Light Show Pro vs Vixen?

[rnult13]

Light Show Pro vs Vixen?

Which is the program to use? Easier to learn?

I understand that Vixen is free, but will it be upgraded in the future to meet the changing demands of light displays?

LSP does cost $$. The Basic Version is $99 for 512 Channels. I know that with LSP, you basically pay for channels. How does that work when you use RGB lights?

Light Show Pro vs Vixen?
Pros, Cons, what do people use?

Thanks,
Rick

[caretaker]

Let me start off by saying that I have LSP 2.0 Advanced, LOR S3 Advanced, Aurora 1.8 and Vixen 2.1 and 2.5.  With that said it all depends on what set up you have and how advanced a show you are doing. I started out my first show in 2006 using LOR 1.5 controlling 96 channels of D-Light ACx8 controllers.  This year I am doing a 3600 channel Smart String Pixel Mega Tree (SSPMT?) and changing some of my existing sequences I have had from years past would have been a nightmare for me without LSP.  Is LSP easy to learn? No, it has a kinda steep learning curve but once you get the hang of it it is real easy to use. Is LSP 2.0 bug free? No, there is still problems with copy and paste and large channel counts but I can deal with that for now. Vixen is a less sophisticated sequencing software (not less powerful but not some of the same features as LSP) but it is a pretty rock solid piece of software and is a little like a swiss army knife with the input and output plug-ins available. So if I met someone who was going to do there first show with 2 Lynx Expresses I would tell them to download Vixen and go to town learning the art of sequencing (well I think of it as an art) but, if there were going to use several thousand channels of SS pixels I would say spend the $ and go with LSP. Let's face it right now we are still waiting for the software to catch up with the hardware due to large channel counts of RGB.

[animal]

Nicely put caretaker,

I started out with vixen my first 2 years then I got in doing a video mega wreath. Well vixen wasn't able to do that. I then went to LSP 1.7, and stayed with it all the way to present. Next year I jump into the smart string change over, with a 6000 channel mega tree for the first change. I'm am sure glad I'll have LSP. Now I've never tried any other software, but I saw the potential of LSP and what it was capable of. Plus the support has been fantastic. It is a learning curve, and I would take caretakers advice. Vixen is a great product and there has been an upgrade 3.0. I can only atest to my own experiences.
                     just my 2 cents

animal

[jnealand]

I concur with caretakers assessment and I too own most of the software packages.  I have used Vixen the last two years and my plan was to convert to LSP this year.  I think I am finally over most of the learning curve but I was having lots of trouble converting last years sequences to LSP so I went back to vixen, but I am using my smart strings as strings (hybrid mode) in order to let me convert the quickly.  Converted 5 old vixen sequences from 2010 to 2011 configuration today in a little over a half day.

[dmoore]

We've clearly reached a point where hardware is much more "powerful" than the software needed to run it.  I sure wish the prancer guy would come back or others would start a strong move toward a true object oriented sequencing environment.