DiyLightAnimation
Software => xlights => Topic started by: taybrynn on January 05, 2012,
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For the most part, xlights has done a great job for me this year.
However, I've seen a couple of things and wondering if anyone else has seen this also.
(1) Sometimes after playing a sequence ... the lights stay on and sometimes even stay on in an 'animated' manner ... till the next sequence starts and sends an 'off' signal for those channels.
This seemed to be a problem only with the xlights .xseq format files (LOR .lms converted to .xseq). I think. So I tried to add a sequence that would just turn everything off for 3 seconds and schedule it between the real songs, but that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. So anyways, wondering if anyone has experienced similar.
(2) I noticed that on some conversion of files from .lms to .xseq that the file sizes actually increased. I'm not sure, but it seems like these don't necessary play back better in a lot of instances than the original .lms file did.
(3) I have one or two .xseq converted sequences which in fact play back incorrectly ... and I had to revert to using the .lms file instead after realizing this. They are fairly rare, but with 15 songs, I had one or two like this and could provide for testing, if that would be helpful.
(4) This could perhaps be related to #1 above, maybe not ... but when I start a sequence ... it almost appears that sometimes its 'catching up' ... and fairly out of sequence with the music, but then 5-10 seconds into the playback of a .xseq sequence ... it appears to catch up and then be fine thereafter. I was wondering if anybody had seen that.
I'm running xlights with 272 LOR channels on a LOR network and that is combined with 4096 channels on a PIXELNET network. Mostly playing .lms files converted to .xseq and a few .lms mixed in. I also converted all sequencing to use .WAV audio files as well. Still experiencing some LAG on playback, esp. with some pixelnet channels. I've heard LOR format can be slow ... so wondering if I converted to DMX on the LOR boxes if that wouldn't solve it. My long range goal is to move away from LOR boxes and toware more DMX controlled LE boxes.
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I haven't but my sequences are Vixen so the conversion is much easier
Have you tried redoing the conversions with the newest version of xLights 2012a. I think Matt fixed some issues with the conversion and it can not do batch conversion.
Rick R.
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I know that with LSP programing you have to have an empty timing cell at the end of a sequence to basically turn all of the lights off. Don't know if this helps or not.
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Thanks ... I'll re-convert with the latest and see how that goes.
I could also go into each sequence and try to put an OFF event in there at the end.
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I think Matt added an option to add an Off during the conversion. Could save you some time
Rick R.
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Yes he did !!! Thanks, thats awesome.
Thanks Matt !!
I'll convert them all today and try again tonight, since the
show is still up.
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I am confused <fp. Everyone talks about converting LOR sequences to Xlights, but i just put my LOR sequences and audio in the xlights folder and select the sequence and play it. I have never converted the sequence over. are we talking about two separate things here?
Grant
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Nice forum name Grant.
I think you CAN run your LOR sequences without converting them, there is just a lot of optimization that occurs if you do the conversion process. Meaning you get a much smaller file if you convert to the xLights format. Might be an issue with large RGB type sequences.
Ron
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right, you can play in LOR .lms format just fine, but as the sequences get larger (say 10+ MB) there can be issues with the
playback of the .lms files.
so xlights has a conversion utility where you can convert .lms files to .xseq files and generally they are smaller. I have some
32mb files that shrunk to like 10mb via. this conversion.
This conversion to .xseq format can potentially solve other playback issues. In my case, I had a DMX corostart that didn't play
whatsoever on certain .lms files ... but after converting to .xseq format ... that display item worked perfectly. I can't explain that
other than .xseq worked better.
My setup is 272 LOR conventional and 4096 pixelnet with some RGB and some incan. conventional.
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thanks for the reply's, I will be running 4000 channels rgb this year so I am assuming I will be down this road soon enough. Sorry for hijacking the thread. Back to original topic!
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I had some of the same issues. In my case I think it started with the LSP to LMS conversion as I haven't heard of any vixen users having problems.
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It really depends on how complex your source files were to determine the compression you'll get in the conversion. Two things to note: 1. My xseq files were done in segments of exactly 30 or 45 seconds. Those 30 second files were all 4.9 Mb and the 45 second files were 7 and change if I recall correctly. What I'm saying is the file size was a constant as long as duration and # of channels remained constant. 2. My 30 files often started at 190 Mb. Going from 190 Mb to 4.9 Mb was a GAME changer. Playback was amazingly smooth with the xseq format.
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Ok, so I found that one of my sequences plays back incorrectly whether I use .lms or .xseq ... so I'm calling that a bad sequence for now.
Since my show is about to be dismantled in a day anyways, I decided to see about running my LOR boxes in DMX mode. OMG, I had no idea
it would be THIS EASY !! Since I previously had needed to re-assign my LOR boxes to use consecutive UNIT #'s i.e. 01,02....09,0A,0B,0C,0D,0E,0F,10,11 ... I read
that this also determines the starting DMX address. I had previously re-flashed my LOR boxes (while connected) to the latest firmware which supports
DMX control on the PC16 controllers.
Then I was thinking of how to do this and it dawned on my that I could use my extra Lynx Dongle to replace the LOR USB adapter I had been using the run the LOR
boxes via LOR protocol.
