S5 - G3 MP3 Director - No Lights

[dibblejr]

1 hour ago, Orville said:

Yep, can sure agree.  I'd make videos to, but I don't have a webcam  or a decent digital camera to make them with any longer.  After my last digital fell apart after the usage I put it through, just didn't replace it.  Didn't have the funds and my wife has the only cell phone and I can't stand the camera on cell phones. 

I just can't get decent or clear video or photographs with the darn things.   Give me a decent tripod {which I have} and a decent digital camera that isn't loaded into a cell phone or with other electronics and I'm golden. LOL

camtasia is expensive for the "non watermarked version" however their trial version is free and for making screen capture videos for stuff like some need is perfect. I found no limitations for what I needed it for other than the watermark which did not interfere with the videos at all. Since it worked well after a few days I purchased the full version.

Default recommended it as his #1 program (if I remember correctly) and it has been perfect. Sometimes it lags a little with singing faces but its not bad.

[lightzilla]

This was an interesting thread. Reading about SD cards. Some SD cards I have from back in 2008 (Lexar, Staples brand) are still working. Some of my Kingston brand SD cards stopped working. I don't think I ever had a SanDisk work for me or rarely ever.  So again this year I ran my smaller than usual display off of the N4-G4-MP3 director unit that I bought when they 1st came out. This year I ran the smaller light show from 57.6 speed. Because the display  was small ..... the 64 regular channels & the pixie 4 controller (running a 6ft spiral tree with the strings folded in half to make 8 25 count strings) & three 5V CCP arches ( only 2 CCP controllers) then it worked fine. So maybe next year when I add the 16 port Pixie controller that I have sitting here for 2 seasons never used I may need to up the speed.... not on the regular channels or even on the pixel spiral tree or pixel arches but on the new 6.6ft geometric  tree that I am going to be lighting up.... it may need to be on Aux A at 500. I will try 115 1st. I bought the tree from a department store. It won't be like the Lor 6.6ft Pixel trees but it will be unique. The other tree had 1,800 Leds I had to take off, however this tree I am keeping the lights on because that way I can fasten the pixel notes to the Leds strings since the go up & down. Then there are the singing trees I plan to make. 2 for sure. I am only thinking of using regular lor channels 7 or 8 channels per tree. <--<< (but that could change). If I go back to the Matrix then the 32 x 50 Matrix will be on Aux B. I make my own Matrix sequences. Just that it is very time consuming making your own sequences, but I save $$$ from buying them.

Anyhow this thread got me thinking.

 

[dibblejr]

1 hour ago, lightzilla said:

This was an interesting thread. Reading about SD cards. Some SD cards I have from back in 2008 (Lexar, Staples brand) are still working. Some of my Kingston brand SD cards stopped working. I don't think I ever had a SanDisk work for me or rarely ever.  So again this year I ran my smaller than usual display off of the N4-G4-MP3 director unit that I bought when they 1st came out. This year I ran the smaller light show from 57.6 speed. Because the display  was small ..... the 64 regular channels & the pixie 4 controller (running a 6ft spiral tree with the strings folded in half to make 8 25 count strings) & three 5V CCP arches ( only 2 CCP controllers) then it worked fine. So maybe next year when I add the 16 port Pixie controller that I have sitting here for 2 seasons never used I may need to up the speed.... not on the regular channels or even on the pixel spiral tree or pixel arches but on the new 6.6ft geometric  tree that I am going to be lighting up.... it may need to be on Aux A at 500. I will try 115 1st. I bought the tree from a department store. It won't be like the Lor 6.6ft Pixel trees but it will be unique. The other tree had 1,800 Leds I had to take off, however this tree I am keeping the lights on because that way I can fasten the pixel notes to the Leds strings since the go up & down. Then there are the singing trees I plan to make. 2 for sure. I am only thinking of using regular lor channels 7 or 8 channels per tree. <--<< (but that could change). If I go back to the Matrix then the 32 x 50 Matrix will be on Aux B. I make my own Matrix sequences. Just that it is very time consuming making your own sequences, but I save $$$ from buying them.

Anyhow this thread got me thinking.

 

If using LED lights for faces I recommend 8 channels. First reason, you will only have 2 extra channels. Second reason, 8 channels singing face sequences are the most common shared. James and I share about 300 or so.

A pixie 4 and an 8 can get by on a slower speed but must still be enhanced to get the best results, if they will work at all. For testing I can get them to work on slower speeds enhanced but connected to my show, only 500K enhanced is reliable.

