go this way.

Thanks

Howard

They were not going to be on sale in January but a pre-purchase sale may make sense... Will let you know in a couple of weeks.

Dan

[csf]

Dan any idea when you may be announcing prices for the CCB, and CCF?

[csimmon5]

Definitely looking forward to the CCB....licking my chops

[garyfunk]

One big question is: When will LOR have an IP interface to the controller?

[-klb-]

If they go with either E1.31, or art-net, you will have the ability to go IP to at least as far as the DMX interface bridge. But at a cost of computing all the effects on the host computer.

If LOR engineers their own E1.31 to DMX bridge, it might be a worthwhile feature if they can support LOR native protocol on one or more universes off the bridge. Still not full IP to the controller, but it gets you some of the advantages.

Now what the hardware on the 2nd gen controllers will be, I won't even guess.

[garyfunk]

I am thinking more of a REST or SOAP interface that lets us tell send a command to Unit 13, channel 8, On 50%.

[scubado]

Some of this is over my head, but can't wait till end of January to get a second part time job to fund this addiction. I already started my channel setup and visualizer for next year, maybe I should wait to go further, why do it the hard way now if going to get easier.

[Greg]

PaulXmas wrote:

DanLowell wrote:

LOR Rocks.

What are LOR rocks?

Rainbow coloured rocks that you can sequence to music?

LMAO!!!!



Then again I wouldn't be surprised

[Guest guest]

I was feeling a little burnt out after the first year efforts, needing a couple months away to recharge, and now after reading Dan's post I'm already thinking about 2011...

I can see holding on Gen 2 controllers, depending on price, etc., but the whole rainbow flood idea is something i never really got off the ground this year as far as incorporating into my display...it looks like something of that nature is back on the list for 2011...

Dan..will the floods run on a standard DC card, or have their own controller? Kit..or only available assembled?

[ItsMeBobO]

Thanks so much for all the info Dan. People do not want to believe this was a year around hobby. There is so much here to prep for!

[-klb-]

DonFL wrote:

Dan..will the floods run on a standard DC card, or have their own controller? Kit..or only available assembled?

This info may be out of date, and my recollection may be faulty.. From what I remember, the last technical presentation that we saw here specified a special, dedicated controller, that could control one or two units.

[Max-Paul]

Oy-vey! That was a lot of info and not sure if I got it all sorted out in my head Dan.

Ok, there is a new 2nd generation of controllers coming out, maybe in 2011. Also some major work has been done with the visualizer.

So, forgive me if this was addressed. What about us guys that have gen 1 controllers and are about 95% LED? As it stands at this time, the visualizer is very difficult to work with. With my LED items at 50% which is like 100% or max on. In the visualizer I can sort of see the items. And I can barely see them when I have them at about 20%. In short it is not a clear representation of what the lights really look like intensity wise. Ok so, I suppose if the visualizer had a way to translate LED levels to look like ican levels. And then there is the finer steps in the software (S3?) then the LEDs will not look so jerky as it fades up or down slowly.

But I egress Dan and ask, is there any thing that will help those of us with the G1 boards to make our LEDs look better. Both while programming and while running a show?

Got to say I love what your products have allowed me to be able to do with my limited DIY abilities. I would never have done this if I had to use a parallel printer port and a bunch of optos and SSRs.

Just very hard to see what I am doing in the visualizer at this time.

Thanks Dan for coming in the forum and telling us all about where LOR is going. Sounds like some really neat stuff (ok I kept it clean).

[marquisite]

LightORamaDan wrote:

With 100% certainty, we will be expanding the Cosmic Color series to include Cosmic Color Bulbs and Cosmic Color Floods. The Cosmic Color Bulbs are individually addressable RGB bulbs and the Cosmic Color Floods are high powered RGB LED floods with high power constant current drivers. They are bright!. We spent a large amount of effort last year getting them ready and they will absolutely be sold in 2011.


Dan…

Thanks for the insight into what will be pumping out of LOR HQ in 2011 and beyond..


Will the Cosmic Color Floods be showing up in the summer sales? Do these have an inbuilt controller like the CCR's and CCB's or do you connect to 3 DC channels on a DC board?


Do you have any more information on the ghost loads and snubbers for 240 countries - can these be retrofitted to the CTB16PC or do these exist on the newer Gen2 controllers?


I hope you have had a fantastic Christmas Dan, as well as everyone else :-)


Thanks,
Ryan

[TJ Hvasta]

Dan,

The kid that was selling arch controllers on eBay that we told you abt brings up an idea that may, or may not work well..

I dont know if there'd be any difference between a -16PC kit(or such) and an arch controller like the ones that kid was selling.. Or even something like an Arch Kit.. would be four 14-16ch controllers on one board (or daughterboard) designed specifically to run 7-9 segment (channel) arches.. Thinking it out, it would be just like two to four 16PC controllers in one enclosure t be used on arches, or mega/mini trees, or light (belagio) poles.. just compacted... anyway, might just be an idea for new project/item..

[dmoore]

Max-Paul wrote:

But I egress Dan and ask, is there any thing that will help those of us with the G1 boards to make our LEDs look better. Both while programming and while running a show?

