LSX or FB3 ?

[norty303]

Yep, me too, the first was actually 'busier' to begin with, and I think i preferred it like that. As I say, these are just proof of concept, what does what sort of things.
I think I'm going to play some more, especially with the channels in Beyond, which can be tied to parameters so I can 'play' the abstracts live.
I've got a great little festival beginning of June where that sort of thing will go down a storm. Will have to get the scrim out I think, it'll be 4 projectors around the outside of a sort of wooden roundhouse structure.

[White-Light]

I'm using the V 1.60 build 509, and per example is the "one cue"-> "set one cue per projection zone" is working for you ? for me on quick show it's ok, but not on beyond, so it as no sense doing a party with 2 fb3 displaying the same frame.

Well I have to admit you've got me there as I'm not even sure how this feature is supposed to work as I never explored it due to only having 1 FB3 and 1 projector. It sounds obvious but there are probably several ways it can work across the zones just looking at it.

It maybe if it is broken, it hasn't been fixed if its never been reported.

I'll feed this back to Alexey and see what he has to say. As a rule of thumb, always feed every bug back to Pangolin as you might be the only person to have found that one.

BTW nice abstracts Norty.

[pschlosser]

I must say, this has been a great thread.

I started out, a few months back, thinking I wanted QS & FB3. But as I read about LSX and the EtherDream DAC, I switched over to LSX. Of course, I haven't purchased it, yet. But after reading through this thread, I'm feeling the pendulum swinging the other way, and I am favoring QS and FB3, again.

I get the impression from William in post #43 that the FB3 DAC has smoothing and enhancement features other DACs don't have. Is that right?

I am almost ashamed to admit I have iShow. It came with my first projector. While I don't have anything to compare it to, the iShow DAC seems very poor and slow. I can't wait until I can try FB3 or Etherdream and finally see what a decent DAC can do.

[swamidog]

pschlosser,

this is purely subjective as i have not done a direct A/B compare of LSX+ED vs. QS+FB3 with the same source material. i certainly don't have the impression that the FB3 has a higher quality/smoother output and i'm comfortable saying the output quality coming out of either of them looks very nice from my projector.

LSX Pro does have a number of features that allow you to optimize the output much more than QuickShow does. It has linearity graph editors for each color and overall intensity, it has blanking timing adjustments for each individual color, it has quite an elaborate set of options for scanning optimization, and it has the ability to create custom color balance ratios.

let's say you're using 445 diodes instead of 473, but the deep blue is a little too dark for the rest of your palette. with a few clicks, you can configure LSX to automatically bleed in a little 532 every time the 445 fires. presto, your deep blue becomes a little lighter without having to edit your show content.

I must say, this has been a great thread.

I started out, a few months back, thinking I wanted QS & FB3. But as I read about LSX and the EtherDream DAC, I switched over to LSX. Of course, I haven't purchased it, yet. But after reading through this thread, I'm feeling the pendulum swinging the other way, and I am favoring QS and FB3, again.

I get the impression from William in post #43 that the FB3 DAC has smoothing and enhancement features other DACs don't have. Is that right?

I am almost ashamed to admit I have iShow. It came with my first projector. While I don't have anything to compare it to, the iShow DAC seems very poor and slow. I can't wait until I can try FB3 or Etherdream and finally see what a decent DAC can do.

[drlava]

I must say, this has been a great thread.

I started out, a few months back, thinking I wanted QS & FB3. But as I read about LSX and the EtherDream DAC, I switched over to LSX. Of course, I haven't purchased it, yet. But after reading through this thread, I'm feeling the pendulum swinging the other way, and I am favoring QS and FB3, again.

I get the impression from William in post #43 that the FB3 DAC has smoothing and enhancement features other DACs don't have. Is that right?

I am almost ashamed to admit I have iShow. It came with my first projector. While I don't have anything to compare it to, the iShow DAC seems very poor and slow. I can't wait until I can try FB3 or Etherdream and finally see what a decent DAC can do.

Hi psch, I wasn't going to reply (in order to try to not start a flame war/argument) but in effect, that's not exactly right. He's trying to make an argument as to why QS doesn't support ILDA output by saying that the software is so capable that ILDA can't do it justice. In a way, that's true but in a way, it's an unfortunate decision.

Here's why it's part true:
It's true that the ILDA format doesn't support point rate changes, 3D masking, frame optimization settings, 'target zones', or anything else that both LSX and apparently QS support. However, as demonstrated by Steve Milani, Swami, and countless others, it doesn't have to.

Here's why it's unfortunate for users:
In the end, a projector doesn't know about any of those things, either, it just projects the coordinates and colors it's told to. The ILDA file format is the representation of that same concept. The reason that it's universally supported is partially because it's only designed to represent what the projector is told to do and doesn't get into any proprietery tricks. Any fancy software tricks, high DAC rates, varying DAC rates,etc (all of which LSX can do). are superfluous to the data control of projector hardware.
LSX accepts the limitations of the ILDA file format, and still allows export, because it benefits users. When and if there is a superceeding standard that is designed to enable laser show interchange between different systems, LSX will support that as well.

I'm happy to give a demo of LSX output, smoothness, and capability at SELEM or to anyone that wants to stop by my 'home office', it's sure not to disappoint

[buffo]

LSX Pro does have a number of features that allow you to optimize the output much more than QuickShow does.

Quickshow (and especially Beyond) has these features as well, although they are perhaps more hidden from the user. Quickshow in particular is designed to be "easy". But you can get to the advanced settings if you think you need to.

It has linearity graph editors for each color and overall intensity, it has blanking timing adjustments for each individual color, it has quite an elaborate set of options for scanning optimization, and it has the ability to create custom color balance ratios.

