ILDA specs

[james]

Yes. That's true. Those little capacitors in series with the outputs of the DAC channels can eliminate the issues of what state the DAC is in at any given time. But it's consistent. It is a knowable situation that can be managed. And there are many different devices to choose from.

[buffo]

If soundcard DACs would send 0V to all channels when nothing is sent to them then I think they would be as safe as anything.

Sounds like the first step in engineering a dedicated laser show controller. Well, and removing the DC-filtering caps, and adding the correction amp, and so on...

Also, I should point out that there have been commercial laser show controllers (old school) that were based on sound card designs, but they were heavily modified to add the sort of safety precautions we're discussing here. And yes, those modifications would be pointless if the card were just driving someone's home speakers.

It's a shame and something that the soundcard manufacturers could easily fix but I don't think they expect them to be used in this manner.

In fairness, the laser light show industry is tiny compared to the general market for sound cards, so I can't see why they would bother. Sure, it's an important feature for a laser controller, because you want it to fail in a safe state, but it's certainly not required for any of the more common uses for a sound card, so why spend the money adding a feature that would be useless to most of your market?

Adam

[JohnYayas]

Sounds like the first step in engineering a dedicated laser show controller. Well, and removing the DC-filtering caps, and adding the correction amp, and so on...

Also, I should point out that there have been commercial laser show controllers (old school) that were based on sound card designs, but they were heavily modified to add the sort of safety precautions we're discussing here. And yes, those modifications would be pointless if the card were just driving someone's home speakers.



In fairness, the laser light show industry is tiny compared to the general market for sound cards, so I can't see why they would bother. Sure, it's an important feature for a laser controller, because you want it to fail in a safe state, but it's certainly not required for any of the more common uses for a sound card, so why spend the money adding a feature that would be useless to most of your market?

Adam

Well, of course, those are good points. I wasn't claiming that soundcard DAC manufacturers should make a change for laser show use, I'm just saying that it is a shame that they aren't already sending them to 0V as a general practice, because then all would be fine. The firmware change to do that would be cost nothing (when factored into the life of the product). In actuality, the filter caps will cause the output to be 0V when there is no signal so they already ARE paying to do that with every unit. It's just that the caps get removed when modding them.

The real shame is that laser controller DACs are so expensive and every one of them has their own oddball API. I can't wait for IDN to pick up and end this nonsense.

[swamidog]

The real shame is that laser controller DACs are so expensive and every one of them has their own oddball API. I can't wait for IDN to pick up and end this nonsense.

We used IDN at the 2018 ILDA conference in Montreal. No db25's running to lasers. The ability to dynamically route groups of dacs to groups of projectors without having to do any cable swapping made switching disparate laser sources quick and seamless. It was great, but I would love to see more vendors supporting it natively. Seeing a table full of network dacs plugged into IDN stagemates and then into another network was silly.

IMG_9372.JPG

[mixedgas]

If you want my IDN Modules, You can peel them from from my cold dead hands.
Love that hardware.

Steve

[dkumpula]

The ability to reroute IDN signals as well as carry DMX signals is pretty cool. I still have some hesitations at the moment though. As I said at ILDA, I think its fine to integrate IDN directly into DACs as long as the receiving Stagemate in the projector can run alongside a legacy ILDA input. (I currently don't want to put DACs directly in my projectors as I am currently required to reroute signals between projectors externally due to software limitations.)

In addition, Stagemates also need to come WAY down in price as the transmitter and the receiver are currently 350 Euros and 300 Euros respectively. Obviously the cost is lower if you integrate IDN into the DACs themselves and then that DAC into the projector directly. I'm sure there are some advantages to the approach various DAC manufacturers have taken to run their signaling over Ethernet lines that may drive end-consumers to want to choose those alternate protocol(s). Personally, I'm a fan of both (good) standards and control flexibility.

-David

[swamidog]

The ability to reroute IDN signals as well as carry DMX signals is pretty cool. I still have some hesitations at the moment though. As I said at ILDA, I think its fine to integrate IDN directly into DACs as long as the receiving Stagemate in the projector can run alongside a legacy ILDA input. (I currently don't want to put DACs directly in my projectors as I am currently required to reroute signals between projectors externally due to software limitations.)

In addition, Stagemates also need to come WAY down in price as the transmitter and the receiver are currently 350 Euros and 300 Euros respectively. Obviously the cost is lower if you integrate IDN into the DACs themselves and then that DAC into the projector directly. I'm sure there are some advantages to the approach various DAC manufacturers have taken to run their signaling over Ethernet lines that may drive end-consumers to want to choose those alternate protocol(s). Personally, I'm a fan of both (good) standards and control flexibility.

-David

totally agreed. regardless of whatever dac is installed in a projector, i hate to see projectors that doesn't support an external ilda signal.

hardware costs for stagements could be drastically reduced by integrating support into existing dacs.

[DexLogic]

The ability to reroute IDN signals as well as carry DMX signals is pretty cool. I still have some hesitations at the moment though. As I said at ILDA, I think its fine to integrate IDN directly into DACs as long as the receiving Stagemate in the projector can run alongside a legacy ILDA input. (I currently don't want to put DACs directly in my projectors as I am currently required to reroute signals between projectors externally due to software limitations.)

In addition, Stagemates also need to come WAY down in price as the transmitter and the receiver are currently 350 Euros and 300 Euros respectively. Obviously the cost is lower if you integrate IDN into the DACs themselves and then that DAC into the projector directly. I'm sure there are some advantages to the approach various DAC manufacturers have taken to run their signaling over Ethernet lines that may drive end-consumers to want to choose those alternate protocol(s). Personally, I'm a fan of both (good) standards and control flexibility.

-David

Well - StageMate ISP _is_ the/a DAC and IDN is just a protocol. Any software system can just output IDN and there are some drivers/implementations already. That way you won't have to do the additional ADC/DAC conversion (this was always thought as a compatibility solution for older - and analog - systems, that can't send IDN).

Best
--Dirk

[DexLogic]

totally agreed. regardless of whatever dac is installed in a projector, i hate to see projectors that doesn't support an external ilda signal.

hardware costs for stagements could be drastically reduced by integrating support into existing dacs.

Jep - even better would be existing DACs could implement IDN...

[swamidog]

Jep - even better would be existing DACs could implement IDN...

yes.. that's what i was trying to say.