My N4 director will only use Kingston. I have not used it for a show yet, I got it for my golf cart but didnt have time to get the other mini matrix or the N4 mounted. It will be next year for sure.

You are one of the few people in the last couple years that say you get anything but Kingston to work with the directors. I'd be knocking on wood. I have about 25 brand new PNY's still in a bag with cases that I cant use for my show. LOL I am glad they were a gift from another member here.

JR

[Orville]

7 hours ago, dibblejr said:

My N4 director will only use Kingston. I have not used it for a show yet, I got it for my golf cart but didnt have time to get the other mini matrix or the N4 mounted. It will be next year for sure.

 

You are one of the few people in the last couple years that say you get anything but Kingston to work with the directors. I'd be knocking on wood.

That makes 2 of us JR {only referencing the bold red statement in the quote}.  

I have older SD Cards that I used in the original DC-MP3 Director {SanDisk, Lexan{or is that Lexar? these are the ones that quit working, so no longer have them}, PNY and a obscure one just labeled "Dane Elec" 1GB.  These all worked great for 4 years in the DC-MP3 Director, but not a one of them will work in my N4-G4 Director, only Kingston SD Cards work. I have 16GB and 32GB Kingston and all work, the only Kingston that didn't was the two 64GB SD Cards{actually bought for cell phone use, didn't work in the particular phones either}.   After I wrote  a show using the 64GB Kingston MicroSD Cards to test them, inserted in SD Card Slot{using the supplied Kingston Converter}, neither never worked, even though the Director looked to be playing the show since it was displaying the info.  But never even turned on or lit up anything and no music playing either.  

Then after I removed the 64GB SD Card {again, which is a Micro SD Card inserted into a standard SD Card converter{also Kingston, came with the MicroSD} for use in a device like the Director, it would no longer work on anything, can't even format it to use it for anything else.  

And these 64GB SD Micro-cards were just bought near the very end of April 2020, not even a year old yet, but I think the Director may have scrambled it in some way that has rendered them completely useless, before I used it in the N4-G4 Director, it worked fine in other devices and it could be reformatted, files copied or saved to it.  But after removal from the Director test, the computer, nor the card reader/writer will not even recognize the 64GB MicroSD cards at all.   When I click on the SD Writer/Reader Drive {E:\} it tells me to insert an SD Card into the Drive.  The 64GB is in it, but it absolutely will no longer recognize them.

[KYHI]

Just a note about the Fat32 Format used by LOR - a Windows Fat32 partition only supports 32GB

Edited January 2, 2021 by KYHI

[Orville]

2 hours ago, KYHI said:

Just a note about the Fat32 Format used by LOR - a Windows Fat32 partition only supports 32GB

Sorry to inform you, but I've been using FAT32 for 64GB cards for years with SD Cards used in my Digital Cameras when I had them.  Never had any issues with Fat32 and 64GB SD Cards until the N4-G4 Director, but I wasn't sure what the largest size the Director could use, so I experimented with it and the card was scrambled in some manner, as that is when the 64GB card stopped functioning or allowing a reformat of it.

So I know Fat32 never caused issues when formatting 64GB cards using it and using them as the main storage in any of the Digital Cameras I've used over the years.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Orville

[KYHI]

I appreciate the fact that you think you are correcting me, again...

Quote

so I experimented with it and the card was scrambled in some manner, as that is when the 64GB card stopped functioning or allowing a reformat of it.

Those SD Card most likely show as RAW

Edited January 2, 2021 by KYHI

[Dave Pursel]

Happy New Year you guys.
Finally done with the New Year thing.
Since some of you are down there where the sun still shines
I'm going to post a pic for your enjoyment!
Michigan's Winter Wonderland finally returned last night.

Since I haven't been online, you've probably both guessed I've been doing some testing since I last posted.
I"m really questioning what the H-E-Double L is going on with S5.

One thing for sure!
I've discovered that port 1 on my G3MP3 Director has fallen ill to Covid-19

That's explains some of my issues that haven't made sense.  And it was just repaired last year after it had died completely.
I've used them successfully for 12 years and have been very happy with not having to tie up a PC.  But now???

