DiyLightAnimation
Software => Light Show Pro => Topic started by: thestig on July 09, 2013,
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I am about to add 6000 channels of rgb and have been using lor s2 to sequence up until now. I am not wanting to spend 250 dollars if its still crashing all of the time and not consistent. Is the only issue of reliability with the scheduler? I just remember a lot of heart ache last year with the lsp guys and I can't afford to waste anytime. I have been out of the loop since November and feel like I have been left in the dust. So much to research and so little time. Ahhhh
Thanks for any input
Grant
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They are doing major reworking of the scheduler. They are also working on the playback of the visualizer. I haven't heard of many problems with the sequencer lately except a couple of people reporting win 8 64 bit issues but other people can play their sequences with no problem so that is being investigated. I believe they start beta testing this month and hope to release a public version in August. You can go to their site and look at their quality control meeting minutes. Worth the money to me as it does RGB much better than LOR S2. I have not tried LOR S3.
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I just watched a few tutorials. Wow it is going to make my life much easier. I about cried last season with rgb... The sequencing was so slow and I couldn't get anything to look like what I had invisioned in my head. As always thanks for the help Keith.
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I'm just starting to look at HLS as an option....I have some plans for SSC this year maybe 1600 or so nodes. I'm very much at the beginning just trying to figure out how to get a single blinky from the pc to the etherdongle to the active hub to the LE to my single candy cane light...once I get that working, then I can get to figuring out the rest of it.
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What rules out HLS for me was no easy way to convert all my old LOR S2 sequences. There is an import feature in LSP and it works pretty well. At least it did a couple of years ago when I switched as LOR S2 had no 3rd party DMX controller abitilty or RGB ability back then.
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that is good to know, I have all of my singing faces sequenced in lor s2 and love the idea that nothing is lost.
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The only problem I had back then was with shimmers. The import didn't seem to know where to end the shimmer. Easily fixed. I suggest downloading the demo.
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I have heard a lot of good things about LSP. A LOT of people love it.
However I bought it 2 years ago, and all the updates since. It had a few issues the first year but they have all been fixed.
But when I loaded the last update it locked up 2 different computers. I ended up taking one of them all the way back to out-of-box condition.
When I tried to get help in early November the service was quite slow, as in 7-10 days.
Personally, the drop in customer service since they were bought out was enough to make me go back to LOR. All in all, I am out several hundred dollars for LSP and have never ran a single season.
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I just pulled the trigger and switched from LOR S3 a couple of weeks ago. The reason? RGBs being added to my show. Like you, I found programming RGB pixels to a genuine PITA. This is what I've found so far...
The Good:
The matrix animator in LSP is a real life saver if you are doing RGB signs or displays. Its a little kludgy, but it simplifies a lot of stuff.
The visualizer is really easy to work with and is miles in front of LORs software.
It imports your LOR sequences so that you can move them to your current setup. That means you can still use LOR S2 to do your static lights and then import them into LSP. (you'll see why in a sec)
Layers (groupings) of controllers or even channels so you can keep like types together so they are easier to work on. Its kind of like having multiple tracks in LOR.
Transitions - These are pretty cool if you have a LOT of RGBs in your show. They can be used on static lights as well, but tend to lose their glitter.
Video - you can import video into your show
The Bad:
Timing grids are terrible - There is no easy way to set different grids to different timings. If you are like me, I had a beat grid, a .1 grid, a .05 grid and a tapper grid. You can pretty much skip that in LSP. They have a way to make different timing marks, but its all based upon what ever base timing you use and then the beats in the music (or effects that you set) Its a bit grimy for my taste.
The Visualizer - If you make a mistake with your RGB placements be prepared to wipe it clean and start over. The placement is easy and the set up is easy as well, but if you misplace something while spreading it over multiple channels, it errors out when you try to select it to delete it. Its just easier to erase it all or live with it.
The Scheduler - There seem to be a lot of problems with it... There have been a lot of suggested work-arounds, but for the price you pay for the software, should you have to work around it?
File Size - LSPs files are HUGE in comparison to ANY other sequencing software's output.
The Ugly:
The price. OUCH!
$50 for the 512 channel version (not really practical if you are using RGB) with 2 macro effects
$100 for the 512 channel version with 4 macro effects (see previous)
$250 for 4096 channels (one pixel net universe)
$400 for 32767 channels (top tier)
You see the upgrade for each is $50 (ok.. $49, but thats a marketing thing... might as well be $50) BUT... Thats to upgrade a similar tier to the most current SAME tier. To the best of my knowledge there is no discount to go from the 512 to the 4096 channel version, so if you buy the 4096 channel version and expand beyond one Pixnet universe, you are going to blow another $400... so plan ahead. Word to the wise and all that rot.