So anyways, I re-flashed my spare Pixelnet Dongle to DMX and connected it to my DMX to LOR convertor cable ... added a coupler ... and then hooked it up to my LOR
network CAT5 instead of the LOR adaptor I had been using since 2008. THen I went into xlights and deleted the LOR network for the first 272 channels and then added
a new LynX DMX network for my first 272 channels instead ... then tried it ... and WOW ... it worked perfect.
I swear DMX is way faster and less laggy than using LOR. I wish this had been emphasized more clearly to me previously. OMG, I think most of my problems were because the
LOR protocol is so slow. So running it two one Lynx Dongle to DMX control the 17 LOR controllers in DMX and then the other Dongle to PIXELNET to the SS HUB
for the rest ... was amazing !! I had never seen my show look so good before. I swear I must have grown used to the lag ... so watching my megatrees spinning with no lag
was like putting glasses for the first time. My world had never looked BETTER !!
I ran them with .xseq files (converted from .lms files using latest xlights version) and it was like a show I had never seen before. BETTER !!!! WOW!
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LOR to DMX cable? Is that the idmx? A detailed "how to" would be helpful in case I need to do this next season for the conductor to run my LOR boxes as I haven't yet heard if LOR will be supported on the conductor.
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The LOR controllers will listen for either protocol and switch on the fly. All that is need is a crossover cable on the different pins to get it to listen. You can use the Lynx dongle, LOR USB485, Enttec or almost whatever adapter you want as long as you have the + and - pins setup properly. Mix and match the hardware almost anyway you want. I tested a bunch of combinations and the only adapter I had issues with S3 and DMX was the LOR USB485B adapter. I still need to test it more but my display is down.
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One thing to note though about LOR running in DMX is that the firmware on the controllers has to be 4.2 or newer. That goes back a long way, but is something that has to be done with the older controllers to run DMX.
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JUst to be clear, this cable is NOT the same as the IDMX or IDMX1000 ... Thats an LOR device to get you DMX 512 channels in an LOR way.
This is just to convert wiring from LOR version of DMX (on 4,5) to standard DMX wiring (on 1,2).
And as mentioned above, you have to flash your LOR controllers to latest firmware, which can be done easily using the LOR 'Hardware' utility.
In fact, I flashed mine while they are all outside hooked up ... in the yard, on the roof ... so pretty nice to be able to do that remotely and in
the middle of the night from inside.
Yeah, I had originally made the LOR to DMX cable to program the 3ch DMX modules you can get from holidaycoro .
That allowed me to program the DMX controller address using their free software using this cable and the LOR
USB adaptor ... and a loose wire + cat5 cord on the other side going to the DMX module I was wanting to program.
Its nothing more than taking the blue and blue+white on one side and cross connecting those to wires 1 & 2 on
the DMX side. I took a quick connect rj45 (cat5) jack and just put the blue and blue+white from the LOR side of
the cable and put it into 1,2 on the quick connect jack and then closed it with the plastic clamper. Then in the DMX
SIDE (using 1,2) you connect it ... and on the LOR SIDE (using 4,5) you connect it. I didn't even connect any other
wires in the cat5.
THey now have similar quick connect jacks at home depot (in the home LV wiring section) to make a cat5 quick splice ... for
$2 or less ... so very reasonable and very EASY !! (no soldering required).
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WOW I cannot believe that someone else has their cables as organized as mine! <la..
Great info thanks Taybrynn!
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yes, its a total disaster -- LOL
This is a royal hack job, I realize ... but just wanted to see if it would work.
Since xlights basically requires you have your LOR controllers in the hex order
(in terms of unit numbering) and no skipping of units ... that basically the
same thing needed for DMX use, except DMX uses default addresses based on
the UNIX # assigned.
That that would have been a problem, but since I used a different dongle I didn't
have to re-map anything on my pixelnet stuff. I didn't even think about using the
LOR interface, but it probably would have worked also, maybe with less cables
and couplers !!
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Here is the best diagram I have found on building a crossover cable for Lynx and LOR.
http://diylightanimation.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=6336.0;attach=7056;image
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RIght, I used that one also. Be careful with the term crossover cable ... because some go out and buy a networking crossover cable
thinking its the same thing ... it isn't.
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Okay to make sure I got this right, I cut one end of a patch cable off and hook up a jack to the cut end only using solid blue with pin1 and Blue/White to pin 2. No other wires connected to the jack. Then plug that into my DMX output of my Smartstring Hub and go from there to my LOR network. Correct? I had noticed this year that running my Rainbow Floods from my Smartstring Hub into my Rainbow Brain then to my floods, I would see an occasional delay before the floods would kick on. It was easy to see as I had leds from my LOR network on either side of the flood. I had to run a separate dongle for my Floods and that fixed it. Maybe running dmx out of a Hub board rinning over a 1000 pixel was too much traffic for 1 usb dongle?
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Sounds right to me ... Dmx is just two wires (1&2) and LOR DMX uses wires (4&5). There is a ground but also but I don't think it's needed. DMX is just a lot faster protocol than LOR