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    mskurla
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Survery question about CEM+ Presets

HI all,

I'm looking to conduct a survery regarding a specifc feature in CEM+ you may not know about... You'll probably be seeing me asking these questions quite a bit over the next several months to try and get some insite into field use of some of the dimming line product features. Please feel free to answer here in the forum, or if you want to keep your opinion private feel free to drop me an email directly. mike.skurla@etcconnect.com

CEM+ supports renaming of preset names. (ie. Instead of being called 'Preset 1' you can call it 'Lobby'. Keep in mind, I'm talking about CEM+ presets (formerly known as backup looks in CEM. I am NOT talking about Unison. Have you ever used this renaming feature or been asked about this renaming feature or heard of a customer implement it. Please choose only from the following:

1: Yes. I have, or have had a customer request the change of preset names in a CEM+.

2: No. I knew this could be done, but have never used this feature and always kept the default names of 'Preset 1', 'Preset 2', ......

3: I had no idea this feature existed. (Don't worry, must people don't... Now you do!)

Any response will be great!

Mike Skurla / ETC Iinc / R&D Dimming Product Manager

  • 2) I know you can do it, but I never do.

    My reasoning is as follows:

    There are only three ways to activate a Preset under CEM+ : Facepanel, Remote PC (DimSTAT or Sensor+ Connect), and Smartlink.

    The only places one can see the names are Facepanel and Remote PC. I have yet to meet a customer who wants to activate/deactivate Presets from the facepanel as anything more than a maintenance function where they don't care what the name is - usually they just want to deactivate all Presets because they've left something on by accident.

    Sensor+ Connect has serious known issues with multiple rooms, so it can't be used to reliably create or edit those systems.

    This means that every customer I know of that uses Presets uses them in conjunction with SmartLink stations.

    In SmartLink, what really matters is the Preset Number to get your dip switches correct. If you rename the Presets, you can no longer easily tell which one is which because it's no longer shown anywhere. I'm not even sure it's in "presets.pre", although I could be mistaken.

    SmartLink stations also trigger the automatic creation of associated Presets. I've seen massive corruption of "presets.pre" occur during this process if any presets existed before starting, and renaming seems to be another trigger for corruption. Having corrupted it you can only escape by manually editing the file.

    In summary:

    For the future, I would like to be able to rename Rooms, but I don't see the point of naming Presets in SmartLink - it just makes life harder when trying to decide or decode which Preset is activated by a given button.

    The primary use for these Presets is twofold:

    1) Worklight/Houselight control. You'd like two rooms, one Worklight the other Houselight. The presets in those rooms are usually Off/Whites/Blues, Off/25%/50%/100%, or some combo of the above.

    Sometimes you want another room - eg Foyer. Much more than that and you are into Unison territory.

    2) Non-dim control. You actually want to have a stack of "Zone Bump Toggles" - SmartLink can't do these very well, as you don't get very many simultaneous Presets per Room, or many Rooms.

    So I would like to see an increase in the number of simultaneous Presets per-room.



    [edited by: Richard at 11:46 AM (GMT -6) on Thu, Jan 8 2009]

  • Mike,

    My answer would be number 2, however if I actually worked full time in a facility I would use this feature for sure.

    Scott O

  • 1. Yes, I've changed them and used them. Situation was a TV studio where they wanted a couple of different backup looks and wanted them named for the sections of the studio involved. They trigger them (or would if they needed them, I don't think they ever have) from the facepanel.

    I think it's a good feature.

    Rob Tooker
    PRG

  • I knew about it and have done it.  If nothing else, it helps me keep those presets straight, especially when I am working with multiple rooms.  I am usually accessing the rack via dim stat when doing this though....

     

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