Dealing with many many LEDs

I deal with large LED counts every now and again.  A couple things come to mind - 

1) There is a limit to how much processing your ION is going to be able to handle.  We are currently retooling the performance side of the console line to specifically address this issue - but the ION is the low end of the processor spectrum so it's hard to say.   A GIO is going to be leaps and bounds faster than an ION - especially if you are overlapping Pixel Maps and traditional channel effects

Last week I did a small-ish LED wall (1.2K) on an ION (not by choice :-) - and it held up pretty well on the 2.1 software.  There were some large movie files in my default library and those caused the system to basically stop working.

2) If you have ethernet distributed through the house - 4 strategically placed 4 port gateways would take care of the data.  You can enable Artnet on your desk and it will send it out using the 10.XXX IP - from there it's just getting a device to recognize it and convert it over if the lights specifically need 2.XXX.  I use Series 400 Nodes to "Sanitize" my Artnet stream all the time.   So a setup like Console > Node > Media Server works fine whereas Console > Media Server doesn't because the server wont recognize the IP.   

3) Adding a console to the system is possible - but you'll probably end up using midi to fire cues.  To my knowledge there is no way to currently connect multiple ETC consoles together so that they increase the total output of the system and yet operate like 1 console.

- P

I deal with large LED counts every now and again.  A couple things come to mind - 

1) There is a limit to how much processing your ION is going to be able to handle.  We are currently retooling the performance side of the console line to specifically address this issue - but the ION is the low end of the processor spectrum so it's hard to say.   A GIO is going to be leaps and bounds faster than an ION - especially if you are overlapping Pixel Maps and traditional channel effects

Last week I did a small-ish LED wall (1.2K) on an ION (not by choice :-) - and it held up pretty well on the 2.1 software.  There were some large movie files in my default library and those caused the system to basically stop working.

2) If you have ethernet distributed through the house - 4 strategically placed 4 port gateways would take care of the data.  You can enable Artnet on your desk and it will send it out using the 10.XXX IP - from there it's just getting a device to recognize it and convert it over if the lights specifically need 2.XXX.  I use Series 400 Nodes to "Sanitize" my Artnet stream all the time.   So a setup like Console > Node > Media Server works fine whereas Console > Media Server doesn't because the server wont recognize the IP.   

3) Adding a console to the system is possible - but you'll probably end up using midi to fire cues.  To my knowledge there is no way to currently connect multiple ETC consoles together so that they increase the total output of the system and yet operate like 1 console.

- P

Thanks Dennis and Patrick.  PJ - Ion as you know taps out at 3K outputs.  If you add a higher capacity machine (Gio and Eos RPU) to your system, and you are using Ion as a backup, you'd still be limited to 3K (we use the lowest output count between the primary and backup to determine system capacity).   There is a little known potential solution for you - but it would involve controlling the excess LEDs only through the pix map engine.   If you have reached max capacity on your hardware, you can buy (for a really low cost) a 3K "phantom" upgrade.  This will extend the capacity of Ion to 6K - but anything over the 3K threshold can only be patched and control via the pix map engine.

This concept was conceived as a "get out of jail" for almost free card for situations - primarily rental - when capacity had been exceeded.   But only you can make the judgement as to whether this will work for you.

Does that make sense?   You can contact ETC technical services for details on this.

Thanks much!

a

Thanks Anne!

Do you have any more information on how the different artnet modes on the console work? I really don't understand them, and am pretty unclear on how to implement them, as far as network setup goes, both settings and hardware.

Thanks

PJ

Partick,

It sounds like you are saying for simple chases and color changing that the Pixelmapper built into the console would be more than acceptable, unless I am trying to run super large movie files. is this correct?

Can you explain your Artnet sanitization scheme a bit more?

Thanks

PJ

Hey PJ -

In my experience the ION runs pixel map media of all forms perfectly well until it gets to full size movie files.  So if you have misc HD movies loaded on the desk trying to play those back will noticeably slow down the system - like to the point where all the keystrokes have a 10 second lag. 

All the standard EOS movie files that come with the pix mapper ran fine last week.

Artnet on the EOS is pretty simple - you turn it on and the console generates Artnet.  Say your console is plugged into your house Network - if you have an Ethernet port onstage and were to plug an Artnet device into it your device should "see" the console's Artnet signal.    As you've mentioned your only problem is going to be the IP range.  Your Artnet devices will probably ignore the console's signal because they are looking for 2.XXX

So what you need is some network device that will take in the 10.X range and broadcast it from a 2.x address.    I usually have a PRG Series 400 system so I use one of their nodes for this purpose - but only because it's just sitting there and I don't have to configure it.

Honestly I'm not really a networking guy - like all of us - but I think you can use an NAT (Network Address Translation) enabled router to perform this function.    If you were able to post your specific network setup and the lights in question we could probably find a setup that would work.

If it were me I'd start by enabling Artnet on the ION and hooking it up to my laptop running Capture or Artnetometer or something like that.  That way you can mess around with it in a controlled environment.

All of that being said - it may be a better option to purchase an appropriate number of ACN gateways.  It's more plug and play and you wont need to generate both protocols.

- P

Hi PJ,

Okay, here is a rundown of the settings:

• Directed Broadcast - the console will send to the broadcast address of its subnet. That is, with a default address for an Ion (10.101.100.101, subnet mask of 255.255.0.0), the console will output its ArtNet traffic to 10.101.255.255.
• Limited Broadcast - the console will send to a broadcast address of 255.255.255.255. This is limited because routers will not forward broadcast traffic sent to this address.
• Primary Art-Net - the console will reconfigure its network settings to be compatible with the Primary Art-Net broadcast address (2.255.255.255). This will cause incompatibility in systems where the console has a single network port and other devices are in the ETC standard range. On a multi-NIC (network interface) console like Gio, you can use the second network port to transmit ArtNet data in this configuration, and have your Net3 devices on the first NIC. Keep in mind that this requires two separate networks. The console cannot be connected with both ports to the same network.
• Secondary Art-Net - the console will reconfigure its network settings to be compatible with the Secondary Art-Net broadcast address (10.255.255.255). This still can cause incompatibility in single-NIC consoles. On multi-NIC consoles, this can still cause issues as the subnets for the ETC default range (10.101.255.255) will overlap with the wider 10.255.255.255 range. In this event, readdressing the other Net3 devices to a 255.0.0.0 subnet mask will be ideal so everything is in the same subnet.

Generally speaking, we've had success with newer ArtNet devices listening to Directed or Limited broadcast, but the additional options are available in the event you need them.

Hans