DMX Lighting Question

[DJMartin]

JAylmer, you mean that within the OTS chunk a DMX stream from freestyler will be recorded and then played back. That would require a DMX in and out capable interface.
I cannot imagine that OTS is going to build in it's own DMX control at all. Might be nice to have, but the effort to keep up to date with the fixture library is tremendous. But I could imagine to store some MIDI controls in he OTS chunk to trigger actions in any light software or light consoles. There they have to be mapped then to scene or switch or cue of your choice.
If it is required to have some songs programmed with its unique light show, then I would turn the wheels around. DMX software products these days are able to play music and videos and steer the lights how you programmed them for that song, down to each second.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

I agree with DJMartin on the DMX chunk. I really don't think Ots will do one. However, I don't agree that Lighting control and Ots shouldn't be on the same system. Again, I ran Light jockey and Ots side by side oon the same machine for 4-5 years. Never an issue. The secret is to know your machine, and it's interface. If it can't handle it, it's one thing, but if it's got excess grunt, there is absolutely no reason why the machnie can't. If you can't handle it, then that's not the machines fault. These machines are built for multitasking. Use some of that spare processing power for something!

[JAylmer]

DJMartin: If the DMX chunk was imported into an OTS file from Freestyler then OTS does not require any DMX i/o
OTS would not have to do anything DMX or have any knowledge of DMX.  The OTS file merely passes the chunk to a Freestyler player as a Freestyler sequence file.
So Freestyler would need to be installed and the hardware dongle and lights setup and mapped but it handles everything to do with DMX, not OTS.

The process might be:
Install Freestyler on the same machine as OTS.
Setup and map all the lighting hardware in Freestyler.
Create a Freestyler sequence file with timings to match the tune.
In OTS Studio, create an OTS file with audio, video etc and then import the Freestyler sequence file as a DMX chunk.
When OTS AVDJ plays the OTS file it passes the DMX chunk to Freestyler as a Freestyler sequence file (via some magic).

OTS need to release the death grip on the reins just a little.  This would add value to the OTS product equating to more sales without costing a lot of money.
Perhaps Freestyler is not the most suitable DMX solution (I don't know the market) but I use it as an example as I believe it is open source.

If a suitable DMX product was available it would not be difficult for OTS to "integrate" into it.
Esperance has greatly improved many things for the DJ experience,  but has not at all changed the user experience.
I want changes that improve the user experience.

[JAylmer]

Another example is a home grown auxiliary DMX program where I use OTS AVDJ playlist items to control DMX.
With my system a playlist item is used to send DMX commands.  See attachment for list of commands.

Disadvantages of this simple approach:
1/ I have to almost "hard code" the light hardware information to suit what I own, no flexibility.
2/ I can only make changes between songs, and have to have beat mixing disabled.

I have written an axillary DMX program that analysis http info from OTS AVDJ RAC server.  
When it sees a DMX playlist item it adjusts the "DMX Array" and sends it to the DMX dongle.

The steps are:
Create an OTS file a couple of seconds long with a 20KHz tone.  Add title information "DMX R255"
Drag that item into the playlist
When OTS AVDJ plays that file the auxiliary DMX program sees it as the currently playing item and makes all the lights Red.

Can also switch lights on/off that are set to be sound triggered etc.

Don't try this at home it won't work without the auxiliary program.

The point of this is that OTS AVDJ playlist items control lighting via DMX, but OTS knows nothing about DMX, what DMX lighting you have, what DMX dongle you have.
It just gives commands to a DMX program.

What OTS should NOT do:
1/ Try to do DMX all themselves and keep it current

What OTS should do:
1/ Use someone elses DMX program and tap into it.  Win for OTS, win for DMX program supplier, win for us.

[DJMartin]

Jeff, I did say that computers are able to handle it without any problem, I just wouldn't do it. You can call it personal taste, separation of duties or a little of both  In our case, we always have a second notebook with OTS(backup) on the scene, the OTS files, media library and playlists are on a Network Attached Storage NAS with 4 disk running Raid5 and all hooked up to GB Ethernet. So both units can access the same data base. In addition, the OTS backup has the entire OTS files on an USB disk. This setup allow to use the spare OTS machine as the light control unit. My main income comes from my technical work in the mid- to large scale computing area and there it's common to separate duties 

JAylmer, freestyler is free, but a quick lookup on their website do not show any license information. OpenSource software usually run unter GPL and source code must be available. here you can download only the setup.exe file (I just spend 20 seconds on their website, maybe there is more information than I gathered in that time). So if OTS would implement freestyler chunks into Studio, that would address some people, but keep away the folks using other programs or real hardware consoles. If they want to trigger DMX without going into the DMX internals, then the best solution would be to implement MIDI control, as mentioned by Jeff on August 15th. in this thread. This would require a MIDI out adapter (either a soundcard can do it or a USB interface) and then it will fire off Midi notes and values and the lighting control soft/hardware will then trigger some action based on that.

In any cases, lighting these days need programming. If you have your DJ booth setup incl. lightnings hooked up exactly the same way for any gig, then programming will be less. In our case this might vary a lot. If there is no space for a truss, then the movings stay on tipped flightcases and need reprogramming....

