HLS with Pixel Plane

[JHinkle]

I am adding Pixel Plane capability to HLS.

A complete Pixel Plane will appear in the sequence editor as a single channel.

You can assign PixelPlane Effects to the plane channel --- example - a AVI file, Mega-Tree by smeighan, random twinkles, etc


My question is ... what is a reasonable Maximum size for a pixel plane ...

255 x 255 ? --- That's 382 DMX universes

100 x 100 ? ---- That's 58 DMX universes

50 x 50 ? --- That's 15 DMX Universes

There is a lot of memory consumed when creating and sequencing a plane of any size ...

So what sizes are you guys looking for?

If you had a 100 x 100 pixel plane and you wanted to play an AVI file on the plane - assume the avi file was 320 x 200 --- how would you like to see that mapped?

Centered?
You supply the X-Y offset?
???

Also - who would be interested in doing early beta testing - I have no pixels - so I am looking for someone that will put forth the time to blink some lights (or should I say - a lot of lights)- I prefer to use E131 at this time since I already have it implemented.

Thanks.

Joe

[kychristmas]

Seriously Joe, have you done anything other than HLS the past month?

[JHinkle]

Not much else

[kychristmas]

Not much else

Can't wait for Retirement :)

[JHinkle]

I'm in the Keys - I should be out fishing - not doing this!

[boarder3]

I wish i was in the keys right now plling in a sailfish. But anyway i dont think 100x100 would be enough to write anything. That would only be 10 pixels wide by 10 down unless im wrong. What about 681 channels most people will use 681 board or dmx 512 channels. At least thats what im thinking.

[dpitts]

I wish i was in the keys right now plling in a sailfish. But anyway i dont think 100x100 would be enough to write anything. That would only be 10 pixels wide by 10 down unless im wrong. What about 681 channels most people will use 681 board or dmx 512 channels. At least thats what im thinking.

100 x 100 is:

10,000 pixels
30,000 channels
59 Universes
8 Pixelnet Universes

I think that is great for a pixel grid.

[Zeph]

Let's have a look for a moment at price. Suppose one wanted 20 x 30 pixels = 600 pixels. This could be done as 12 strings of 50 pixels each; it could be controlled as 4 universes with an e68x (3 strings per universe). That would be about $360 from Ray Wu, with shipping. Add an e681. You would need 12 x 3A of power supply. And add power and data cabling. We're up to around $500, or roughly 85 cents a pixel. You are not going to save a dramatic amount by quadrupling the order.

So 100x100 pixels 910000 pixels) = about $8500 in pixels and support. And 256x256 = $50,000+. (By that size you can check for different technology).

Most of us are not going to be exceeding those limits any time soon, in terms of pixel strings or strips.

If the display is physically smaller (LEDs closer together to fit on circuit boards), then some kind of multiplexed or chipiplexed panels might be somewhat cheaper; I'll leave it to somebody else to do those calcs.

I'm not expecting LED prices to drop dramatically. The technology is pretty mature, the volume is already huge, and the competition is fierce - and some of the components like copper wire are going up in price. So there's not a lot of "fat" to trim in the pricing unless some breakthrough new technology comes about and I've not heard of anything in the pipeline. Unlike computer chips, where a bit can just keep getting smaller and lower powered because holding and processing abstract information is the point, we're talking about something physical and with an expected brightness, which is harder to optimize. So pixel prices may not drop much in the next decade (and could even rise). Just my thoughts...

[boarder3]

Im calculating wrong what ever is 1-681 board filled like 13 strings of 50 would be thats what would be ok. Thx