Moving from S4 to S6.

[halfmoonhr]

Question how hard is it to move sequences from S4 to S6. And what benefits are there to making the jump to S6? Or can someone point me to some type of information for comparison.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Jimehc]

 

[Tim Fischer]

I went from S4 to S5 last year, which is about the same thing (I'm now on S6). I had never used the visualizer, pixel editor, or most of the other "add on" apps in S4 so it was a little bit of learning curve.

The main thing is you need to have a good default preview. Well this isn't strictly necessary, it will make everything else you do MUCH easier. Spend some time on this preview... hours of time. Get it to look good, make sure your channel assignments are set the same way they were in your s4 sequences, etc.

Then when you load a sequence, it should "just work". If there are mapping errors, you'll be given some stats and info on how to remap them. But for me, once I had the preview done, it was smooth sailing.

There are two reasons you'd want to move to S6: One is if you use pixels and/or RGB, it's just a whole lot easier, especially with the Pro license and motion rows. The other is that the show creator and player back end, scheduler, etc are VASTLY improved. S4's back end looked 20 years old because it essentially was. S6's looks and feels like a modern app. There's even mobile apps that you can use to monitor your show and test lights.

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Tim Fischer

[halfmoonhr]

Thank you Jim for the youtube video on S4 to S5. It explained quite a bit of questions I had. Likewise Tim your input  was a great help also.  

Thank you both.

Merry Christmas.

[PhilMassey]

The main difference from S5 To S6 is the much improved, but different control panel. The sequencer is essentially the same as S5. However, there are many improvements in S6 and many fixes so get the latest version to take advantage of them. There has also been a lot  of motion effects added and a bunch of LOR favorite motion effects. S6 2.18 Is, IMO the best and fastest so far.

[Steven]

One minor advantage to upgrading from S4 is the ease of reassigning channels. For example, let's say your show has 20 sequences, you have it all set up and running, and then one of the triacs in a controller fails. You have an spare channel available so you move the string from the malfunctioning channel to the new channel.

If you were running S4, you would have to open every sequence and import the new channel configuration or change the channel. This is a lot of clicking and takes a long time.

With S6 (and S5), you edit your Preview once, change the prop to the new channel, and the show player will take care of updating all your sequences.

This doesn't have to be because a channel went bad. Perhaps you have a new controller this year in a more central location and want to move a prop to the new controller. Simply make this change once in the preview and all the sequences will get updated automatically.

[tlogan]

13 hours ago, Steven said:

This doesn't have to be because a channel went bad. Perhaps you have a new controller this year in a more central location and want to move a prop to the new controller. Simply make this change once in the preview and all the sequences will get updated automatically.

This, to me is the biggest advantage to moving to S5/S6 (although you should just move to S6 if you aren't already on S5). Anyway just two night's ago I noticed one channel out on an AC controller. I did exactly as noted...the next day, I disabled the show, in the Preview, I moved the string on the bad channel to an unused channel on the same controller and saved the Preview then re-enabled the show in the Scheduler. The Scheduler then AUTOMATICALLY updated all 15 of the sequences and everything is now running as expected. It couldn't have taken me more than 15 minutes to basically update 15 sequences. It can't any easier.

Now, replacing the GFCI outlet that went bad is another story. And I swear I just replaced the same one last year. Fortunately, having switched to all LEDs making the load on each controller far smaller, I was able to plug into another outlet with no problem. It's supposed to warm up some this weekend, so I guess I know what I'll be doing Saturday.  

[Jimehc]

"The Scheduler then AUTOMATICALLY updated all 15 of the sequences and everything is now running as expected. It couldn't have taken me more than 15 minutes to basically update 15 sequences. It can't any easier."

I must make a comment in regards to that statement > The Show Player seen the change in the Preview (Hardware Map) and applied the sequences to it.... It did not actually "Update" the Sequences...

If you where to delete that Newer Preview - and then open the "Sequence" it would import the Older Preview Version (the one last saved with the Sequence)

But it is real convenient to be able to Apply a New Preview on the fly in Show Player

[Tim Fischer]

14 hours ago, Steven said:

One minor advantage to upgrading from S4 is the ease of reassigning channels. For example, let's say your show has 20 sequences, you have it all set up and running, and then one of the triacs in a controller fails. You have an spare channel available so you move the string from the malfunctioning channel to the new channel.

If you were running S4, you would have to open every sequence and import the new channel configuration or change the channel. This is a lot of clicking and takes a long time.

MAJOR advantage IMHO. It always bugged me, from the time I started using LOR 1.0.0, that the channel assignments were on a "per-sequence" basis. You (generally) have ONE display, one set of hardware, yet it's defined separately on every sequence. Very tedious when changes are made as Steven said.

This was fixed in a very elegant fashion in S5.

[tlogan]

1 hour ago, Jimehc said:

If you where to delete that Newer Preview - and then open the "Sequence" it would import the Older Preview Version (the one last saved with the Sequence)

But it is real convenient to be able to Apply a New Preview on the fly in Show Player

Thank you for the update. In the past, as I was working on changes to the Preview I did actually import the preview to each sequence so I could see the changes in the player. This is the first time I actually made a Preview update on the fly. It  LOOKS like it has the same effect, but apparently not. I'm sure next year when I'm updating  for 2024, I'll re-import to all my sequences to avoid that issue.   

[Steven]

16 minutes ago, tlogan said:

I'm sure next year when I'm updating  for 2024, I'll re-import to all my sequences to avoid that issue.   

This happens semi-automatically. If a 2023 sequence was using the "Christmas" Preview revision 101, and you made a change to the Preview so now it is revision 102, when that sequence is opened in 2024, one of these things will automatically happen:

• If channel(s) on prop(s) changed, for example you moved a prop to a new channel on the same (or different) controller, then this change will automatically be applied to the sequence without any human input. As soon as the sequence is opened, the sequencer will show a * next to the name indicating that the sequence needs to be saved. No import necessary. The same is true for changes to a prop, for instance the X,Y location of the bulbs or the color.
• If revision 102 has new props that aren't in revision 101, or props have been deleted from 101 to 102, then a dialog is shown, giving you the option of deleting or archiving the old props, or matching them by name or channel number to the new props. You still don't need to re-import anything, just acknowledge the dialog.

I have learned it is better to not change the name of the preview from year to year unless massive changes have been made. I have a preview named "Christmas", and another named "Halloween". When I was learning S5 I had a preview named "Christmas 2021" which meant that in 2022 I had to "Select new Preview" on every sequence, which was not necessary this year because the sequences still use the preview named "Christmas", just with a new revision. For historical purposes, I exported my 2022 preview as "Christmas 2022.lorprev", and saved all my 2022 sequences in a "2022" folder.