[LCtalk] Lanbox questions

[Marc Thomas]

Hi All,

I've used my LCX for two theatre shows now (and I love it!), the last show 
being in December so I've probably forgotten everything I knew. Anyway, I 
have another show coming up at the end of this Month and there's a few 
things I'd like to figure out before then.

I guess some of this is aimed at Fokko & Matthijs, but it would be nice to 
hear any feedback from other users. I'm using LCedit+ v3.4 on Windows 2000 
here, with LCX firmware v2.07.


1) How to you grab a scene if you're not in edit mode?

I frequently spend ages getting the lighting state just right, only to realise 
I'm not in edit mode. Once you go into edit mode it tends to run the cue and 
hence loose the state on stage. What's the best way around this? Can you grab 
the DMX output values, and paste them into a cue? I see there's a "Grab DMX 
Data" option on the Layers menu, but its always greyed out (and what's it for, 
if not this?)


2) Colour Scrollers

I have 8 ChromaQ CQ1 scrollers. These are called "analogue" scrollers even 
though they have DMX in, because they don't self calibrate. They're manually 
calibrated for length via a small potentiometer on each scroller, and the 
scroll position is directly proportional to the DMX value (so you can easily 
have split frames).

I have 16 frames on each scroller (0 to 15), and have created an LCedit+ 
profile for them with correctly coloured pannel buttons. However, using the 
buttons doesn't work reliably. If I click on frame 0, the DMX value generated 
is 15 which is part way through frame 0. I need it to output 0.

I know you can grab the wheel control and wind it back to 0 but this is just 
tedious especially mid way through the scroll, as you end up having to manually 
position each frame.

In my last show I created Colour Presets with each frame correctly aligned, 
which worked really well. What I'd like know is can the buttons be fixed, or 
perhaps better still be linked to a preset?


3) Edit bug?

I'm not 100% sure of the details on this one, but I've encountered this odd 
behaviour a couple of times:

When you live edit a cue step and then Store the cue list, the box seems to 
re-run the cue, which is fine. However occasionally (usually I think when its 
the first step in a cue list) it seems to run the new state against what was 
there previously - so you get the "delta" output on stage. For example if ch 
1-6 were on at 50% and you bring 3-6 up to 60% when you store the cue, the 
output becomes 3-6 at what looks like 10% with everything else off.

However, the on-screen (pannel) displays show everything is fine. Attempting to 
re-run the cue step doesn't help. You have to go forwards one cue and then back 
at which point the output will be as expected.

This behaviour makes me very wary of live editing during a show because the 
last thing I want to do is cause a near blackout on stage!

Is this just me, am I doing something wrong - or is it a bug?

In case its relevant, I'm using "theatre" cue numbering (ie x.5, x.10, x.15, 
etc) so there are gaps in the cue list, and most lists don't have a .1 step.


4) Cuelist window enhancements

When there are gaps in a cue list, it would be nice if there were a button to 
leave out the missing steps (similar to the || button to only display active 
channels).

A "read-only" mode would also be great for when running a show, so you can't 
accidentally jump to a cue step by miss-clicking!


5) Patching

If you re-patch a fixture, do you have to update all of its cues?

Say for example a dimmer channel has permanently failed, and the fixture has 
been physically plugged into a spare channel. Is it enough to re-patch the 
fixture in LCedit+?

On a Strand desk (my background), if you update the patch then all is well. 
However in LanBox I get the feeling that the patch affects what goes into a cue 
list (ie which DMX channels) and repatching will have no effect on existing 
cues.


6) Multiple DMX universes with multiple LCX's.

There was a discussion some time ago about using multiple boxes for generating 
more DMX universes by broadcasting over UDP (if I recall correctly). This 
seemed to focus on an LCX as the master broadcasting to LCM or LCE's. Is is 
possible to do the same with multiple LCX's?


Thanks & Kind Regards,
Marc