But port 2 is processing my S2 shows successfully and has been all season.
Show is up and running right now with tomorrow night being my last night.
As far as Felix is concerned.
Success.  I now have Felix singing to Decorations in preview.
I can and have been testing tonight sending commands to him with the ELL's even with the S2 show running.  Again, I'm only using the ELL's temporarily for testing.
I received my new Kingston SD cards you guys recommended that I get, but I didn't receive the standard sdhc 80mb/s ones I ordered, instead they sent
Kingston 32GB SDS2 100Mb/s Canvas Select Plus cards.  I don't like the idea Orville, of using the micro sd for the same reasons that you cited in one of your post responses.
But I decided to try them anyway.
And lightzilla I'm like you, great luck with non-kingston cards over the years.  Just doing what the experts are saying could be the issue.

So to test these new cards.  I first loaded them up with my S2 show seqs.  They've been up and running in the G3MP3 Director
for the last two nights with no hiccups.  Now keep in mind I can run my S2 shows on non-kingstons with no issues also.
It's very obvious that they are significantly faster.  Especially when using S2 HU to load them up.  But I haven't done any actual benchmarks.  My best guess is - 25-30% faster.

Since the three of you are using Directors, are you running them indoors or outdoors?

Orville I'm not sure if it's a typo but I've been trying to figure out what you wrote, "2bd cat cable" - what is the acronym 2bd mean???

I understand your configuration and use of the G4.  Thanks for sharing.  It may help me if I ended up getting a G4.
It's kinda of a bummer that LOR didn't design the G4 to allow for porting commands between ports for testing purposes.   I would have bought one for sure.  Whereas right now I will only buy it if it helps solve my physical network issues.

You guys are all on S4.  JR.  Your profile says your using Pro S4-V4.4.6.   But I thought I saw something where you've been testing with S5.  WIth your G4 Director??  or com port HSA adapter??
 
I'm really getting frustrated with S5.
I can't create a sd card with a single non-rgb/ pixel S5 sequence using the hub that will run in my director.
After building the kingston card using the hub with simple mode and using the option to play when director is powered up,
it initializes then goes into wait.
If I turn around and stick my S2 card in plays normally.
Any ideas??

I also can't get verify to run against a single sequence by itself !!!!.
If I click on the option to verify against a single sequence, then click on the three dots to find my file, it doesn't even display any S5 sequences with the suffix loredit to choose from.

Any ideas?? on this issue.

 

 

[Dave Pursel]

KYHI.  I still use a windows 2000 server machine.  You are correct in that 32GB is the max.

But if I'm pretty sure that larger partition sizes with FAT32 are supported in later OS's.

You might want to google that to be sure.

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Dave Pursel

[k6ccc]

13 minutes ago, Dave Pursel said:

If I click on the option to verify against a single sequence, then click on the three dots to find my file, it doesn't even display any S5 sequences with the suffix loredit to choose from.

I seem to remember reading that the Verifier has largely been retired with S5.  It's still there, but not usable anymore.  I just checked and confirmed that it does not see .loredit files.  when I tried to verify a show, there were so many error that it was not worth bothering with.

So, that confirms that it does not work any more.

 

[KYHI]

If you Format a drive larger then 32GB with a Windows PC in Fat32 - the drive created is 32GB - does not matter if drive was 64GB or 512GB

Prior to Windows 10 1803 the non-allocated drive space was not seen nor accessible - and a second partition on removable media was never seen by the OS

Edited January 3, 2021 by KYHI

[k6ccc]

20 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

I seem to remember reading that the Verifier has largely been retired with S5.  It's still there, but not usable anymore.  I just checked and confirmed that it does not see .loredit files.  when I tried to verify a show, there were so many error that it was not worth bothering with.

So, that confirms that it does not work any more.

Well, not so fast.  When I actually looked at what the errors were, I realized what was going on.  I was doing this on my sequencing computer, not the show computer.  Most of the errors related to networks that were not present - which is correct on this computer.  Did it again from my show computer, and there were only 48 errors instead of 1112.  All the errors related to channels that were always off - which was correct.  Mostly those were singing faces channels for instrumental songs that don't use all or most of the singing faces channels.  So, in 5.5.16, the verifier did successfully work with Verify a show, but could not select a .loredit file to verify a single sequence.  I did not try to verify my entire schedule.

 

[Dave Pursel]

Thank You.  Thank You.  Thank You for saving my sanity.  I hadn't seen that was being eliminated.

 

[Orville]

33 minutes ago, KYHI said:

If you Format a drive larger then 32GB with a Windows PC in Fat32 - the drive created is 32GB - does not matter if drive was 64GB or 512GB

Prior to Windows 10 1803 the non-allocated drive space was not seen nor accessible - and a second partition on removable media was never seen by the OS

Sure is odd how it worked in my cameras and filled the SD Card to capacity 64GB worth of photo's using a Fat32 format.   What you say is it shouldn't work, but it did work, and it did allow use and full access to the SD Cards full capacity.  Always did.