Have you ever used the color palette wizard in any of Pangolin's products? Because the adjustments you are discussing are not unique to LSX.

Even the venerable QM-32 (a legacy Pangolin product from the 1990's that ran on an ISA card) had full control of the palette, including the ability to individually adjust the RGB values for any color in the palette. Beyond takes color adjustment to another level with multiple point graphs for color response, assuming you opt out of the color wizard, that is.

The plain truth is that the vast majority of Pangolin users never need access to these controls, because the basic palette wizard handles color extremely well - even in cases where you have different wavelengths for red or blue.

Don't get me wrong... The color control in LSX is respectable, and Andrew should be commended for the work he has done. But Panoglin's color palette wizard is quite amazing, and is definitely one of the strong points of their software. A lot of thought went into that wizard, and it handles color exceptionally well (especially since it can do this with very little input on the part of the operator).

It's true that the ILDA format doesn't support point rate changes, 3D masking, frame optimization settings, 'target zones', or anything else that both LSX and apparently QS support. However, as demonstrated by Steve Milani, Swami, and countless others, it doesn't have to.

I take exception with this statement, and I can offer a simple example to demonstrate my point. There are effects that can not be accurately rendered to a stream of ILDA frames. Complex, rapidly-changing abstracts are one such effect. While the abstract may look great when running directly from the software, once you dump it to ILDA and import it back, it doesn't look the same. (I've actually done this several times, and even Pangolin's Showtime show editor can't render some abstracts correctly as ILDA frames.)

LSX accepts the limitations of the ILDA file format, and still allows export, because it benefits users.

That's a decision you have made. You accept that some output may be inferior in the interest of making content available to the widest possible audience. Bill has chosen quality over quantity.

Note that Lasergraph DSP shows and Digi-synth shows don't output well to ILDA either...

Adam

[drlava]

I take exception with this statement, and I can offer a simple example to demonstrate my point. There are effects that can not be accurately rendered to a stream of ILDA frames. Complex, rapidly-changing abstracts are one such effect. While the abstract may look great when running directly from the software, once you dump it to ILDA and import it back, it doesn't look the same. (I've actually done this several times, and even Pangolin's Showtime show editor can't render some abstracts correctly as ILDA frames.)

Perhaps you are revealing a deficiency in ILDA import/export method that is not quite so mysterious...

That's a decision you have made. You accept that some output may be inferior in the interest of making content available to the widest possible audience. Bill has chosen quality over quantity.

I take exception to the inference that giving users flexibility is a negative. It's not quality over quantity, it's user lock-in in order to prevent support phonecalls. Re-read that section of post 42.

Note that Lasergraph DSP shows and Digi-synth shows don't output well to ILDA either...
Adam

I disagree with this also. Digisynth used fixed 48kHz output-an ilda file generated by this would play perfectly smoothly from LSX after being imported, the only difference being a slight color modulation change from 16 bit per channel to 8 bit per channel due to the ILDA format. This virtually perfect playback is because LSX has the ability to stream points to and from a DAC in a gapless way. If what you are seeing from Digi-synth ILD files output isn't as smooth, perhaps you are seeing a deficiency in ILDA export or import. So far, I haven't seen any Digisynth ILDA files posted but if there are samples I'd love to see them, and could tell you where the deficiency is. As for Lasergraf, the same goes... haven't seen ILDA files, but could tell you what was up if some were available.

[pschlosser]

I've been designing and writing software for longer than I care to admit - business applications, mostly. It is not uncommon for software developers to take measures to retain their customer base. I've experienced at least a dozen cases in my career, where the decision was made to limit, prohibit, or just plain make it hard for a customer to migrate to a different product and to take their data with them. None of those developers will admit to it, but their attitude seems to be, "we'll if you're going to leave, I ain't gonna help you pack. In fact, you have to leave all your stuff behind."

Such a move is easy to pull off and still save face. When you look at the features customers want, and how many of them want it, it's commonplace for new features and bug fixes to take priority over export and migration (away) tools. The truth of it is, fewer customers want export tools than do those wanting new features and bug fixes. In some cases, the developers never get around to deploying export features.

It may be true the ILDA standard lacks what it needs to export ALL of the settings and data from a laser software package. What stings the most is the message "if you can't export ALL of the data, then you can't export any of it!"

Perhaps the real question is ownership of the data. Who owns the data contained within a light show projection? Does the software provider own it? Or does the end user? Complicate this further with the boatload of existing shows and show data available for download. Who owns that? Is it public domain? Perhaps, this data isn't ours to export. But, if I, as the end user, own the data, it's seems unfair to tell me I can't have it or take it with me.

Even so, with all this said, were I to invest 100s or even 1000s of hours into building shows, it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth that if I want to use different software, I may need to start completely over. I would rather have a half-ass incomplete export of my show data, than nothing at all. I imagine it would take me far less time to import a show and clean it up (because it's missing some of the data) than it would for me to rebuild the show from scratch.

After having written this post, and recalling the numerous times in my career when a software package had poor or no expert tools and I felt pissed off, I'm feeling the pendulum swinging back to LSX, again. It is the export feature, and the competitors lack of it, that really tips the scales for me. It is my opinion that a lame, incomplete export feature is better for morale and public relations, than none at all. Even if I never end up using the feature, knowing it's there helps me to feel like I'm in control and I have a choice.

[laserLips]

What he said ^^^ And part of my decision to go with LSX was also based on ethics!

Also I think QuickShow looks dated. So na na na na na!

[laserLips]

And for god sake can one of the ILDA members pull their finger out their arse and update the standard so this problem is fixed? What do they do all day, watch day time TV, sipping on mugs of tea while discussing knitting patterns?
Do your job!