I envision adding quite a few RGBs (mega tree, all my arches, corners of my house, eves, etc).. I'm already at almost 4096 channels (leaving the first 512 for DMX) with just my RGB matrix sign and the corners of my house so I went ahead and did the pro version.
Only you can decide whether it is worth the cost. I plan on using both my LOR S3 and the LSP together to accomplish what I want to do. I'll do most of the static sequencing in LOR most likely, and use the LSP for the RGB. As I transition to more and more RGBs I'm sure that LOR will fade to the background.
As always, Your mileage may vary.
Jamie
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Would definitely wait to see if the version 3 release fixes a lot of long time issues that have plagued LSP. New ownership hopefully means it got some new developer eyes on it, and some much needed rework. They seem to be doing all the right things thru far.
I had planned to use it last year, but after 2.5 did not resolve some issues, i set it aside. I found it to be extremely machine resource intensive..that low-end machine that runs S3 without breaking a sweat does not do well with LSP.
I plan to give LSP and HLS a good look next year, assuming 3.0 puts LSP on the right track.
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Actually the 250 dollar version is for 8192 channels not 4096.
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I think it's worth it, but it has some quirks in it's current state. If they fix all the issues with 3.0, it will be a no-brainer for rgb.
Personally, I love the grid concept with LSP. I think it is best to start with a beat track and then add intervals within the beat as needed.
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OK LSP has had it's issues. Let's be honest an ton.. However the new group is working very hard to address and fix previous issues. As a matter of fact there will be very few enhancements until all of the bugs have been addressed. The Scheduler is going through a complete rebuild, but to be honest I used the Conductor last year and will for the future so Scheduler is a moot point to me. Don't get me wrong it should work as expected especially after spending that kind of money. There is also Xlights that will drive a show very well.
I am not trying to upset anyone here, but some of the statements that are being pasted are not accurate.
Don as far as support I feel that it has improved as David would never get back to any issues that I had during the "Show" part of the year. Is it top notch, maybe not but they really are working on it. The best thing to do when you are having trouble is posting the issue on the forum. There are many people (not as many as here) that will try and help you out.
The Good:
The matrix animator in LSP is a real life saver if you are doing RGB signs or displays. Its a little kludgy, but it simplifies a lot of stuff.
True. The Matrix animator is GREAT, but also very tedious. Once done It can do great things
The visualizer is really easy to work with and is miles in front of LORs software.
True
It imports your LOR sequences so that you can move them to your current setup. That means you can still use LOR S2 to do your static lights and then import them into LSP. (you'll see why in a sec)
True with LOR S2 but as yet cannot import LOR S3
Layers (groupings) of controllers or even channels so you can keep like types together so they are easier to work on. Its kind of like having multiple tracks in LOR.
True but WAY Better and easier. One of the Better things in LSP in my opinion
Transitions - These are pretty cool if you have a LOT of RGBs in your show. They can be used on static lights as well, but tend to lose their glitter.
True, but I find Macros to be much more powerful. LSP is designed around RGB, but you can still use it for led and incand.
Video - you can import video into your show
That is one bad thing is LSP no longer supports video. You can use it, but not as easily as in past versions. I hope they bring it back
The Bad:
Timing grids are terrible - There is no easy way to set different grids to different timings. If you are like me, I had a beat grid, a .1 grid, a .05 grid and a tapper grid. You can pretty much skip that in LSP. They have a way to make different timing marks, but its all based upon what ever base timing you use and then the beats in the music (or effects that you set) Its a bit grimy for my taste.
I disagree (Kind of) Although different than LOR you can use "Timing Highlights" and "Active Mouse" to work with what ever timings that you want. My problem is that you still see all of the timing marks they are just not active. You can also make whatever timing spacing that you want from the start of the sequence or the middle.
The Visualizer - If you make a mistake with your RGB placements be prepared to wipe it clean and start over. The placement is easy and the set up is easy as well, but if you misplace something while spreading it over multiple channels, it errors out when you try to select it to delete it. Its just easier to erase it all or live with it.
Although it does need to be made much easier http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cIhUiVVUuP (http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cIhUiVVUuP)
The Scheduler - There seem to be a lot of problems with it... There have been a lot of suggested work-arounds, but for the price you pay for the software, should you have to work around it?
