6.3.0 is working - with Falcon Player

[k6ccc]

Make sure you have the latest AAF.  Go to Content Setup, Plugin Manager, and check for updates on the AAF plugin.

And confirm you are on FPP v8.0?

 

[rick gurnee]

I am on 8.0  and after I installed 8.0 I uninstalled and reinstalled AAF.  I just now checked and the plugin saus there are no updates available.  I will go ahead and uninstall AFF and reinstall it, but I doubt that is it.  And I believe I have restarted FPP, but I will reboot again for the fun of it.

[k6ccc]

I'll check in a while to see if I forgot a setting somewhere...

 

[rick gurnee]

here is my "about" screen.   I uninstalled aaf rebooted and reinstalled aaf.  still the same issue.  I'll keep looking.

 

[k6ccc]

I found it.
On Status/Control > FPP Settings > UI, you have to have the User Interface Level set to at least Advanced.  I always leave mine on Developer so did not even think of that...

 

Edited September 25 by k6ccc

[rick gurnee]

that was it!  Now I can continue.  What about frame rate? in LOR I have it set to 24.  Where do I set it in FPP?

[k6ccc]

35 minutes ago, rick gurnee said:

that was it!  Now I can continue.  What about frame rate? in LOR I have it set to 24.  Where do I set it in FPP?

I have mine set in LOR to 24 as well.  I don't remember finding a setting for that in FPP.

[rick gurnee]

My first test is almost a sucess!  the good news is the songs played well with no freezing.  (if you remember, I was having an issue that the screen would freeze every15-30 seconds for 1/2 second or so).  I do have a couple of issues that might or might not be related.  First, at the very start of every sequence the bottom 2 rows of panels come on about 1/2 second before the rest of the panels.  After that everything works fine.  This is happening every time s sequence starts.

Second, task manager is showing 56 Mbps going accross the ethernet.  This is the same amount as when I was running diectly from LOR.  I was expecting this to go down.

Third, I'm getting this error message in FPP   

Abnormal Conditions - May cause poor performance or other issues (Click link icon for help)

•  Received bridging data while sequence is running.

I couldn't find any link icon to click on.

Here are some thoughts.  My fseq files have all 677 universes not just the 505 required for this panel.  I haven't set up my second 3x2 panel, yet, to use time sync.  It is just powered off.  Come to think about it.  Maybe LOR still sends the commands out because he doesn't  know which universes are using time sync and which are not.  When I run my whole Christmas display I will have 100 universes with DMX controllers that still need data send.  So maybe my second concern is not an issue.  And while I can live with it, I sure would like to resolve the first issue.

[rick gurnee]

I think I fixed this issue.  I disabled E1.31 inputs i FPP and the error message went away and the sequences start just fine now.  I'm still seeing 50 Mbps on the ethernet but the panel is just ingoring it.

[k6ccc]

Instead of disabling E1.31 in FPP, remove the networks in LOR Network Preferences - else LOR is still sending the data across the LAN.  I did the same thing.

 

[rick gurnee]

good idea.  better than what i did.  I'll be doing a lot more testing over the next couple of weeks.  ordering a couple of 128 g sd cards.  I guess that means reinstall FPP on them. I better write down all of my settings so I don't forget how I got to this point. 

[k6ccc]

3 minutes ago, rick gurnee said:

I guess that means reinstall FPP on them. I better write down all of my settings so I don't forget how I got to this point. 

Don't need to do that.  Go to Status/control > FPP Backups

From there backup your config - which will go to your PC.

After you install FPP on the new card, restore the config from your PC.  You will still need to upload the sequences.  As I recall, it will figure out that the uploaded sequences get associated to the entries in the Playlist.

 

[rick gurnee]

I thought about doing that, but I wan't sure if changing the size of the sd card would cause a problem.  But I'll take your word for it and give that a try.  I probably won't load too many sequence up before i get the new sd cards.  I have over 50 sequences, but I'll probably test with just a few.  Next step is to download the new MIIP and get it working.

[lightningrod4life]

Can I gracefully interject on this topic? I actually have a 1x3 p10 matrix that I am trying to determine the proper way to add it to lor especially in my preview.. Is this what you guys have done? I know that I previously had mentioned only having 2 panels but I was mistaken, I actually have 3. 

[rick gurnee]

Creating a preview prop is pretty straight forward.  Define it as a matrix-horizontal-rectangle.  The number of strings is the number of rows, in your case that would be 32.  The number of RGB nodes per string is 192 (3 panels with 64 pixels per row).  Depending on how you  plug the first panel into the color light card(or whatever controler you are using) you need to set the starting location.  I used top left.  If you get this wrong the display might be backwards or upside down.  On the left side of the definition be sure to select RGB pixels.  UnderChannels, you select DMX and specify the Universe numbers.  I choose the auto-number option. Max sure Max Channels is set to 512.  That's it for the prop.  You then need to add a network entry that corresponds to the universes that you specifiied.  It should have the correct IP address for your panels. 

[k6ccc]

5 hours ago, rick gurnee said:

The number of strings is the number of rows, in your case that would be 32.  The number of RGB nodes per string is 192 (3 panels with 64 pixels per row). 

Lightingrod said he was using P10 panels not P5, so it would be 16 rows and 96 pixels per string.  That is assuming three P10 panels in landscape orientation, end to end horizontally.

