Lone Star Holidays - Academy 2011 - Anyone going?

[Dennis Cherry]

RJ you forgot you demoed the Aether II  unit also.

That is a biggy also.

1 RGB LED out performs everything now available for our users. What a unit.

[Ron]

Oh yea, all that stuff RJ and Dennis added. There was soooo much it was hard to process it all.

RJ thanks again for taking the time to come out and share with us. It was great to finally meet you and JJ.

Ron

[bwhite505]

Iphone app....

[rrowan]

Shouldn't this info be reposted in the announcements section? So everyone will see it

Rick R.

[hbomb341]

Shouldn't this info be reposted in the announcements section? So everyone will see it

Rick R.

I am sure when some one (cough cough RJ) does a more detailed post and info ... that is where it will be.  I think we all will admit and RJ is the same - want to pull together all the info in one spot and post it to make it easy for people to find and not have to search and look in 10 spot to get 90% of the questions answered.  I know RJ had a LONG travel week and most of us did (Personally didn't pull into my drive way till 12:07am this morning - and from the time I left the office Friday to NOW is the first time I have been on the computer).  Also remember this even goes from 8AM till 8PM (in 6 rooms - 4 classes at a time over 2 days) then dinners and people wanting to just chat.  Doesn't leave an hour for someone to sit down and punch out stuff on the computer - you will miss something.  Think about someone live blogging a baseball game AND soccer game at the same time - not going to work.  LSH and RJ both does this all volentier and on their own time ... so left people do it at their own speed.  I am sure RJ like to sit down with his family, watch a TV show or two, do his real job, ... do nothing for an hour .... so thing will come when they come.  No one is going to DIE because it takes a few days for this info to get write up and posted and for Free info people get REALLY demanding.

Harrison

Harrison

[rrowan]

Shouldn't this info be reposted in the announcements section? So everyone will see it

Rick R.

I am sure when some one (cough cough RJ) does a more detailed post and info ... that is where it will be.  I think we all will admit and RJ is the same - want to pull together all the info in one spot and post it to make it easy for people to find and not have to search and look in 10 spot to get 90% of the questions answered.  I know RJ had a LONG travel week and most of us did (Personally didn't pull into my drive way till 12:07am this morning - and from the time I left the office Friday to NOW is the first time I have been on the computer).  Also remember this even goes from 8AM till 8PM (in 6 rooms - 4 classes at a time over 2 days) then dinners and people wanting to just chat.  Doesn't leave an hour for someone to sit down and punch out stuff on the computer - you will miss something.  Think about someone live blogging a baseball game AND soccer game at the same time - not going to work.  LSH and RJ both does this all volentier and on their own time ... so left people do it at their own speed.  I am sure RJ like to sit down with his family, watch a TV show or two, do his real job, ... do nothing for an hour .... so thing will come when they come.  No one is going to DIE because it takes a few days for this info to get write up and posted and for Free info people get REALLY demanding.

Harrison

Harrison

Huh? Aren't you taking my post to the extremes?

Chill out bro

Rick R.

[JerryPlak]

   2012 is truly be a fum Year!   

[RJ]

Harrison is like me, his style of writing can be read more aggressive then he intends it to.  If or when you meet him you find that his personality is very different than what some people read it as. I am as bad and I wish it was not true.

A bunch of us were even kidding him about it saturday night.

He is correct in that there just was no time to try and do the stuff and post the stuff. JJ & I have been busy and moving, with the exception of the 6 hours of sleep each night, non stop. I just got out of bed as we got in close to 1 am this morning. It really excited a lot of the people there, and I had a hard time making classes because people just could not get enough of talking about how this changes everything and how it plays into their shows and just can not wait for it to be ready. It was also exciting for dad and I to just get to see the excitment in it all. We had just the greatest time you could imagine. We were not only asked to come back next year they even offered to have us merge our DIY Expo into their event to have it as one big one there in Texas. I think it is something we should talk about at the DIY Expo next year. 

Those that were there can tell you, at 6:30 they came in and annouced the breakouts sessions for LOR, ect were starting and the people  were so interested in the new stuff no one moved. It was like they were glued to their seats. I thought there would be some people interested but it was far beyond what I expected.

You are correct Rick while we have been posting in here for those asking in this thread what was going on, I will have to write a dedicated post for all of the information. I have not seen it, but I believe the camera did not get a lot of the really important stuff so it will not get the job done.

We will see.

