You say pixelnet is an open protocol - do you have a rough spec somewhere?
Also, could you envision a different version of the hub that communicates directly via ethernet?
What I'm thinking is something that combines some of the features of the EthConGateway with the existing hub, and skips the dongle all together. Yes it would be a more expensive hub, but would it be more than dongle+hub?
This would allow SS to work without a dongle, and allow for even greater topography flexibility. By using E1.31 as a standard - you would stay compatible with all DMX software, but not be limited to the channel limit of dongles.
I believe the whole EthConGateway project is open source.
I just got my EthConGateway and have been working on some custom DMX software. While I could probably build in support for pixelnet, seems it would be possible to stick with current standards instead of having to create a new one. The world is bigger than just LSP and Vixen...
-Preston
As I have posted prior it will be posted in the Wiki once the documentation is finished.
As far as the ethercon being open source, Does that matter to the users that do not write their own firmware or design their own equipment? This is an old argument and has never had any negative effect on DLA in all the years it has been shouted from the roof tops. I keep things simple and it works for DLA. I believe it has been a benefit to the users that Lynx equipment is not open sourced not a hinderance. I force no one to use the equipment and they are told up front it is not open source yet it still goes out faster than we can keep up with.
This is not a competition, I design what I want and make it avaliable to others. I believe everyone should be aware of all the offerings and if I did not I would have removed a number of post in this thread which were nothing more than advertisments for the other equipment.
Since the dedicated Pixelnet dongle that I will release early next year uses 1.31 None of this is correct. it supports everything the Ethercon device does or will. It will handle over 16000 channel so I do not see that a channel count issue. It will be smaller, less expensive and simpler. It will only be avaliable to build yourself though because we are DIY site so it is all through hole parts like the rest of Smart Strings.
PixelNet is just the in between protocol just as DMX or Renard is for the other equipment. Neither of those are that great for Pixels. I love DMX but 512 ch is a very limiting when it comes to pixels.
The current dongle everyone has right now handles 4096 channels with a simple firmware update which is I believe what the ethercon is doing at the moment so again not much channel limit in the dongle in my mind. Remember size does not matter!
So far PixelNet for the original dongle has support on Vixen and Light Show Pro working. I have been contacted by a few others doing software that wanted to include it so LOR is the only software I can think of that will not support it in it's current state.
Going to a hub with the dongle built in would not simplify things as then the hub is more expensive and central (yes if you run more than one hub it would cost more than Dongle + hub cause each hub has to have all that support hardware and firmware to handle the ethernet). One of the nice things about the Pixelnet setup is that the data is handled just like DMX in that you simply daisy chain it from hub to hub and leave all the brains in the string. The hub is just a splitter/power injector and cost very little and you need no network switches.
So it works like what we use now and you just hook it up like dmx. Think of the hubs as splitters and the smart strings as expresses and you can see it works exactly the same. No new technology to learn, You just have to learn to sequence a lot of channels.
I am sorry if this post seems hard but since this thread was started there has been many supporters of other hardware posting what has the appearance of in some cases trying to talk users away from using Smart Strings.
I have not and am unaware of any of my users posting on other forums trying to convince users to not use that hardware. If other hardware looks better to you or does what you want better then you should use it. It will not bother me or hurt my feelings, I have no monatary benifit from users using it or not it's simply a hobby to me.
RJ