As Rick said, the preview is easy.  For the panels, you have no choice other than to run Falcon Player as an interface.  FPP runs on either a RaspBerry Pi or a BeagleBone single board computer, and uses one of several types of interfaces to drive the P10 panels.  For a small matrix like your 1h x 3w, any of those combinations will work fine.  As for controlling the lights from LOR, first of all, you MUST be using a computer - not a Director.  There are two ways to do this.  First is to have the show computer send E1.31 (DMX over Ethernet) directly to the FPP.  The second is to save the sequences as native FPP files and upload them to the FPP computer.  Then the LOR show computer only needs to send timing signals to FPP.  That capability is brand new to LOR 6.3 and what this thread is primarily about.  This method is more complex to set up, but the big advantage is that it results in a tiny fraction of the data being sent over the network (makes it quite possible to use WiFi), and more significantly, reduces CPU load on both the LOR show player computer and the FPP computer.  That latter one is one of the reasons I am so much looking forward to this.  My P5 matrix was large enough that it was choking the FPP computer and it could not keep up.  Using the Leader / Follower mode that was introduced with LOR 6.3, is giving FAR better results.  For your small 1 x 3 panel, it would likely not be worth the extra setup effort.

 

[rick gurnee]

Your right.  I missed that he was using P10's. 

I have successfully run a test with time codes.  I removed the network entries and now see only 8Kbps on the ethernet, down from 56Mbps.  I'm seeing activity on the wi-fi that I can't explain, but I need to research that further.

Now my issue is with MIIP.  I installed Bob's new version and after a couple of mistakes on my part I have it working with LOR 6.3.  I've done several test of starting and stopping both LOR and MIIP and selecting sequences and everything worked fine without time codes.

However, once I turned on time codes I ran into problems.  It appears MIIP is setting the time codes back to zero!  I went into LOR and modified MiipShowS6 to include time codes and when I saved it Miip gave me the warning that it had been modified.  I looked at it again and the time codes were still there.  However, nothing displayed when I played a song.  Thinking I might need to recycle MIIP and LOR, I restarted both.  When I looked at MiipShowS6 all of the time codes were gone and, therefore, nothing displayed on the panel.

I need to do further testing.

[k6ccc]

I have not done anything with the new MIIP version yet, but will later this weekend.  My project today was to beat LEDVision into submission and convert my P5 panel from a PocketBeagle & PocketScroller to a RasPi-4 & ColorLight.  So far, it appears to be working in testing.  My landscaping show starts in about an hour so we'll see if it's all working...

 

[lightningrod4life]

On 9/28/2024 at 6:17 AM, rick gurnee said:

Creating a preview prop is pretty straight forward.  Define it as a matrix-horizontal-rectangle.  The number of strings is the number of rows, in your case that would be 32.  The number of RGB nodes per string is 192 (3 panels with 64 pixels per row).  Depending on how you  plug the first panel into the color light card(or whatever controler you are using) you need to set the starting location.  I used top left.  If you get this wrong the display might be backwards or upside down.  On the left side of the definition be sure to select RGB pixels.  UnderChannels, you select DMX and specify the Universe numbers.  I choose the auto-number option. Max sure Max Channels is set to 512.  That's it for the prop.  You then need to add a network entry that corresponds to the universes that you specifiied.  It should have the correct IP address for your panels. 

Thank you! This definitely helped me define and get the matrix added to my preview correctly . Now to just understand the motion effects better id be sitting pretty good on the sequencer!! 

[lightningrod4life]

On 9/28/2024 at 11:49 AM, k6ccc said:

Lightingrod said he was using P10 panels not P5, so it would be 16 rows and 96 pixels per string.  That is assuming three P10 panels in landscape orientation, end to end horizontally.

As Rick said, the preview is easy.  For the panels, you have no choice other than to run Falcon Player as an interface.  FPP runs on either a RaspBerry Pi or a BeagleBone single board computer, and uses one of several types of interfaces to drive the P10 panels.  For a small matrix like your 1h x 3w, any of those combinations will work fine.  As for controlling the lights from LOR, first of all, you MUST be using a computer - not a Director.  There are two ways to do this.  First is to have the show computer send E1.31 (DMX over Ethernet) directly to the FPP.  The second is to save the sequences as native FPP files and upload them to the FPP computer.  Then the LOR show computer only needs to send timing signals to FPP.  That capability is brand new to LOR 6.3 and what this thread is primarily about.  This method is more complex to set up, but the big advantage is that it results in a tiny fraction of the data being sent over the network (makes it quite possible to use WiFi), and more significantly, reduces CPU load on both the LOR show player computer and the FPP computer.  That latter one is one of the reasons I am so much looking forward to this.  My P5 matrix was large enough that it was choking the FPP computer and it could not keep up.  Using the Leader / Follower mode that was introduced with LOR 6.3, is giving FAR better results.  For your small 1 x 3 panel, it would likely not be worth the extra setup effort.

 

Thank you, interestingly enough you've popped a response on my post over at falcon christmas about my issues with version 8. For some reason it wouldn't work in my test from vixen but would work just fine on version 7.5. so I will stick with version 7.5 for now. I still have yet to test it from LOR and get the universes setup correctly.  (my username on falcon christmas is jllracer55)