I didn’t know ACN could do that!
Conference session with: Alan Martello, Daniel W. Antonuk, Kevin Loewen, Ulrich Kunkel, Gary Douglass
Recent History
AMX in the late 70’s 192 channels
DMX 1986, 1990, 1996, 2004
RDM-Takes DMX and makes it bi-directional communication.
Why Go further? Why go to Ethernet distribution when we have DMX and RDM?
Network infrastructure exists and is easy to use.
Equipment is cheap and easily available.
DMX gear is expensive and difficult to get (impossible on a Saturday night at 7pm).
Art-Net, gave us a network system but it is too proprietary, didn’t scale well, doesn’t play well with others
Solution: ACN
Goals:
-Works on existing networks
-Scalable
-Plug and Play
ANSI Standard E1.17 (ACN)
It was optimized for single sources communicating with many devices. It’s a good network citizen. It’s based on a property/value model… Each device has multiple properties and each property has a value
Full ACN had problems Problems
Complicated compared to DMX
Requires too much processing power
Requires too much memory
So they created a stripped down version called Streaming ACN ANSI Standard E1.31
BUT streaming ACN was one directional which fails to meet a huge part of the ACN goals. It was a step back from RDM. So now we have E1.33 Which is Streaming ACN plus RDM.
The Current Status
The new ETC consoles all use FULL ACN for configuration, management, and status purposes.
ETC, Pathport, Strand, Barco/HES use Streaming ACN for actual control purposes.
No one is yet using the RDM over ACN standard because it is not complete yet.
Why isn’t there more E1.17 Equipment?
ACN consoles and devices are more difficult to make. More difficult means higher cost and more time to develop. Chicken and Egg problem with the consoles and devices… both types of manufacturers don’t feel the need to spend the money until there is a need from the other. In the end the biggest problem is that it’s new and users aren’t demanding it yet.
The Adoption rate of E1.31 Streaming ACN is quite high.
It’s just DMX over Ethernet so it’s easy for manufacturers to adopt. It’s cheaper to adopt, It’s easy for users to put into effect with their old system. The adoption rate of E1.33 (RDM over ACN) will probably be fast once it is fully completed. The adoption rate of Full ACN will probably continue to be slow.
What followed was a fascinating description of how ACN was used to operate a very complex exhibit in the German pavilion for EXPO 2010 in Shanghai. This was a project that simply would be impossible with DMX. There is a 9 meter diameter, 1.3 ton sphere with over 300,000 LED’s on it giving near HD quality. The video is run via ACN. The motion control system that flies the ball, controlled by ACN. Moving lights talk to the sphere control via ACN so that they know where the sphere is (so they can move around the room without hitting the giant sphere). Latency problems and different speeds of moving lights create problems for the lights to track so the sphere control projects 2 seconds ahead of where the sphere will be. Audio can be triggered by the position of the sphere AND the media servers can be can be triggered by audio system input (Control can be either way). The audio system had a set of microphones located around the room that can track the loudest sound in the room and tell the motion control system to move the sphere to that sound. There are skateboarders moving around the room with 36 moving lights tracking them automatically… all communicate together with ACN.
There is amazing video of this system in use on Youtube. I’ll post a link later.
Conference session with: Alan Martello, Daniel W. Antonuk, Kevin Loewen, Ulrich Kunkel, Gary Douglass
Recent History
AMX in the late 70’s 192 channels
DMX 1986, 1990, 1996, 2004
RDM-Takes DMX and makes it bi-directional communication.
Why Go further? Why go to Ethernet distribution when we have DMX and RDM?
Network infrastructure exists and is easy to use.
Equipment is cheap and easily available.
DMX gear is expensive and difficult to get (impossible on a Saturday night at 7pm).
Art-Net, gave us a network system but it is too proprietary, didn’t scale well, doesn’t play well with others
Solution: ACN
Goals:
-Works on existing networks
-Scalable
-Plug and Play
ANSI Standard E1.17 (ACN)
It was optimized for single sources communicating with many devices. It’s a good network citizen. It’s based on a property/value model… Each device has multiple properties and each property has a value
Full ACN had problems Problems
Complicated compared to DMX
Requires too much processing power
Requires too much memory
So they created a stripped down version called Streaming ACN ANSI Standard E1.31
BUT streaming ACN was one directional which fails to meet a huge part of the ACN goals. It was a step back from RDM. So now we have E1.33 Which is Streaming ACN plus RDM.
The Current Status
The new ETC consoles all use FULL ACN for configuration, management, and status purposes.
ETC, Pathport, Strand, Barco/HES use Streaming ACN for actual control purposes.
No one is yet using the RDM over ACN standard because it is not complete yet.
Why isn’t there more E1.17 Equipment?
ACN consoles and devices are more difficult to make. More difficult means higher cost and more time to develop. Chicken and Egg problem with the consoles and devices… both types of manufacturers don’t feel the need to spend the money until there is a need from the other. In the end the biggest problem is that it’s new and users aren’t demanding it yet.
The Adoption rate of E1.31 Streaming ACN is quite high.
It’s just DMX over Ethernet so it’s easy for manufacturers to adopt. It’s cheaper to adopt, It’s easy for users to put into effect with their old system. The adoption rate of E1.33 (RDM over ACN) will probably be fast once it is fully completed. The adoption rate of Full ACN will probably continue to be slow.
What followed was a fascinating description of how ACN was used to operate a very complex exhibit in the German pavilion for EXPO 2010 in Shanghai. This was a project that simply would be impossible with DMX. There is a 9 meter diameter, 1.3 ton sphere with over 300,000 LED’s on it giving near HD quality. The video is run via ACN. The motion control system that flies the ball, controlled by ACN. Moving lights talk to the sphere control via ACN so that they know where the sphere is (so they can move around the room without hitting the giant sphere). Latency problems and different speeds of moving lights create problems for the lights to track so the sphere control projects 2 seconds ahead of where the sphere will be. Audio can be triggered by the position of the sphere AND the media servers can be can be triggered by audio system input (Control can be either way). The audio system had a set of microphones located around the room that can track the loudest sound in the room and tell the motion control system to move the sphere to that sound. There are skateboarders moving around the room with 36 moving lights tracking them automatically… all communicate together with ACN.
There is amazing video of this system in use on Youtube. I’ll post a link later.