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Real-time control of outputs? (faq?)


ThatSeattleGuy

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I'm sorry if this is a FAQ, but I can't find it anywhere.

I'm considering buying the DC board to control a large number of LEDs for an art/lighting installation project.

But from what I can read online, the LOR software really seems to be able to only create pre-stored sequences (possibly synced to music, but still worked out completely in advance). There doesn't seem to be any provision for what I really need to do, which is to control the DC outputs based on either (or both) of:

1) an external trigger event (pressure switch, sound cue, etc) and/or

2) a software directive from another program running on the same controlling computer that the LOR software is on (essentially, an external API to the LOR routines that allows direct, real-time control of the protocol sequences being sent to control the state of the outputs).

Am I right in this? There's really no way to do use LOR stuff other than making pretty but fully static, pre-programmed sequences? There's no way to do any kind of real-time control?

Thanks for any pointers to what I've missed here.

ThatSeattleGuy

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How interactive? There is the ability in the MP3 director to have 6 triggers that cause the apropriate one of 6 preprogrammed sequences to run..

- Kevin

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Thanks. Six sequences is probably not quite enough to do what I want; a dozen or two is kind of what I was hoping for. (Think of an interactive keyboard, like Tom Hanks stomped on in "Big" - not what I'm doing but you get the idea.)

I was also hoping not to have to buy both a DC controller AND an MP3 director. Not just for cost, but that would make three boxes (including the main computer) that would all have to be interconnected and running all the time. This is going to be in an outdoor environment with limited power, and so simplicity and reliability is a key virtue.

thanks again /tsg/

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There is a "LOR Visual Plugin" that works with windows media player 11 (I Believe) that you can use to play "any song" thru (1) LOR 16 channel board without pre-programming. It uses the Visualizer in Media Player to turn channels off/on automatically. Think of it like watching the bar graphs on an equalizer. Just instead of bouncing up and down it feeds those frequency points into the LOR controller and turns your lights on/off by itself.

I've never tried this before but it sounds possible. You could create a "playlist" with whatever songs you wanted (in Media Player) and write a VB script program that ties into some sort of I/O module (inputs/outputs) to monitor your pressure switches and such. When an input is made turn on a song and or lights.

Just my 2 cents...;)

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Jeff:

That's an extraordinary clever idea. But it seems so convoluted and backwards to have to control a simple on/off/dim switch by going all the way around through playing a specially-constructed song in WMP just to hit the right frequencies that will trigger it. And even that likely would involve time lags that would mean I wouldn't get anywhere near the mostly-real-time place that I need to be. (Not to mention that "Rube Goldberg" doesn't even begin to cover it.)

I'm not sure why LOR doesn't open up its API (or the underlying communications protocol) so that other programs can initiate and transmit sequences to the controllers (whether or not they go through the LOR software to do it). To create a way for people to do such a thing that to me is so simple and obvious. But I guess I'm coming to it from a different direction.

To bad...my take from this thread is that LOR just won't work for me for what I need. Wish that weren't so, because the hardware looks good and the price is right - it's just the control software that's aimed at the Xmas light / pre-programmed sequence market a little too inflexibly.

thanks again
/TSG/

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In the next release of S2 there will be a interactive shows. You will be able to have a large number of inputs.

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I'm sorry, I'm new here...does "next release" mean in a few weeks, a few months, next year, or in some far-off hoped-for future?


Also not sure what you mean by the "large number of inputs". Will these be software controllable, such that I can have another program running on the host computer initiate various sequences that are already pre-programmed? Or will I have the ability to directly control outputs in realtime?

thanks /tsg/

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