Some notes on my new ION consoles.

Hi Nick,

I would love to talk to you about some of the issues that you are having with your Ion consoles.  Please contact me at ETC Tecnical Services any time Monday through Friday between 8:00AM and 5PM Central time. 

Thanks!

Matt Kerr 

888-908-2140 (Direct Line)

Just chatted with Matt - thanks for the prompt response.  I will post another use report at the end of the week. 

Quick question - do the monitors *have* to be DVI?  I ran out of DVI cables and wanted to hook up the second console with the DVI-VGA adaptors that shipped with the RVI, but it wouldn't work.  I have ordered more cables but was curious.

I have to disagree....

We have a DVI plugged into the DVI #2 output (using the splitter) and a VGA plugged into the VGA output.  I'm not in front of our ION right now, but I'm pritty sure we set them up to have the DVI be the primary, and the VGA to be the secondary.  When I get a chance, I will look at it to be sure I'm correct.  But I do know it does work.

bruce klotz

theatrix, inc.

Monitor 1 is currently forced to be on the right, with Monitor 2 on the left, regardless of whether you are using DVI or VGA.

The dual DVI connector on Ion is digital only - it doesn't have any analogue (VGA) output whatsoever. If you require VGA, you must use the VGA port.

This is different to Eos and Congo Jr, both of which support the use of VGA and DVI monitors on the DVI connectors.

You may use 1 VGA and 1 DVI monitor. The above configuration is correct, the VGA goes into the blue VGA connector, while the DVI goes into the the DVI 'Y' cable. To set the VGA monitor as #1 - connect the DVI to '2' on the 'Y' cable.  To set the VGA monitor as #2, connect the DVI to '1' of the 'Y' cable. But in all cases, monitor 1 will always be on the right.

You cannot use VGA to DVI adapters on the 'Y' cable. (These DVI connectors are DVI digital only, and do not carry the analog signals, as they do on Eos, the RVI, etc.)

We are aware of inability to swap left and right monitors in any configuration. (Dual DVI, or VGA/DVI) We are working on fixing this bug, but I'm not sure when it will hit the market.

Kevin McCann
Hardware Engineer
Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc.

Just set up the second ION and got both monitors working, etc.  Chose Shutdown and was given a sexy Windows error:

"EOS.EXE - Application Error.  The instruction at "0x7c911e58 referenced memory at "0x040dc008".  The memory could not be "read".  Click OK to terminate the program"

Besides being a candidate for the blog of unnecessary quotation marks (memory could not be "read"??), what the hell does this mean?

In 1.3 we have seen a crash on shutdown.  This crash happens after the console has done all important save and disconnect operations, so it not really a big deal outside of the ugly windows error screen.  Not too get too technical about it, a "memory could not be read" message is a reference to the application trying to reference a bad part of the memory on the computer...in this case we were trying to read memory(RAM) that we were already finished using do to the shutdown process.

When 1.3.1 is released (which is very very soon...we just got approval to distribute it yesterday) you will not see this error anymore.

Sorry about the ugliness of the message.  If you do see this message at another time (when you are not shutting down or in future releases of the application), please contact our Tech Services department.  They will be able to help you work around the problem, and can help gather information for the development team so we can fix the problem.

Anyway, don't worry about this error on shutdown.  Just press the "OK" button.   

-D 

Why, if there are options for Clear Patch and Clear Targets, when one clears Targets, does it clear Patch as well?  It seems like it should be more selective.  We just wiped out our patch.

 Rem Dim, while returning things to zero, does not *release* channels.  Can this be fixed?  Since Groups have become something different (no intensity, channels only), this becomes a problem when starting programming and building groups.

 Changing number of channels, if one has already started to patch, requires an Exit ION to get it to update.  Add this to the Clearing Fixtures from the User Folder gripe I spoke about in my first post.

One of the advantages of the new Group definition is that you don't need Rem Dim to record groups in live.  Simply key, for example, [1] [through] [10] [Record] [Group] [1] [Enter] to record channels 1 through 10 as group 1, regardless of whether they are active or have intensities.

-Josh 

nfarwell:

Why, if there are options for Clear Patch and Clear Targets, when one clears Targets, does it clear Patch as well?  It seems like it should be more selective.  We just wiped out our patch.

 Rem Dim, while returning things to zero, does not *release* channels.  Can this be fixed?  Since Groups have become something different (no intensity, channels only), this becomes a problem when starting programming and building groups.

 Changing number of channels, if one has already started to patch, requires an Exit ION to get it to update.  Add this to the Clearing Fixtures from the User Folder gripe I spoke about in my first post.

  

 

 We are adding additional granularity to Clear Record Targets - this should make it more apparent.   Sorry it was unclear as it what is currently does. 

 Rem Dim does not release channels because you may want to reverse the rem dim state - it is often used as a tool to isolate a light on stage.  If we released channels, you would not a) be able to store a zero value for channels that were previously on in the cue but you'd now like to turn off or b) restore the state of manually set channels when the rem dim condition is reversed.  This becomes even more of an issue in 1,4, where you will be able to set a value for rem dim (25% for example), so you can use rem dim without plunging the rest of the stage into darkness.

The last item is on our list of things to address in an upcoming build.

Hope this helps.

Anne

We understand the features of Rem Dim, we were running into the trouble of zero values being recorded into a group.  For instance:

Take 1-20 to full.  Type 11-20 full Rem Dim.  Try to record 11-20 as Group 1.  Due to the new format of Groups, it records 11-20 AS WELL as 1-10 because it is not recording level information, only captured channels.  1-10 are not released.  We understand that the full functionality of Groups has been rolled into Intensity Palettes, but during the transition from Obsession to ION, especially with designers who have not used it, it will be a pain.

Ah... Understood.   I find that most people record groups now as selective stores ---- so it is more of a command line function.  Rather than saying: 

11-20 full rem dim enter.  Record Group 1 enter.  

Just

11-20 record group 1 enter.  

Does that make sense?  

a