True no argument at all. Going through a complete rewrite.
File Size - LSPs files are HUGE in comparison to ANY other sequencing software's output.
True , but they are working on that as well.
The Ugly:
The price. OUCH!
$50 for the 512 channel version (not really practical if you are using RGB) with 2 macro effects
$100 for the 512 channel version with 4 macro effects (see previous)
$250 for 4096 channels (one pixel net universe)
$400 for 32767 channels (top tier)
True but $250 is for 8192 Channels
As I said this is not to upset anyone. LSP is very powerful and has many ways to do things. Do not expect to download and know how to use it in a week. Like I have said from day one you have to totally rethink the way that you sequence with LSP. I very rarely use a timing grid while sequencing. Is it perfect, NO far from it, but for the price (Look at Madrix) it does more than any other sequencing software out there.
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Don as far as support I feel that it has improved as David would never get back to any issues that I had during the "Show" part of the year. Is it top notch, maybe not but they really are working on it. The best thing to do when you are having trouble is posting the issue on the forum. There are many people (not as many as here) that will try and help you out.
No disagreement here...I really do want LSP to make it, and I see Minleon doing a lot of the right things; I think they understand they have to regain the confidence of a lot of people who have tried and passed on LSP in the past.
You are spot-on regarding support and David..I had a pretty simple issue, and never even got a response to my ticket. Any support was from the members of the forum. They are a dedicated helpful group.
My understanding is David has left and has no further involvement with the project. Honestly, IMHO, that is probably best for the future of LSP overall.
It was August when 2.5 came out, and I had to make a fast decision, and decided it wasn't worth the risk and the effort of what I would have to do to be able to confidently use it in my display.
If 3.0 makes it out this year, and all indications are it will, I can take a look at it early next year, with a little more breathing room, and decide if it makes sense for me for 2014. It will cost me 49 dollars to get the upgrade, but I'll gladly spend the money to see if it is on the right track.
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Great comments Roger, and I agree with them. As you brought up the Conductor, I wanted to point out that I was on the recent beta and can attest that both the LSP export and the Conductor perform extremely well together. I also agree the new QCC guys are a huge asset to LSP and that really boosts my expectations for 3.0.
Also echoing comments that LSP takes time to learn. Designing, assembling, and sequencing 4-8k channels with rgb ain't something you can crank out easily no matter what software you're using unless you got access to Santa's elves... 139 days now.
Stig, If you're gonna gofer it this season, I think the last 32 bit release is stable and I would jump now, learn, and get busy. As much as David gets beat up, I do think he succeeded in designing LSP with the intent of focusing on creativity and not technical detail. I can relate to your comments about wanting to achieve "what's in your head". You can, once LSP clicks for you.
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I will be purchasing it tonight, sounds like I need to get started. I have no worries about my computer (im a gamer) and it will likely be overkill. Now I just need to order some more flex strips from ray. This has been a very informative thread. thank you all.
Grant
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I have no worries about my computer (im a gamer) and it will likely be overkill.
Grant
Don't bet on it Grant! ;) I am running and i7 3930 with 64g ram. The better the PC the better your life will be! ;D
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It imports your LOR sequences so that you can move them to your current setup. That means you can still use LOR S2 to do your static lights and then import them into LSP. (you'll see why in a sec)
True with LOR S2 but as yet cannot import LOR S3
Actually, I've been importing my LOR S3 sequences from last year. I saved my "NEW" controller configuration to my library, imported my old sequences, then added my new controllers back in and did a direct cut and paste to the new channels (icecicles to icecicles, etc).
And Roger, you aren't gonna ruffle my feathers THAT easy. ;) You merely expanded upon what I had written and were very respectful in doing so. Many thanks.
Jamie
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I have no worries about my computer (im a gamer) and it will likely be overkill.
Grant
Don't bet on it Grant! ;) I am running and i7 3930 with 64g ram. The better the PC the better your life will be! ;D
64 gigs of ram? That is ridiculous. I have 16 gigs and have never used over 30 percent of it lol. Most of my money is into my dual video cards. Ssd'd are also nice :)
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I do know that there will be a new LSP Scheduler coming out in the coming weeks as a Beta.
I ran all my shows from the scheduler and I did have issues with the lights lagging the music. I had to develop a number of work arounds for Halloween last year (like reducing the number of Macros used, clean un-used timing marks and so on) to get the lights to run without lag. So I'll be testing the new scheduler very, very hard to make sure the problems I encountered last year don't result in the same light lagging in the new scheduler.
