Singing faces seem to ‘lag’

[Donl1150]

I am doing final field checking for the show and have noticed some things that cause me to wonder.  My show consists primarily of singing faces complemented by some accent lights around windows and eves as well as some ground plant cover lights.  I have 3 Holiday Coro faces all with AC incandescents.  I also have 3 Gilbert Engineering singing bulbs all using pixels.  In addition, I have two 4’ tall ‘Mega’ pixel trees.  

The AC faces are all on a Regular network and all of the pixels (pixie controllers) are on an AUX network.  The Regular network is set at 57.6k speed and the AUX network is set at 500K Enhanced speed.  The AC controllers are using ELL’s to communicate and the AUX network is hard wired daisy chained.

During my final field testing, I have noticed there appears to be a ‘lag’ in some of the face movements which results in overlapping faces such as both the circle mouth and oval mouth appearing at the same time.  I am certain this is not due to sequencing overlap since it doesn’t appear to do so in the preview.  A couple of things come to mind:  1) Are my speeds set ok?  Is it possible the speeds can be increased to avoid that?  2) Are the ELL’s a potential source of the issue for the AC ones?  3)  Are the pixel speeds set ok?  Can they be increased?  Distance should not be a problem since I have less than 300’ of cable total between the pixel props.  Thanks for the advice!

Don

Ohh.  One more thing.   My two pixel trees when doing spinning moves often seem jerky.   However when I play them a second time a few minutes later, they don’t seem quite as bad.   Is that my imagination or is there rendering that has taken place to smooth them out?

[dibblejr]

1- Always play the show the first time before daylight, not a computer engineer so i will blame it on buffering or rendering. Let the show play through. That normally solves some problems.

2- I would never use ELLs for singing faces, singing faces need to be precise or they simply look bad anything other than a hard data line could cause lagging issues. Even new car audio have lagging issues while watching shows. My 2019 Tundra audio system is bad at this.

3-If you have only pixie controllers on your aux A you can jump the speed to 1000K enhanced. Do not forget the Red RS485HS while using pixie controllers.

4- Distance can be a problem for singing pixel props. Best to have the controller as close to the prop as possible. 300' would be a long distance from controller to props. My singers controllers are within feet if not connected to the prop.

see #1 for the jerky motion however this can also be caused if attempting to make your own cable extensions from single stranded wires such as 18/20/22 gauge or trying to run to many pixels/ lights on a network. 

Best of luck with your show

JR

[Donl1150]

Thanks JR.  I appreciate your advice and also your very kind help in getting me over the basic S5 learning curve these past few months.  Without it, I would have given up trying to make the conversion from S4 to S5!  I know S5 has a lot more to offer but that is for the future, I have most of the basics down now.

• I will certainly run the show through a couple of times before kickoff and hope that takes care of most of of the issues.  I don't really want to hard wire the AC portion at this late date but we'll see how it goes.
• Yes all 3 of the pixel faces are Pixie 8's and the two pixel trees are run from a Pixie 16.  All 4 are mounted directly behind each prop on the poles that support them.  The 300' of total cable is primarily the distance from the computer in the garage.....outside to the first prop.....then the total distance between each of the other props outside.  And 300' might be on the high side as well.

Again thx for your help and best of luck with yours as well!

Don