Jim, as far as running pixelnet on both sides of the street. I believe that Vixen had support with syncronizing with another copy of vixen on the internet, so if there was a computer in each house on the internet, then running a pixelnet dongle off each, etc....
i may be wrong, but it might we worth checking into.
I will look into that.
Ok Jim, I have to ask. How many channels are you going to be using and what software are you going to use to sequence it?
The simple answer to the number of channels is based on last year. Since I got into blinky flashy 3 years ago (2 Christmases) I have been using LOR controllers and S2 and earlier software. Last year each house had about 144 discreet channels plus 5 CCRs (750 channels) for a house total of 894 channels. So that was a total of 1788 channels for the two houses. I have been running LOR's wireless networking and it has worked flawlessly.
I have looked at Vixen in the past and had real trouble with it. I could never get it to load and work properly. I finally over came that early this year and actually got it to load and run. That is how I tested my Lynx USB dongles when I got them built.
Obviously, this year will be completely different. I have fallen for the Smart Strings and Lynx hardware. I will still be using the LOR controllers next year with about the same number of channels. To that I am adding just 5 each 128 node smart strings per house (for a total of 3840 smart string channels). Therefore, I estimate a total of 5628 channels for this year. Next year I will be adding a smart string mega tree on each house (ouch).
I really do not know, as of now, what software I will be using. To my knowledge, no one really has an alternative to Vixen. And honestly, Vixen worries me (this is not meant to be negative). It has not been upgraded for several years (although I hear that it might be this year, I don't know). LOR's S-3 will probably not be the answer (even with a major overhaul) since, as I understand it, it will not support Pixelnet. The one real hope that I have is Matt Taylor and his Olive Studio. From the looks of it, the approach is great (all of the others need a major overhaul for all of these channels). Actually, I am starting to antsy about the software issue. The waiting for the new software releases is raising my blood pressure. One of my worries is all of the "sequencing" time it is going to take once I find the software that will work best. At least I have my show planned and the music and introductions all finished.
Sorry about the long answer, but I hope that it is at least complete.
Jim Wright