[In 11.5.0] DMX Send coming in SCS 11.5!

[Mike Daniell]

SCS Cue Control via DMX has been available to SCS Professional Plus users for some time, and as from SCS 11.5 Control Send Cues will be able to send DMX to control lights or anything else that uses DMX. You will need a Professional Plus or higher license to use this feature.

Here's how a DMX Control Send cue could be set up:

SCS11CtrlSendDMX.png (17.34 KiB) Viewed 5771 times

I'm interested in having users with suitable equipment test this new feature. If you can help and have a current Professional Plus or higher license, let me know.

There will be some other new features in 11.5, although these are still in development. These include OSC control of SCS, and support for remote app's that are currently under independent development by a couple of SCS users.

[Buyaicia]

Oh!! It looks very interesting!!
I have not USB to DMX device but I will buy one.
Which one are you using to develop and test?

Lluís

[Mike Daniell]

SCS 11.5 will support the ENTTEC 'DMX USB PRO' and 'DMX USB PRO Mk2'. I recommend the Mk2. I do not recommend the cheaper 'OPEN DMX USB' interface as I've found fades are unreliable using this device. If I can't sort that out I'll restrict support to the PRO and PRO Mk2. I've been using all 3 devices in my tests. See the ENTTEC website for more info.

I should also give credit to Lloyd Grounds who assisted in early testing and who has already used this in production! Thanks, Lloyd.

[BCGTech]

Hi Mike,

Suggestion: Allow values to be entered as percent (0-100) as well as raw DMX values (0-255). Maybe add a check box to select % when checked.

Also, I have an ENTTEC DMX Pro plus can use LIghtFactory to see the results of sending DMX from SCS, so if you need some testing I'm signing up.

Finally, have you considered supporting any other protocols, like Artnet?

Bruce

[djvomght]

Hallo Mike,

this looks looks the almost perfect solution for our small mobile productions. I just ordered a DMX interface and would like to test it.

Regards Jörg

[Buyaicia]

Hi Mike
Enttec will sell a lot of devices
You can call him and claim a share of profit

Regards,
Lluís

[GrandPaClanger]

Hi Mike

We Would be interested in testing this for you. I have the Pro licence and a PRO Mk2. Plan is for the lighting desk to control the video. This would allow us to control a shutter on the projector to give a true blackout. It sounds like just the job.

Ian
Christchurch Theatre Club

[enigmatheatre]

Hi Mike,

OSC control sounds great. We could use our Lighting Desk to control SCS over a network instead of with DMX like we do at the moment. We also would like to see the DMX out working to control some small LED lights we have.

Keep up the great work.

Greig.

[Mike Daniell]

OSC control sounds great. We could use our Lighting Desk to control SCS over a network instead of with DMX like we do at the moment.

What lighting desk are you using? Can you set up any OSC commands or does the lighting desk just have pre-set OSC commands?

[enigmatheatre]

Mike,

It looks like any command can be sent. We are looking at getting a Gio from the ETC Eos family. One of the other venues we know have one and it is the most toured desk to our theatre. I may be able to test it for you on the offline editor if it opens the network connection but I am not sure and would need to check this or I could borrow the desk form the other venue.
There is a full list of commands Here: http://www.etcconnect.com/workarea/Down ... 0737461372

Thanks,

Greig.

[dee99]

I have quite a bit of lighting kit, let me know what you need to test.

Dee

Tokkan-fx.co.uk

[Mike Daniell]

Thanks to all who have offered to help with testing and evaluation. Keep those offers coming in!

I expect to have a new build ready early this week which will include:

• Some minor changes and fixes to the DMX Send processing. Special thanks to BCGTech for providing a useful white paper on lighting and DMX.
• OSC control of SCS. The initial set of OSC commands recognized by SCS is as shown in the document SCS OSC.pdf. This document shows OSC commands in the conventional manner, but note that OSC is not a simple ASCII text structure but includes 32-bit integer and floating point values, and has strict formatting standards.

Note that an SCS Professional Plus license is required to use DMX or OSC.

Although SCS 11.5 will support DMX Send, I want to point out that SCS is not intended to be a lighting design product. This would require complex graphical modeling and displays showing fixture locations, display patterns and relative intensities. So the primary goal is to provide a feature for users who just need a simple and automated way to control their lights or other DMX-controlled equipment.

[simonegiusti]

What about this cheap interface DMX-USB???

http://www.thomann.de/it/dmxsoft_sushi_ ... x_372289_7

[BritGeek]

This looks interesting... I already have a DMX-controlled relay that I use to control a projector shutter, now I'll be able to use SCS to control the shutter for its own projector instead of having to get the lighting guy to add shutter cues to the lighting board.

[Nino]

Hi Mike,

I'd be interested in testing this. We have a small touring show and I have been searching for a more 'compact' way of handling DMX lighting equipment.

Nigel