Remote control via web page

[0d085d]

At my school we (as students) generally manage the whole technical side of things ourselves. We design and plot the lights and then operate the desk during the performance. Although I couldn't be happier about this it does pose a slight time problem. The drama department keeps the keys for the box (understandably) so the only times we can get at the desk are in the lunch break around other commitments. Naturally this makes plotting the lights a long and slow process which I thought could be greatly improved by some sort of remote control.

My half-formed plan is to have a laptop living in the lighting box which could control the desk. It's a Strand 300 console so there's no hope of screen sharing it directly or anything. I don't know if any of you have seen it, but REALbasic just came out with a new web app development thing which I was thinking of using to send keystrokes from a web browser at home to the laptop in the lighting desk and then to the lighting desk itself. Somehow the desk's VGA monitors would be hijacked and sent back to the remote controller.

It's obvious which bits are the tricky bits:

1. Sending keystrokes to the desk
2. Returning the VGA out

The latter is a little off topic for this forum, but ideas welcome there. For the former I was thinking of a microprocessor that could send signals down the cat cable to the console and pretend to be the control board. Evidently that's getting complicated and I have no idea where to start. Failing everything I'd just make a system of servos to physically press the buttons on the control board.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

[Grog12]

Before getting to complicated you might look at an Offline Editor or OLE. You'd be able to program your shows dark and then transfer it to the console. Takea look at this thread, this thread and click on OLE for more information.

 

[michaelburgoyne]

I believe that the Strand 300 supports a laptop computer as a wireless designer's remote console. You should work with your local Strand dealer to identify what hardware / software is necessary to make connection with the console, but this would provide video plus basic functionality using shortcut keys on a standard computer keyboard.

 

[0d085d]

Ah, thanks. Sounds like it's definitely possible then. I thought the whole remote laptop thing would probably be a bit overly complex. Thanks for the starting points. I'll be looking into both of those now.

 

[derekleffew]

From Off-line Editors for Lighting Consoles :

Strand 300/500 OLE
Works as an offline editor, has major problems importing shows from a floppy disk drive (Needs Collaborative Article to explain) original OLE can be networked, but as this is an emulated version it would be incredibly difficult to do. Other useful software includes Strand Show Port that exports *.SSF (Strand Show Files) into various formats.
Download (For Windows OS (95-7)

See also the thread http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting-electrics/11429-strand-300-series-desk-tutorial.html .

 

[Footer]

Ask about something called xconnect. You could even make it routable if you really wanted to. The dongle should not cost you all that much.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[icewolf08]

If you are smart enough to own a mac, you don't actually need to buy any software (from strand). You can install the Strand OS on a virtual machine using software like Parallels or VMWare Fusion. There used to be a tutorial on how to make this work on Strand's Website, if you can't find it I may have a copy. This only allows you to view one display instead of two, but it would allow you to control the desk via computer. This is all assuming that your 300 has a network card and the networker software installed.

Whatever you do, don't connect the S-Bus (the connection between the CPU and facepanel) port to standard networking equipment! While S-Bus uses cat-5 cable, it is not a TCP/IP protocol and I believe it provides power on the line which would fry your networking gear. There should be an actual network card in the CPU.

 

[derekleffew]

...which I was thinking of using to send keystrokes from a web browser at home to the laptop in the lighting desk and then to the lighting desk itself. ...

Before we continue in many different directions, let's get some clarification here. It seems to me that the OP desires to program/set levels/write cues while away from the lighting desk ("from a web browser at home"--can't see how that could ever be beneficial), and was going after a Rube Goldberg client solution when all he really needs is an OLE.

0d085d, is my assessment of your needs/desires correct?

 

[0d085d]

@derekleffew, That's pretty much bang on. I've been having a look at the OLE and it seems to be perfect. I'd need to buy a floppy drive (or persuade the school to get one) but I think this is exactly what I was looking for. The web browser was a thought on how I could achieve this without knowing about the OLE.

I am having one irritatingly small problem with the OLE: the keyboard combination to access the soft keys is apparently ALT+ESC (according to the manual) but under Vista this seems to toggle through all open windows. Without the soft keys I can't save the show which kind of defeats the point. Do you know if Windows 7 does this as well? I could install it on there if not but I don't want to if I don't have to.

@icewolf08, I don't think the console has anything more than the basic on it so I'd imagine it's lacking in network cards. Thanks for the warning about the S-Bus.



Thanks for all the help everyone. I'm glad I didn't start fiddling myself now.

 

[Grog12]

alt+esc does the same thing on W7, XP ect. So there's something up in the way you're running.

 

[0d085d]

Aha! Gottit! Turns out ALT+ESC just toggles whether the soft keys are shown on screen. The function key that corresponds to the desired soft key is the one that wants pressing.

Problem solved completely. Thanks guys! This will be incredibly useful.