MP3 director power

[nortonz]

I have a ctb16pcg3 ac controller, according to the manual it should power the director, but mine does not. Is this controller not capable of powering the director? I bought the ac controller 3 years ago new from LOR.

[hasslerk]

The CTB16PC is able to power the Director, as long as it is plugged in (I know, obvious).  What model Director do you have?  There are two jacks inside the CTB16PC...did you try the other jack?  It could be you have a bad jack (as I do on a couple of mine).

[nortonz]

12 minutes ago, hasslerk said:

The CTB16PC is able to power the Director, as long as it is plugged in (I know, obvious).  What model Director do you have?  There are two jacks inside the CTB16PC...did you try the other jack?  It could be you have a bad jack (as I do on a couple of mine).

It’s a G4mp3 I just bought it 2 weeks ago from LOR. I have not been able to get it to work for the last week, I even plugged in the external power supply, still not working. The controller is only 3 years old. I ran the controller off my computer last night and everything worked so it has to be something to do with the director.

[hasslerk]

Okay, when you say not working, is that it will not play a show?  Can you set the time (or interact with the menus) via the front panel when no SD is present?  What happens when you press the "mode" button with no SD inserted?

[hasslerk]

If you can interact with the menu with no SD card present, then the problem is the SD card (likely its contents).  I have posted in other posts that the Director is VERY sensitive to the sampling rate of your audio file.  If the audio file is not a "constant bit rate" of 128Kbps, then your show will not play.  Playing your show from a computer masks this problem and leads you to a false sense of security.  Use Audacity (free) to open your audio file and then simply save it again, which will ask some save questions but ultimately you will see it saves it as CBR 128.  Then reload this audio (media) file into your sequence and re-write the sequence to your SD card.  I suggest you just do this with 1 sequence to save time in the debugging process.  If this fixes it, then re-sample all your other audio files and apply them into the sequences.

Make sure your time is set right on the Director, and that your show start time is within the current time.  Note that I had problems using "play anytime" and have not gotten back to debug that (I think it is a problem w/S5).

Also the max SD card size for your Director is 32GB.

[Orville]

On 12/22/2020 at 8:52 PM, nortonz said:

It’s a G4mp3 I just bought it 2 weeks ago from LOR. I have not been able to get it to work for the last week, I even plugged in the external power supply, still not working. The controller is only 3 years old. I ran the controller off my computer last night and everything worked so it has to be something to do with the director.

If you are NOT getting power to the G4 Director even with an Adapter, then there is a problem with the Director unit.  So if this is true, you aren't getting any power {does the display even light up when it's powered by the adapter?}  If yes, then you may need to update to the latest firmware for the G4.  Is this the N4-G4 with 4 network ports?

If the display is NOT lighting up, then you may have a bad Director, in that case open a Help Desk ticket", as you may have to send it back for a replacement.  I bought mine last year and it has worked perfectly with no issues at all.

But I did have to update the firmware in mine, but if you're not getting any power to it, you wouldn't be able to update the firmware.  Again, it may be defective and you may need to send it back for replacement.

Best option here is to open a Help Desk ticket.

[Orville]

On 12/22/2020 at 9:35 PM, hasslerk said:

If you can interact with the menu with no SD card present, then the problem is the SD card (likely its contents).  I have posted in other posts that the Director is VERY sensitive to the sampling rate of your audio file.  If the audio file is not a "constant bit rate" of 128Kbps, then your show will not play.  Playing your show from a computer masks this problem and leads you to a false sense of security.  Use Audacity (free) to open your audio file and then simply save it again, which will ask some save questions but ultimately you will see it saves it as CBR 128.  Then reload this audio (media) file into your sequence and re-write the sequence to your SD card.  I suggest you just do this with 1 sequence to save time in the debugging process.  If this fixes it, then re-sample all your other audio files and apply them into the sequences.

Make sure your time is set right on the Director, and that your show start time is within the current time.  Note that I had problems using "play anytime" and have not gotten back to debug that (I think it is a problem w/S5).

Also the max SD card size for your Director is 32GB.

128K CBR was true with older Directors, the newest G4 Director {I have the N4-G4}  seems to work just with 320K CBR MP3 files, I used 320K CBR audio MP3's in my 2020-2021 Christmas Show, all ran perfectly fine, and being 320K they also sounded much better than 128K audio files.

 

[Orville]

Just now, Orville said:

128K CBR was true with older Directors, the newest G4 Director {I have the N4-G4}  seems to work just with 320K CBR MP3 files, I used 320K CBR audio MP3's in my 2020-2021 Christmas Show, all ran perfectly fine, and being 320K they also sounded much better than 128K audio files.

However I think the OP has another issue as the OP stated even with an Adapter plugged in they are NOT getting power to the Director.   So they may have a defective unit that needs to be replaced.   If an adapter isn't working, then there is definitely something wrong with the Director unit.