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    Robert75397
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RDM over network?

Hi there-

First time poster, long time lurker. I am at the newest theater at Lincoln Center Theater, which is a whopping three years old. It came with a brand new installation of ETC gear, which has been great so far.  The general setup is 2 24 port PoE switches in a rack, ethernet runs to patch panels which connect system components and many one port gateways around the space. There is a 4 port gateway networked in, but it is configured strictly for DMX input in booth and house positions (for an older console, I suppose). This infrastructure does not seem to support RDM as it exists today- I figure I would need to go straight from the console to a 4 port gateway, and then run DMX from there.  It is my (limited) understanding that RDM over networks is currently being hammered out as RDMnet. I was just wondering if anybody has any insight beyond  "it's coming, we promise", or can see if I've missed something. Thanks.

-Rob Lilly

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  • Hello Rob,

    RDM over Ethernet on ETC equipment uses ACN (E1.17 not to be confused with sACN E1.31). While ACN is an open standard, it's fairly hard to implement, as such I believe only ETC has commercially done so. Both of our flag ship consoles (EOS and Cobalt) and our configuration tool (Concert) can communicate via ACN.

    To output real RDM (E1.20) via Ethernet with an ETC Console, you would require a NET3 RDM Gateway (with RDM turned on). - However I do note that you have one port gateways, there are two versions of these: with and without RDM!. The quick and easy way to tell them apart is the number of LEDs on the front panel - 2 LEDs = Old non RDM gateway. 3 LEDs  = New RDM Gateway.

    There is currently no ETC way of having an RDM (E1.20 over DMX) controller (i.e. 3rd party LX Desk) input into a NET3 system, as the NET3 gateways are a controller in there own right.

    There are other RDM over Ethernet solutions (RDM over Art-Net pops to mind), but these all have limitations and are not widely supported.

    As RDMNet (E1.33) should be easier to implement and is being designed by committee (unlike say ArtNet), it should be widely adopted and promoted, with interoperability in the same way that sACN has.

    Regards,

    Marcus 

  • in reply to marcusbirkin
    Thank you for this comprehensive answer! I have the "old" one port gateways, so I suppose I will just have to sit tight and see what develops.
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