Display Stutter

[lboucher]

Hi All

So I notice this a couple weeks ago, but only now have relaxed to the point where I care enough to look into it.
Basicly it appears my smart strings stutter a bit. It is definitly noticable with a new spiral thing I added.
Don't remember being able to notice this before the spiral, not that it wasn't there.

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After thinking about it tonight, i wonder if this is at least partially related to running 2 different types of hardware.
1 pixelnet and 1 renard output (And during the android part, and the android input plugin.)

I quickly did a test where I removed the renard from my mid show voiceover, and it looks better I think?
But I would have to watch it for a while, and the other sequences require the renard for the show to work, I can try them without renard late tonight when no one is watching the show.

What are others seeing? Anyone else running dual outputs?

Thanks

[Mickpat]

What are you using to schedule your show? 

[Steve Gase]

I'm looking hard, and I don't see an obvious difference.  Maybe in person you might see it, but in youtube videos I get used to seeing a certain level of choppiness, and the last of total smoothness -- in both videos -- I ascribe to youtube.  It might also be your sequencing... or not.  sorry, I can't validate your observations.

[taybrynn]

I'm using dual LOR and Lynx Pixelnet output ... and I've felt that I've seen some smart string node delays at times.

I honestly think its related to several things:

(1) pixelnet cat5 is crossing a lot of power lines and interference may be occurring at times which causes more interference
(2) using xlights with LOR .lms was much more laggy than using xlight with .xseq file.  However .xseq file seems to leave on a few items at the end of sequences.
(3) I haven't seen any delays with flex strips or modules ... but they are also much closer and less chance for signal issues, etc.

[lonewolf41]

Wanted to chime in here as I am seeing poor performance out of the smart strings as well.  A stutter is probably the best way to describe it.  If they could get drunk, that would also be a good description.  I am attaching some videos so you can see exactly what I mean.  In the first one, the lights should be coming on right with the beats, but seem to get behind and have to "jump" to catch up.  The next two are taken at the exact same part in the song, but look completely different.  In the second clip, the left tree is supposed to come on half at a time with the front candy canes, but the first half doesn't even come on until the second half is supposed to.  In the third clip, this same part in the sequence, the mega-trees coming on are completely out of sync.  Again, this is the exact same part of the song, but they look completely different. 

If these were wireless, I could maybe attribute it to that, but the right tree is wired right out of my dongle and the left tree is wired from the pixelnet output of the right tree.  I hesitate to even post the entire video as I am almost ashamed of how they look.  It looks like very poor sequencing.  Strangely enough, they didn't do this all the time.  It seemed to get worse later in the month for whatever reason.  it also got colder so maybe that affected it.  Any ideas on how to make the smart strings behave appropriately?

BTW, I was using Vixen and had about 205 channels as the strings were in string mode.

Thanks,
-Keith

[PJNMCT]

Have you tried running in xlights instead?

That worked for me.

Kudos to Matt.

-Paul

[lonewolf41]

No, I wanted to but did not get a chance to try it out.  I have the controllers out of the yard, but the trees are still up.  I may try it and see if I can tell a difference.  To be honest, I didn't even know that there was a problem as every time I looked at it, it seemed to be working correctly.  That was part of the problem as it seemed sporadic.

Thanks for the feedback though.  I may see if I can try that.

Thanks,
-Keith

[rrowan]

Yeah I was thinking it was computer related more than the smart strings. Sending out more channels from the computer to support smart strings puts a heavier burden on the computer. If you try xLights make sure you do the file conversion over to xseq so the show runs as fas as possible in xlights.

Rick R.