RJ

[deweycooter]

I wish I had known you were going to be there!  I was on vacation leading up to last weekend and had a prior volunteer commitment on Sunday, but I might have been able to make a stronger plea to the wife to let me out yet again.    

I will say, though, it's been fun watching your products and the DIY mindset do an about face in the past couple years.  The last time I went to the academy was in 2009, and Ron did a class on DIY and demonstrated the LE - only a half dozen or so attended.  I couldn't believe it.  A mere 24 months later - you have everyone's attention!!

[cvyvial]

I wanted to thank RJ and JJ for traveling all the way to Texas to be part of the Academy. I can attest that the days were full. I only got a few hours of sleep Friday and Saturday night. The doors opened at 8:00 am both days and I know of people that said at midnight they were still talking Christmas. That is a full day! I really enjoyed RJ's discussion Saturday night. Even though I have struggled with all the terminology and how this stuff works together it was eyeopening to see what can be done. I think I will need to get in on the next order!

[Gary]

xLights have partnered with me to provide the software utility to allow those using Lsp,Lor or Vixen to seqence to load the seqence to the conductor/slave units.

LSP has agreed to partner with us to provide seamless support for Conductor/Slave setup.

One of the major lighting vendors many of us use in the community has agreed to partner with me to have smart strings manufactored with the SSC built into the strings as one of the famous green blobs that we are use to seeing on the normal led strings. They are here in the states and will have them stocked. This will save in shipping and give us someone local to deal with and quality control being greatly improved. I believe this is all great news.

This all does sound fascinating. Specifically, does this mean that it would be possible to use LOR's Showtime software to do sequencing for Smart Strings? Would the conductor be a requirement for this? I'm using Vixen at this point for my 100 or so Express channels along with 5 Aethers, and don't think Vixen (the current version at least) will allow me to easily seqence a show consisting of several thousand individually addressed Smart String Pixels for "my fans" during the month of December. LightShow Pro sounds pretty good, but the requirement for a very fast PC along with reported bugginess seems to be a bit of a deterrent for me. Looking at the cool stuff that Superstar lights can do (which is now Integrated into LOR Showtime) with LOR's Cosmic Color Ribbons, it would be awesome if you can do it with RJ's Flexiable strips (or other RGB LEDs, or that matter). Lightshow Pro's ability to map video on RGB pixels seems pretty interesting, but it's hard to get long sequences of video to be in beat with the music. I'm not interested in having people to park in front of my home just to watch TV in low-definition. 

Personally though, RJ (if you're keeping track) I don't find much of a need of a standalone sequence player since I have a laptop set aside for only blinky flashy anyway.

But the idea of Smart Strings (and flexible strips?) with controllers built-in, at improved quality levels, and not paying for ridiculous shipping costs from China is something that I love.

P.S. Does LOR's ShowTime software currently support (natively, without add-ons) Express controllers, Aethers, and your Dongle? I suppose it does since it works with DMX?

[RJ]

Wow this is a lot to try to answer in one post but I will do the best I can to answer the questions.

1 - There should be two ways to handle this. using Xlights or just using the Lor s3 that has support for E1.31 protocol. This is the protocol that the etherdongle uses itself. So the answer is yes.

2 - No the conductor would not need to be used. There are three ways to use the system only one does not use the computer.

3 - You may not want a standalone but many many people do and this plays into a limitation as we grow channels as the computer gets bogged down. The conductor removes this while providing hardware reliability to the scheduling instead of a computer and the issues that sometimes come with them doing it. Just do not use one that is the beuty of it. The system allows many ways to operate to work for you insteads of you having to work the way it does.

4 - Yes have a second way of getting the lights does provide a help. although users will still be able to order their own as we do now and build their SSC's themself this will not be going away it is just another options for those that would prefer to have it more confortable to them.

5 -The current version of LOR can not run my dongle you need there Idmx to get DMX from it. But I need to add the new version of LOR will run the EtherDongle directly based on the information they have already published of ther support for E1.31 protocol So it can be plugged directly in and used.  They also say they are coming out with a cheap DMX dongle to use with their software.

Gary thats the best I can do in short order but I will be posting more info in the coming day or so.

RJ

[Unibits]

I was there too. RJ's little and I use little totally in the wrong text here was like watching the pied piper.  Everyone followed with drool dripping from their lips.  An excellent display of what can happen when someone develops a product that simply fills a need. 

Much respect RJ.

[therealbigjim]

Thank you for the update. Makes me look forward to the Expo next spring even more.