iDMX, DMX In, DMX Out, what is the difference?

[Rafter Bar R]

I searched the LOR forums in the iDMX section and could not find anything about the "In and Out"connections on the iDMX itself. What gets connected to the iDMX "DMX In" port? DMX devices have both in and out for daisy chaining, what is the DMX In used for on the iDMX given that it is a controller unit? Can this type of device be connected inline with a DMX board when LOR is not running?

[Videoguy84]

I believe the "in" port is there should you want to use another DMX controller in addition to the iDMX to control your show, for example you could use a conventional lighting console and the iDMX (I think) would take the console's DMX signal and it's own and combine them into one DMX universe in a "highest take precedence" format. That just means that if both devices are outputing a value on the same channel whichever is putting out the higher value will take priority. I've never actually used the input on the iDMX so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

EDIT: Just found this tidbit in the iDMX user manual:

When the iDMX-1000 is first powered up or reset,
the default mode is to pass through all DMX
channels received on the DMX In connector to the
DMX Out connector. When LOR commands are
received that affect DMX channels, blocks of 16
channels are removed from the input stream on 16
byte boundaries. For example, if an LOR command
to fade DMX channel (address) 19 is received, then
channels 17 through 32 will not be passed through.
Channels in that range that are not affected by LOR
commands will be transmitted as 000 on the DMX
side.