Congo and Dongle

So basically, you're saying that you want to pay Martin Entertainment to use ETC software?
Would you expect to pay Apple Macintosh to use Microsoft Office?

The Martin Lightjockey dongle/interface is designed by Martin Entertainment for use with their Lightjockey software - unless you buy the dongle from Martin, you cannot use Lightjockey to control lights.

Equally, the ETC Congo Offline software is designed for use either offline (hence the name), or in conjunction with an ETC Congo Client dongle and Congo, Congo Jr or Congo Lightserver.

So basically, you're saying that you want to pay Martin Entertainment to use ETC software?
Would you expect to pay Apple Macintosh to use Microsoft Office?

The Martin Lightjockey dongle/interface is designed by Martin Entertainment for use with their Lightjockey software - unless you buy the dongle from Martin, you cannot use Lightjockey to control lights.

Equally, the ETC Congo Offline software is designed for use either offline (hence the name), or in conjunction with an ETC Congo Client dongle and Congo, Congo Jr or Congo Lightserver.

But could you take the dongle out of Congo and use it on a laptop?

I know there are no "virtual buttons" on the OLE, but maybe in the future?

MZ

There are dongles created for laptop's which allow -client- mode, where the Laptop can via a connected Congo

console affect the lighting. But a laptop with this dongle can only run in client mode, and can not send

its own DMX single out that could run a show. The laptop doesn't actually communicate then

directly with the lighting system, rather it communicates via the output on the Congo console.

 If you take the dongle out of your Congo console, the congo console will fail to communicate with your

lighting system; please do not disconnect the dongle from a congo console.

That help?

Hi all -

Here is the official response to the intent of the original post's question:

ETC does not offer a dongle-only product at this time. Congo Offline and Congo Client, both designed for operation on a PC, are not supported at this time as a PC-only lighting controller. Removal of your Congo console dongle may impact the warranty of your console, and any use of that dongle on a PC to run a show is done entirely at your own risk as ETC cannot make any guarantees about the performance of that system, nor can we provide any technical support of a system like that at this time.

ETC may, in the future, decide to produce a software-based product of this type. However, until we provide that as an actual product, we do not recommend using our products in this way. Here's why - we build and heavily test the hardware that we design to go with our software. A lighting console is not just a "fancy PC" that costs a lot of money. For real-time performance of shows with audiences of any size, we stand fully behind our hardware and software and part of the reason we can do that is because there are minimal variables. We know how our systems will perform because we control what hardware goes in and what software gets loaded on those hard disks. We ask that you do not treat your lighting console as you would any other computer - don't place it on the Internet, don't load additional software, etc.- because in its factory configuration, we know that the system will perform. On a personal PC, those guarantees cannot be made because there are simply too many variables that could adversely affect the playback of your show - driver interactions, viruses, simple software conflicts, you name it.

Please believe me that this has been a hot topic here in the past couple of months. A software-based product may be the outcome of those discussions, then again it may not. We simply haven't decided yet. In the mean time, please use our hardware and software in the way it was intended. :-)

Thanks much guys -

Sarah