Smart Strings Don't Dim Smoothly with new PixelNet Plugin

[cBell]

More curious if anyone else is seeing this or not.  I finally got around to assembling my 2nd Smart string hub tonight and figured I'd test it out.  While I was at it, I updated the firmware on the SSCs and used the new Smart String Utility to reprogram them.

When I first played a sequence that I was using to test before, it seemed rather "jumpy" to me.  The transitions weren't smooth at all.  I tired a few things, namely switching back to the first hub that I built and reprogramming the SSCs and still couldn't get nice smooth transitions (fading).  Just for fun I replaced the PixelNet.dll dated 7/10 with an old copy that I had dated 6/15.

This seemed to eliminate the jumpiness and made the transitions nice and smooth.  Was it a coincidence or is anyone else seeing this also?

In the attached sequence, pixels start at ch 517.

[cBell]

I just noticed that I had that sequence set to 25ms which is unnecessary.  I changed it to 50ms and it seems to do better with the 7/10 version of PixelNet.dll, but still doesn't seem quite as smooth as the previous version.

[rrowan]

Hi Cbell

I put two sets of lights next to each other. One ssc has the current firmware and the other had the previous. I created a seq that was just ramping and fading. I could not see any difference between the two strings

Rick R.

Please disregard my post. I missed the pixelnet plugin part

Rick R.

[Corey872]

Just out of curiosity, are you looking at the exact same length of dim?

The reason I ask - in my short time playing with these, dimming seems to have a very 'curious' behavior overall.  If you dim fairly fast, your eye seems to blend the ramp into a smooth dim.  If you dim very slow, there is plenty of time to ramp through all (or most) of the 255 levels and your eye can't really see the jump.  Both of these tend to look fairly smooth.  But if you dim somewhere in the middle, the controller has to make fairly big steps to do the dim in a short time, but the steps are fairly large, so your eye can pick them up - the result is a 'choppy' dim.

I haven't played around enough to know the limits of these - but I suspect it may be somewhat of an individual opinion.  I know some people who were perfectly fine looking at a 60Hz CRT all day long, but it would give me a headache and practically induce a seizure after a few minutes.

[cBell]

Just out of curiosity, are you looking at the exact same length of dim?

The reason I ask - in my short time playing with these, dimming seems to have a very 'curious' behavior overall.  If you dim fairly fast, your eye seems to blend the ramp into a smooth dim.  If you dim very slow, there is plenty of time to ramp through all (or most) of the 255 levels and your eye can't really see the jump.  Both of these tend to look fairly smooth.  But if you dim somewhere in the middle, the controller has to make fairly big steps to do the dim in a short time, but the steps are fairly large, so your eye can pick them up - the result is a 'choppy' dim.

I haven't played around enough to know the limits of these - but I suspect it may be somewhat of an individual opinion.  I know some people who were perfectly fine looking at a 60Hz CRT all day long, but it would give me a headache and practically induce a seizure after a few minutes.

I see what you are getting at and it makes sense, but in my case I am using the exact same sequence.  The only thing that I am changing that is causing a difference is the version of the PixelNet.dll that I am using.  Using the old version I see very smooth dimming and transitions, but using the new version they seem choppy.

I'm guessing since no one else has reported any issues like this, it must just be me and something I'm doing.  Can anyone think of anything to try, short of just going back to the old PixelNet.dll version that might help?

[RJ]

I checked for you and I can not see a difference to speak of but everyones seqences are different ect.

RJ

[cBell]

I checked for you and I can not see a difference to speak of but everyones seqences are different ect.

RJ

OK, thanks for checking it out RJ.  I will try some other things and see what I can come up with.