I also have the etherdongle with the conductor, so that's my back up plan (I will probably use the Etherdongle and conductor anyway).
I successfully exported the sequences into the Conductor format and they play just great (no problems with light lag), but I haven't loaded the newer Etherdongle/Conductor firmware yet, but I have converted the audio files over to the OGG format.
I'm running just short of 5000 channels of RGB LED light strips and two Lynx Expresses, and dispite the problems I encountered last year with LSP I'm pretty happy with it. It runs pretty well on my i7 Quad core, Win 7 16G Ram, dedicated graphics card and SSD drive.
Here's a quick clip of the LSP scheduler running on Halloween night last year, give you an idea of what LSP is capable of doing. It's also controlling the DMX Laser on the right side of the house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q5tSQEFcjo
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Don't bet on it Grant! ;) I am running and i7 3930 with 64g ram. The better the PC the better your life will be! ;D
which version of windows?
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I have 3 ssds and a tb spinner. One problem with LSP is it will not leverage all cores yet. 64 bit helped with that, but some are having some issues with it. That is what I am running. I am not a gamer but have started to get into working with a lot of video so I wanted as much ram that I could get. Only running 1 video card.
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which version of windows?
Win 7 I don't like Win 8 although I know it is the future. :'(
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Totally agree...not seeing anything in Win 8 that makes me want to change from 7.
Reason I ask is, I assume you are using professional or ultimate, as the Home versions don't support anything past 16 gb...i think some people who decide to upgrade to mega amounts of ram forget they need to look at an OS upgrade to take advantage of their investment.
I just bumped both computers I use for Christmas and other geek/techie endeavors to Win 7 with 16 gb of RAM..and have yet to see it use anything past 3 gb at any one instant, (if you assume windows is telling you the truth..).
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I've been following this thread with great interest as I need to plunk down on a software to learn and use to start out with our first sequence this year.
I have a couple LE to assemble, a few DSC, a lot more SSC, an etherdongle, and an Aether clock yet.
A couple of items I hope you fellows could clear up.
I see quite a few leave 512 open for dmx at the beginning. With 32 channels LE, 5 DSC, and a plan to be pretty much RGB on anything in the future, I'm thinking the 512 is overkill. Is that the minimum you can set aside since a DMX universe is 512?
I've made the jump to 8 and completely love it. Waiting anxioulsy for the 8.1 updates for better tiles support and a few other options. It has been super rock stable, and with an SSD hybrid goes from off to internet in under 15 seconds. However, on 16 gigs, an i5, and 64 bit windows 8 professional, am I going to have some trouble running this software and possibly my show if I don't buy a conductor to go with the etherdongle?
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Totally agree...not seeing anything in Win 8 that makes me want to change from 7.
Reason I ask is, I assume you are using professional or ultimate, as the Home versions don't support anything past 16 gb...i think some people who decide to upgrade to mega amounts of ram forget they need to look at an OS upgrade to take advantage of their investment.
I just bumped both computers I use for Christmas and other geek/techie endeavors to Win 7 with 16 gb of RAM..and have yet to see it use anything past 3 gb at any one instant, (if you assume windows is telling you the truth..).
Using Pro and you are correct about the usage. Looking at the "Windows Experience" rating (for what it is worth) everything on my PC is a 7.9 (Max rating) except my video card that brings it down to a 7.7 (if I remember that correctly). I have not watched usage while running anything but LSP, but I can say that it is a screamer compared to my old AMD quad @ 16g. Lost the motherboard on that one so I decided to go all out! The ssds are awesome for boot time. From off to fully loaded desktop is 15 to 17 sec. AND ya I know Win 8 is faster! ;)
My Laptop is a i7 2 something with 16g ram, no ssd and there is no comparison between the 2. I know not comparing apples to apples, but I really get spoiled on my desktop and think they all should run that way! ;D
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I've been following this thread with great interest as I need to plunk down on a software to learn and use to start out with our first sequence this year.
I have a couple LE to assemble, a few DSC, a lot more SSC, an etherdongle, and an Aether clock yet.
A couple of items I hope you fellows could clear up.
I see quite a few leave 512 open for dmx at the beginning. With 32 channels LE, 5 DSC, and a plan to be pretty much RGB on anything in the future, I'm thinking the 512 is overkill. Is that the minimum you can set aside since a DMX universe is 512?