To see what Dan is talking about, look at this video: http://www.vimeo.com/13703416

It shows a variety of controller types (LOR and non-LOR, DC and AC) along with LED and incandescent bulbs and how they fade. What you can see is that LED's have (out of the box) very poor fading in comparison to incandescents. So a jump to more steps in fading will help a bit. Also the downloadable dimming curves will allow you to fix up problem LED strings.

The one question that begs is - this is going to suck up some more bandwidth and involved a re-write to the LOR protocol, further pushing the LOR protocol to it's limits and down to the range where DMX lives (512 channels per network). I wish LOR would just transition to DMX and then sticky channels and other protocol based issues become a thing of the past.

[dmoore]

LightORamaDan wrote:

To support displays with the 1000s of channels required for individually addressable RGB bulbs, we will be making major improvements to our network capabilities and providing high speed Ethernet interfaces that will provide multiple LOR/DMX networks and universes. For those who want to run their show from the PC a lower cost DMX dongle will be available.

The LOR software will be enhanced to support easier sequencing when many 1000s of channels are involved.

Dan -

Will the ethernet interface be based on E131, allowing LOR software to be used with other E131 interfaces?

When you say "enchanced" to support thousands of channels.... Will this involve object oriented/transition processes like in Madrix, Prancer and LSP? Something that helps "write" the sequence for you? As someone coming out of 2010 with 2,300 channels, all this hardware (pixel nodes/cosmic bulbs) is going to be for not without some really smoking good software. Will this software be able to reference lights in a 2D or 3D space as it pertains to auto-sequencing?

[garyfunk]

dmoore wrote:

LightORamaDan wrote:

To support displays with the 1000s of channels required for individually addressable RGB bulbs, we will be making major improvements to our network capabilities and providing high speed Ethernet interfaces that will provide multiple LOR/DMX networks and universes. For those who want to run their show from the PC a lower cost DMX dongle will be available.

The LOR software will be enhanced to support easier sequencing when many 1000s of channels are involved.

Dan -

Will the ethernet interface be based on E131, allowing LOR software to be used with other E131 interfaces?

When you say "enchanced" to support thousands of channels.... Will this involve object oriented/transition processes like in Madrix, Prancer and LSP? Something that helps "write" the sequence for you? As someone coming out of 2010 with 2,300 channels, all this hardware (pixel nodes/cosmic bulbs) is going to be for not without some really smoking good software. Will this software be able to reference lights in a 2D or 3D space as it pertains to auto-sequencing?

I can't imagine Dan doing all this for naught. Dan is a pretty smart fellow, I will venture a guess that S3 will have methods for controlling all the new hardware. Also most people won’t know OOP if it sits on their lap. They want an easy way to program the hardware and they will want it all from one vendor.



I also imagine that the third-party software will soon catch up and offer alternatives. Every time I read some forum, I learn of different software to control the LOR units.

[dmoore]

garyfunk wrote:

dmoore wrote:

LightORamaDan wrote:

To support displays with the 1000s of channels required for individually addressable RGB bulbs, we will be making major improvements to our network capabilities and providing high speed Ethernet interfaces that will provide multiple LOR/DMX networks and universes. For those who want to run their show from the PC a lower cost DMX dongle will be available.

The LOR software will be enhanced to support easier sequencing when many 1000s of channels are involved.

Dan -

Will the ethernet interface be based on E131, allowing LOR software to be used with other E131 interfaces?

When you say "enchanced" to support thousands of channels.... Will this involve object oriented/transition processes like in Madrix, Prancer and LSP? Something that helps "write" the sequence for you? As someone coming out of 2010 with 2,300 channels, all this hardware (pixel nodes/cosmic bulbs) is going to be for not without some really smoking good software. Will this software be able to reference lights in a 2D or 3D space as it pertains to auto-sequencing?

I can't imagine Dan doing all this for naught. Dan is a pretty smart fellow, I will venture a guess that S3 will have methods for controlling all the new hardware. Also most people won’t know OOP if it sits on their lap. They want an easy way to program the hardware and they will want it all from one vendor.



I also imagine that the third-party software will soon catch up and offer alternatives. Every time I read some forum, I learn of different software to control the LOR units.

I'm not 100% sure of that. LOR had the CCR out for more than a year before they added RGB to S2. LOR strong suite is hardware, not software and I think history bares that out. Now, I will give LOR credit that the software works really well and for 95% of the population out there today, it is more than enough. Of course what is coming down the pike is completely new and requires an entirely new way of thinking about sequencing. While OOS may not mean much to users, once they get a dozen pixel node strings hooked up and they start trying to sequence a thousand or so channels, they'll realize that the hardware was the simple part and that the software is as, if not more important than the hardware to creating a top-notch display.

As to all from one vendor - I think on the starter end, yes, they want an out-of-the-box solution from one vendor. Though my experience tells me that after a few seasons, people start to stray from the flock and are driven by cutting edge technology and cost benefits and are willing to risk, some some degree, the single vendor solution. This happened en-mass with RGB floods in 2010 - this even required many to venture into DMX, DIY and other technology.

Catch up? LSP already is caught up and works with just about everything you can plug a christmas light into - pixel or otherwise. It would be great if LOR would just purchase LSP as their "high end" sequence application since it does everything they'll be working on into 2012. It's a whole lot easier to buy an exisiting wheel than reinvent it. Of course that is just my opinion.