What's the point in E1.33 (RDMNet)

Marcus,

This is a really excellent question, and one that we need to keep asking of manufacturers. There's a notion that E1.17 (ACN) needs a lot of horsepower to implement, which is an unfortunate (but not entirely false) stigma. Lighting technology is evolving far beyond the point of lightweight embedded systems, and we can support E1.17 on many of the platforms that have chosen to implement other protocols.

One of the purposes of E1.33 (RDMNet) is to provide a mechanism to transport E1.20 (RDM) information over the IPv4 network. It's possible to have completely native E1.33 components on that network--which are the full-featured RDM devices with ethernet ports that you mention--but, some of the other E1.33 components that could be on the network are also acting as translators, much like ETC's gateways, and can ship off information to devices on the other side that may not be as sophisticated and can only speak classic E1.20. RDMNet is going to bridge the gap between older RDM hardware and more modern systems. Hopefully, we'll be able to use it to move away from the RS485 line and the 5-pin XLR cable.

The question, then, is do we stop at RDMNet, or do we move to E1.17 as the next step, or can we see somewhere beyond that as the future of the lighting industry?

--

Maya Nigrosh

Electronic Theatre Controls

Marcus,

This is a really excellent question, and one that we need to keep asking of manufacturers. There's a notion that E1.17 (ACN) needs a lot of horsepower to implement, which is an unfortunate (but not entirely false) stigma. Lighting technology is evolving far beyond the point of lightweight embedded systems, and we can support E1.17 on many of the platforms that have chosen to implement other protocols.

One of the purposes of E1.33 (RDMNet) is to provide a mechanism to transport E1.20 (RDM) information over the IPv4 network. It's possible to have completely native E1.33 components on that network--which are the full-featured RDM devices with ethernet ports that you mention--but, some of the other E1.33 components that could be on the network are also acting as translators, much like ETC's gateways, and can ship off information to devices on the other side that may not be as sophisticated and can only speak classic E1.20. RDMNet is going to bridge the gap between older RDM hardware and more modern systems. Hopefully, we'll be able to use it to move away from the RS485 line and the 5-pin XLR cable.

The question, then, is do we stop at RDMNet, or do we move to E1.17 as the next step, or can we see somewhere beyond that as the future of the lighting industry?

--

Maya Nigrosh

Electronic Theatre Controls

What I mean is can RDM information not be sent over E1.17 with the use of DDL?

Can't all the RDM functions be translated into a DDL, all that would need doing then is standardize the DDL types instead of creating a brand new spec? You can keep E1.20 over DMX, and any gateways into the ACN domain would translate that to E1.17.

I assumed this is what the ETC gateways currently do.

Adding more and more standards is not going to help the industry, having one universaly excepted standard will.