[jabo]

Jeff, not sure why you are hung up on this one so hard.  My business has three divisions, lighting, DJ, and Photobooth.  There is no question that running lighting on two separate computers is a better idea if for no other reason than you have redundancy.  You can run them on one computer, but two is better.  Perhaps it is the type of lighting that we do when compared to one another that makes us see this answer differently, I do some pretty big lighting jobs and I need two screens just to run my lighting program which sometimes runs into a multiple universe situation, but even on smaller jobs, two screens for the lighting computer is very helpful.  Here is a pic of my second screen for ShowXpress. 

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/s720x720/386509_2624986626719_1182409871_n.jpg

[Jumpin' Jeff]

Jamie, My main rig is a rackmount quad core system very capable of the task at hand. It runs video, lighting, audio, the entire show. My backup is an old 2.4ghz laptop with a slow front side bus that can only really handle the audio portion of the show. 

If my primary machine goes down, I might lose some lighting capabilities and the video, but I still have music. If you have 2 systems capable of handling both then great. but if one system goes down, you'll likely do everything on the other system at that point anyhow, and thus we're right back to why not do it from the beginning?

[jabo]

Because where I wind up in a pinch is not where I want to start from in an ideal situation. Other reasons as listed above.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

Well in the end, it's what works best for you. No wrong way really.

[JAylmer]

Hi DJMartin, Thanks for you response it has been informative.  I guess I was using Freestyler as an example.  What I was thinking was a business partner alliance between OTS and organisation x who produces DMX software.
Yes you are right it does lock OTS users into a specific DMX solution as it would if OTS did their own DMX thing.

I think Jeff's suggestion was just to send a midi note in time with the beat to get stable beat information to the lights which would be more manageable than mics built into light fixtures, and I am not dismissing that suggestion.   You may be taking the concept a bit further by hinting at possible mapping between the midi notes and DMX functionality which is also valid.

I take your point that if you are standalone then it is a very different solution than if you are integrating into a venue's lighting booth.

As far as the programming requirement for DMX then the DMX chunk embedded in an OTS file would do this.  After all it is just importing a DMX sequence file that suits a particular DMX providers program.  If OTS spoke with several major DMX program providers perhaps the end result could be that we have a choice of DMX packages that we could use.

A point that you make that I had not considered is that different venues -may- need different DMX sequences.  If the DMX sequences are embed into OTS files then it would be a big deal creating new sequences for each tune and then importing them into each of the OTS files, and then how do you handle requests?  But by using a lighting console perhaps the settings aren't specific to each tune, so the effort to reprogram to get a result is less, right?  I have little experience with lighting consoles.  If midi information was being sent to the venues controller it to would also need to be adjusted by venue.

The problem OTS must have with DMX is where to start with this.  There is no magic bulllet but DMX chunk that can import sequence files from a number of providers would be a good start, making many DJ's happy and not such a bit effort required by OTS.  I can also see that Jeff's suggestion solves a lot of problems but has limitations. What thoughts?

[DJMartin]

Hi JAylmer, in my point of view implementing midi controls would be a fast win for OTS. First of all, MIDI is vendor independent and standardized and second it would offer a great flexibility. Even top league controllers like GrandMA, Avolites do support MIDI control.

So what could be done in OTS Studio is implement a chunk to set some light trigger points on a songs timeline, then you can assing MIDI notes to these triggers. In the light controlling device you map the MIDI notes to actions. That can be simple color change, gobo change, strobe, your fantasy is open. So if your venue differs, then you have to adjust that in the light controller (e.g. start and end point of a moving head pan/tilt move).
To achieve sound to light actions, I would either stick with a good mic on your light controller (DMX desk) or a direct audio link from your mixer to the light desk. Consoles these days are pretty good in analyzing the sound stream and find the correct beat for triggering a chase. While sound to light is pretty common in traditional lights in chases or the old 'light organ effect, it is used only partwise on intelligent lights. There it is more about to trigger 'moves' of these lights with individiual gobo, color, prism.

Generally you can have two kind of light shows. One where almost all lights blink somehow to the music, the other is a well thought show - a designed show which needs very individual programming to the venue, stage, dancefloor. See an example at http://www.nicolaudie.com/nicolaudietv/, select channel 3 - 3D Simulations, Creed Higher.

[Mike Sinclair]

Well, I took the plunge. I decided to give ADJ MyDMX a whirl. It's "en route" as we speak. Jeff, I plan to run it on the same machine as Ots. When you did this with Light Jockey, did you just "alt-tab" a lot to toggle between programs?

[Jumpin' Jeff]

No, I used a mouse to transfer music to the playlist in the old Ots so it was quite natural to control the Light jockey panel I had created with it as well. I forget the app name I used for the panel, but it was a Light jockey add-on for doing such. It was just a buutton interface panel I configured to use some space on the right hand side of my display to run cues with.

[Mike Sinclair]

Hmmm... I'm using a 13" laptop, so not a lot of real estate. I guess I'll try the alt-tab method and see how it goes...

[Jumpin' Jeff]

perhaps you can control in via an external device, like an xkeys USB keypad, and assign each button a lighting cue....