RGB or Incands? From a look stand point...

[edvas69]

What is a traditional Christmas display? because traditional will change over the years. My display is far from traditional but thats because it uses new things and is mainly made of strip and modules. The effect on the audience is actually greater than that of a 'traditional display' because the display offers many things that are new which many have not seen or experienced before. Its still a Christmas show as the theme is Christmas, but its colourful and new and offers something different, it wont appeal to everyone because there isnt any lighting that is 'traditional' but thats because we all have our own preferences. It would be a boring bland world if we all liked the same things.

As far as shimmer and twinkle with LOR Vs DMX

You first have to look at the way that LOR sends out data compared to that of DMX. LOR will send commands out for lights/channels when its needed, so an 'on' and then nothing until the command changes and then an 'off'. DMX will send commands out constantly at the DMX refresh rate of approx 27ms , So when a light is 'on' it will then be sent that 'on' command 27ms later and it will continue to do that until the command changes. DMX has a maximum channel count of 512 channels of data per universe, so this always ensures that all the commands will be able to be sent because the data sent vs the refresh rate will guantee this. LOR is different, it doesnt impose any channel limits and has less bandwidth requirements due to the way it only send commands when its needed.

So for DMX most software packages offer a twinkle or shimmer effect that is software generated, using twinkle and shimmer should have no effect on the data bandwidth because DMX is already designed to see changes of all 512 channels in a 27ms refresh cycle. Now with LOR a shimmer and twinkle command is just a single command that tells the controller to generate a hardware shimmer or twinkle, this takes very little bandwidth to achieve. This is actually an important feature for LOR as this ensures that when using twinkle and shimmer that you dont end up bogging down your network because of all the extra on/off commands that are being sent through the network. For most this would never be an issue but for those with larger LOR shows then this could cause missed commands which show as stuck on pixels and lights not turning on when they should.

Where the issue may be is using shimmer and twinkle with DMX controllers through LOR S3, Im not sure if LOR have enabled a software shimmer and twinkle for when you are using DMX and E1.31 controllers. Hopefully someone may know that answer.

Edited January 3, 2013 by edvas69

[GaryM]

Where the issue may be is using shimmer and twinkle with DMX controllers through LOR S3, Im not sure if LOR have enabled a software shimmer and twinkle for when you are using DMX and E1.31 controllers. Hopefully someone may know that answer.

Based on the testing I have done, they have not.

If I recall, LSP does do a software-generated shimmer, but have not tested it to confirm.

[jeffl]

Where the issue may be is using shimmer and twinkle with DMX controllers through LOR S3, Im not sure if LOR have enabled a software shimmer and twinkle for when you are using DMX and E1.31 controllers. Hopefully someone may know that answer.

I used the twinkle and shimmer using S3 and E1.31 this year. I would say that it's not as good as LOR but still works. When I say not as good I think in most cases that may just be the randomness and the speed at which it does it. There is no question that the DMX standard can handle it so I think the only real difference is software.

[edvas69]

I used the twinkle and shimmer using S3 and E1.31 this year. I would say that it's not as good as LOR but still works. When I say not as good I think in most cases that may just be the randomness and the speed at which it does it. There is no question that the DMX standard can handle it so I think the only real difference is software.

I would think that you could be correct here because of LOR using a hardware shimmer and twinkle then the rate of change could be higher as the hardware is able to achieve higher refresh rates than what the DMX network can do.