I've made the jump to 8 and completely love it. Waiting anxioulsy for the 8.1 updates for better tiles support and a few other options. It has been super rock stable, and with an SSD hybrid goes from off to internet in under 15 seconds. However, on 16 gigs, an i5, and 64 bit windows 8 professional, am I going to have some trouble running this software and possibly my show if I don't buy a conductor to go with the etherdongle?
You can use what ever you want. I am assuming that you will be running Pixelnet, correct? Most people leave it open because it is a simple calculation to know what is left, but you can use what ever number that you like. For example an etherdongle flashed for pixelnet outputs 16384 channels. so each one of your expresses will use 16 of those channels. So if you have 2 LEs you can start your RGB @ Channel 33 if you want, but then there is no room for expansion for DMX in an ordinate way. Make sense? So let's say you want to add an Aether here and there you are going to have another dmx channel in the middle of your pixelnet and that starts to get confusing and harder to track.
We are getting off topic from LSP here. Sorry. Might want to start a thread in the Smart String area.
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With the smarthub jumper set to 1, the first 512 pixelnet channels are also output through the dmx port (mirrored). So in reality the first 512 channels could be pixelnet or dmx or if you had dmx devices and pixelnet devices with the same start channel they would mirror each others effects. I start my pixelnet channels around 137 as I only have about 8 LOR controllers in dmx mode and a few Aether II's. I have a few channels between where those end and my pixelnet starts in case I need them later I won't have to reprogram pixelnet controller start channels or modify my sequences. Now with the jumper set to another jumper the dmx mirrored channels would be changed to whatever universe the jumper corresponds to.
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Another plus with LSP All of the protocols that it will run. You can run almost any dongle and make your lights go blinky blinky.
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I have been using LSP for 3 years now and it has come a long way. I found that I really had to change my thinking how to sequence a show. Last year a created a show using almost 100% layers and transitions. Once I moved away from relying on a grid, it really simplified sequencing. The following is a quick video on the technique I use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1d2f7pbIGM
And here is the output of the visualizer for my show. The only place where I relied on the grid was for the snowflakes above the garage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRv3QAtt7Vg
If you use transitions, adding elements to a show can be trivial. For example, if I were to add RGB lights to my bushes, all I would need to do is open the sequences, add a new controller for the RGB lights on the bushes, map the controller to an existing layer and then regenerate the transitions.
Transitions also make sharing sequences more feasible. If you were to take my sugar plum sequence, you could easily map to your shows layout in minutes by performing the following steps.
1. Delete all of my controllers.
2. Add controllers (Add one controller per element in your show i.e., house lights, tree, wreath, etc.)
3. Draw all of your elements in the visualizer
4. Map controllers (elements) to layers
5. Regenerate all transitions
6. Done
No mapping channels, copy/paste, adding/deleting channels, etc. You can also easily adjust between shows from 64 channels to several thousand by just mapping controllers to layers.
Since I am using PixelNet/DMX, I also add a controller to LSP per element in my show. An element would be a mega tree, wreath, bush, house lights etc. This allows you to map a controller (element) directly to a layer. I Avoid thinking about a controller as the physical box since you never actually need to address a controller directly and instead just use channel numbers which can span multiple controllers.
When I find sometime , I will put together a tutorial on this.
As for performance, I upgraded to using a SSD last year and that made a huge difference. My only regret is I didn't upgrade to SSD sooner. LSP outputs very large files so having an SSD improves time to load, save and playback sequences. Also, Windows 8 boots in seconds with the SSD. I performed all of my sequencing using Win8 without any issues. I have 8.1 installed now, but haven't played with LSP yet.
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Ok its official, I too have joined the dark side. Let the fun begin. well as soon as they email me my registration code anyways 8)
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You can go ahead and download the current version from the yellow area on their home page. It will run in demo mode which I think it means it will limit the amount of channels it will output to on playback with the output turned on. But you can go ahead and create your controllers and program ect.
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I used a trial version about a year ago and when i installed it last night it gave me the expired trial screen. How long does it usually take to recieve the email with registration code? I hate how impatient I am sometimes... lol
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So I received my email and got to work last night. It was all pretty straight forward after I watched a couple of tutorials. I am blown away with the image shift macro. This is going to make my life so much easier. I quickly built a few images and applied them to my test flex strip and it is producing exactly what I wanted. After looking at the timeline and seeing just how much data was created it is mind boggling. If I was to fill that in cell by cell like the old days, before rgb and 5000 channels I would die. I am going to sequence 90 percent with macros and transitions and I am already wishing I had more smart strings.