[Orville]

1 hour ago, Dave Pursel said:

Since the three of you are using Directors, are you running them indoors or outdoors?

Orville I'm not sure if it's a typo but I've been trying to figure out what you wrote, "2bd cat cable" - what is the acronym 2bd mean???

Everything I run, FM Transmitter, N4-G4 Director, all controllers are all outside.  Each in their own weatherproof box and mounted to my house wall or handicap ramp.

As for the 2bd, that b is a typo that I missed during the edit/re-correction phase of things, it should have been an "n" as in 2nd cat cable, not 2bd.

[Dave Pursel]

Jim, you confirmed the loredit file suffix part at least.  I guess the point is I was trying to use the verifier to see if it would produce any error that might point me to why a very basic S5 sd card won't work in my director.  So I can now toss that out of the tool bag. I've tried using notepad to view the S5 sd card config file since it now has some commands we can see. Nothing seems to stick out as a possible reason for not starting.  But of course S2 cards don't have the new stuff nor can I find any documentation on the S5 sd card config parameters. You've been around a long time, do you know of any?  I haven't started searching post yet for the not start problem.

[Dave Pursel]

Ah got you Orville.  Thanks.  Oh.  The reason I was asking about the outside director usage, I'm still trying to explain away the discussions about Kingston sd cards.  I'm wondering if the reason why I've had success with PNY is because my director is inside pretty much about 70 degrees year round.

[Orville]

28 minutes ago, Dave Pursel said:

Ah got you Orville.  Thanks.  Oh.  The reason I was asking about the outside director usage, I'm still trying to explain away the discussions about Kingston sd cards.  I'm wondering if the reason why I've had success with PNY is because my director is inside pretty much about 70 degrees year round.

I don't know if that could be a factor or not.  My Original DC-MP3 Director would use just about any SD Card I threw at it, up to 2GB, had a couple 4GB that would work as well.  And it was outside 24/7/365. 

But after it's 4th year an SMT component fell out of the SD Card slot when I opened the box to put an SD Card in it to start my test show about a little over an hour before actual showtime, after that part fell out, I swear the Florida sun got hot enough to melt the solder joints and let the part fall out.  But as I was saying the part fell out through the SD Card slot and once it did, the Director would no longer read the SD Card when inserted, it acted like it saw it, but nothing ever happened, no control of anything.

So I dismounted it and had to use a computer to run my show, which I had less than an hour to figure out how to use the computer based show software{ I had never used it, so I was lost}, oh joy, looks like no show this year{2015}, but I figured it all out in a self induced insane crash course and got the show off the ground and right on time too.

So then I opted to disassemble the DC-MP3 Director and check it out, sure enough, right near the SD Card slot were 2 pads where the part should have been that fell out, and no, I never found the part, just too small and it landed in soft sand, burying it somewhere.  But I looked and looked without success so I could resolder it in place and see if the Director would work once done.  The pads still had some solder on them, very little, but enough you knew a part had been mounted there.   So since it was 4 years old, I just put it in a scrap box and it's still disassembled in that cigar box today.  Don't know what the part was, and really don't know if it would work if that component was ever replaced that's missing.

But my N4-G4 just won't use anything but a Kingston SD Card {even when I did have it inside and testing, it would not read or run a show from any other SD Card companies.   That's why I don't think a temp controled environment would make much difference, but then again, you just never about electronic devices.

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by Orville
2014 wrong year, changed to 2015, correct year.

[k6ccc]

50 minutes ago, Dave Pursel said:

Jim, you confirmed the loredit file suffix part at least.  I guess the point is I was trying to use the verifier to see if it would produce any error that might point me to why a very basic S5 sd card won't work in my director. 

Never used a director, so I can't help you there.

 

[Dave Pursel]

Paydirt!!!

I can finally run "sequences" from a S5 sd card in a G3MP3 Director.

If you want to know how - let me know.

Of course I'm going to charge you lots of C notes for the solution !!!

So tomorrow I will open a ticket with LOR such that maybe Mike or Matt or who ever will fix the problem before Halloween time.

Dave

 

Orville.  Thanks for your insights.  Thought you might like this since I thought I saw a couple of years ago that you had some feline friends         www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_LNu6Aaxvk

Jr.  I sent you a PM if you didn't see it.