1034 Channels controlled by xLights!

[dowdybrown]

Well, after a storm on Christmas Eve blew lights off of the house, I was able to get things put back together on New Year's Eve long enough to film it.

Stats:
about 16,000 lights
1034 channels (including 270 nodes of RGB light strips)
5 LOR AC controllers (in DMX mode)
5 Lynx Express AC controllers (2 wireless)
4 Lynx DC controllers
3 TP3244 rgb light strip controllers
3 DMX universes (via Lynx dongles)
My yard and my neighbor's yard
Sequenced using LOR (I wrote several programs to manipulate the S2 XML file outside of S2)
Playback using xLights

Videos are here:
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My only regret is they don't really show what is going on in the neighbor's yard.

Enjoy! May 2011 be bigger and brighter! And thank you RJ for making it affordable to put the display of our dreams together!!!

Matt

PS. I'm hosting these videos on my own web site, so it's possible the site could go down if I exceed the bandwidth limit set by my hosting provider, but hopefully not.

[RJ]

No thank you for putting on such an amazing display!

RJ

[rrowan]

Hi Matt

Awesome job, being a train guy I love your train running around your tree.

Cheers

Rick R.

[Jeffl]

Great job.  It's good to see that xLights seams to have a good solid start.  By the way.  How did you set the player for your videos.  I would like to host my own videos.

[dowdybrown]

By the way.  How did you set the player for your videos.  I would like to host my own videos.

Here's the process I used (probably more than you wanted know)

1) Kodak Zi8 camera with audio fed directly from show computer (very long audio cable)
2) Used Any Video Converter free version (AVC) to convert MOV files to WMV
3) Create final videos using Windows MovieMaker
4) Publish final videos to WMV (640x480)
5) Use AVC to convert final WMV to FLV (640x480)
6) Move FLV files to local version of web site on my computer (under wwwroot)
7) In php file (could use the same process for html file), insert Flowplayer code (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login).

  7a) At top of the file (in head section):

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<script type="text/javascript" src="flowplayer-3.2.4.min.js"></script>
<style type="text/css">
.flowplayer {
  display:block;
  width:640px;
  height:480px;
}
</style>

  7b) For each video (in html body) - this example assumes videos are in a subdirectory called "2010":

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<p><strong>The Christmas Story - Bluefish TV</strong><a href="2010/ChristmasStory.flv" class="flowplayer"></a></p>

  7c) At the bottom of the file just before </body>:

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<script type='text/javascript'>
  $f("a.flowplayer", "flowplayer-3.2.5.swf", { clip: { autoPlay: false, autoBuffering: true } });
</script>

8. Make sure everything works ok on your computer

9. Upload files to hosted web site using Filezilla (or any ftp client of your choosing)

[gjbankos]

You recorded that with a $100 pocket camera?

[dowdybrown]

You recorded that with a $100 pocket camera?

Well I bought it last Christmas when it was $150, but yes. Recorded at 720p.

[Jeffl]

Thanks for the rundown.  I'm going to save your how to and give it a try.

I shot with a Kodak Zi8 last year and it works well as long as your display is not very wide.  My display was very wide this year so I tried a wide angle lens for it but it didn't work.  I had to fall back to my older Canon.

[galgon]

Matt,

    Looks like we crashed your site.  I get a bandwidth exceeded notice. 

    On a different note how do you get your train to move on the track? 

[rrowan]

Matt,

    Looks like we crashed your site.  I get a bandwidth exceeded notice. 

    On a different note how do you get your train to move on the track? 

I grabbed his powerpoint earlier about the train

Cheers

Rick R.

[taybrynn]

Super impressive display and achievement in writing your own control software (xlights).  So through the 3 DMX dongles, you connected to the TM3244 pixel controllers.  I'd be curious how your LOR sequence looked, if you able to send me a sample sometime.  I sure hope you are able to add Pixelnet and perhaps E1.31 support in 2011 !!

[dowdybrown]

Super impressive display and achievement in writing your own control software (xlights).  So through the 3 DMX dongles, you connected to the TM3244 pixel controllers.  I'd be curious how your LOR sequence looked, if you able to send me a sample sometime.  I sure hope you are able to add Pixelnet and perhaps E1.31 support in 2011 !!

Thanks! I've attached the S2 file for Christmas Eve Sarajevo. No media file is included. The media file I used is a slightly modified video ripped from the TSO DVD, so I doubt it will sync too well with the standard mp3 - but it should give you an idea how things were set up.

I've been busy building out attic storage to finally put away last year's display. But I will get back to xLights soon!

Matt

[taybrynn]

Thanks so much.  Wow, thats a lot of channels !!

I noticed you used multiple networks.  I wondering how those relate to xlights and various protocols used, etc.

Do the networks need to map to connections (like LOR interface, DMX dongle#1, DMX #2, etc.) or not?

Also, does the order in which you put the channel matter to xlights?

No rush on these questions, but eventually I'd like to figure out more.

Thanks a lot ... I sure look forward to using xlights in 2011.

Scott

[dowdybrown]

I noticed you used multiple networks.  I wondering how those relate to xlights and various protocols used, etc.

Do the networks need to map to connections (like LOR interface, DMX dongle#1, DMX #2, etc.) or not?

Yes, in xMenu you define each network: the network type (LOR, D-Light, DMX, or Renard), the port it is on, and the last channel used.

Also, does the order in which you put the channel matter to xlights?

In an LOR sequence, no it doesn't - the network, controller #, and circuit # are used to determine the channel mapping. In Vixen, yes it does.

The next version of xLights will have a information function the shows channel mapping given your network setup and the channels defined in your sequence.

Matt

[taybrynn]

Thanks.

The channel mapping sounds very useful.