Vixen Timing Interval

[omzig]

What timing interval do you use? Why?

[ppohlman]

I use 50ms mainly because it sounds like that is what most people around here use.
If I get a really fast song, I might have to go faster just to get the timing right.

[toodle_pipsky]

Pretty much the same reason as ppohlman. I said somewhere else 100ms was causing me problems - it was actually 25ms that gave me too many intervals to work with. 50ms seems to give enough "control" with out getting nit-picky. I've found that even if a light event is off beat on screen by a fraction, when the lights are going it's not really noticeable.

[ErnieHorning]

I use 50 mS because it fits the timing of most songs. I’m pretty sure that if I used 100 mS, which nobody besides me would notice that the timing was off just a little bit, here and there. After you’ve watched a sequence a hundred times while writing it, you notice the little things that no one else would.

[Brad Riley]

Last year I used the default 100ms on my first 2 sequences and was not real happy with the timing. Switched to 50ms for the next one and was extremely happy with the results, then tried one at 25ms and found no noticeable difference from 50ms.

Brad

[dmcole]

(I'm paraphrasing from somebody else here ...)

25ms: too many damn little squares to fill out.

\dmc

[ErnieHorning]

The simple way is to pick one and if you need faster timing, change the interval to half of what you started at. As long as you change in multiples of two, Vixen will fill in the squares correctly.

[jpb]

I am at 50mS for the same reasons as everyone else.

The exact timing gets me because I start a beat track at the start of the song but if I copy and paste it through the sequence it ends up out of sync by the end. I have to create the beat track for the entire song and then adjust patterns by inserting or deleting cells as I copy and paste them through the song. In saying that, I might be being too critical of the timeing, but as Ernie says, after watching it for long enough you start to notice things.

Jon

[dhavard]

I use 50ms for almost all of my sequences, but there are a couple of songs that are faster that are more techno beats and I have to use 25ms on those to get the effect of superfast flashing ;) I tested an arch the other day on 25ms and it was almost TOO fast on a particular effect I had made, so I bumped it to 50ms and it work perfectly.

[deplanche]

I use 50 ms because I think that's what Dave (Xmus) said to do in his Vixen How-to Videos, and I haven't found a reason to switch from that so far.

[Michael]

All of my sequences are at 50ms except for one that I needed to be at 25ms for a very fast tempo.

- Michael

[nathank]

For 2008 I was going to use 25ms for the sake of a higher refresh of the dimming levels. Is there really not much difference between 25ms and 50ms in this respect?
If not, I'd be more than happy to convert my sequences to 50ms. They would be a lot easier to work with!
Hmm, does Vixen allow you to adjust the timing with a sequence that is already written? Ie, does it adjust all the sequences accordingly? (I don't have Vixen on this PC).

[dhavard]

nathank,.
i have 1 song using 25ms and to me it isn't all that bad when sequencing them...it takes a little longer, but if you have a fast song like the one I did then it come in handy to get certain effects. I have tried to go from 50 to 25 and vice versa, and I get mixed results. If most of yours is set to 25ms and you go to 50ms some of your effects may not stay the same and might get messed up. Just for example, my 25ms has flashes that are almost like a strobe and when I go to 50ms it made those pretty much solid on, so some of our sequencing will not come out exactly the way you want it to when converting.

daniel

[ErnieHorning]

If you divide the timing in two, Vixen will just duplicate each cell twice and the output will look the same. If you double the timing (ie 25-50mS) you will lose every other cell.

If you divide the timing and you don’t change anything, you can change it back and not lose anything.

[TERBObob]

Ok ... I use 50 ms and am honestly wondering ... if you DO use the 25 ms timing , can a person actually see the lights come on and off that fast or will it look more like dimming rather than on/off states ? Would the lights actually have enough time to come to full strength before going back to the off state ?
And last thing . Has anybody actually tested this at that speed ? ( 25 ms ) at night time ? ( tested - meaning in real mode - outside at night-time , not simulated on Vixen )

[sallz0r]

Wow....... that's interesting. I'm using 25ms, and was almost considering going a bit quicker (15ms? 10ms?) for some of the songs, but decided not to. Maybe it's because I'm doing a lot of dimming effects, and a lot of quick transitions, but there's been quite a few times that I've been glad I'm using 25ms, and even a few times I wish it was "just a bit quicker"..... :-)

Then again, it's taking me on average 10 hours per minute of audio, so I guess that's why 25ms takes longer! :-)

Cheers,
Michael

[ppohlman]

One of the reasons for using a faster timing interval is to get the lights to come on/off at the exact desired time; not necessarily to flicker them at 25 ms. It would also allow for a faster chase sequence.

I agree, if you're trying to get them to turn on and off at 25ms, I don't think it would get to 100% on before turning off and would look more like a dimmer light.

[Michael]

Ok ... I use 50 ms and am honestly wondering ... if you DO use the 25 ms timing , can a person actually see the lights come on and off that fast or will it look more like dimming rather than on/off states ? Would the lights actually have enough time to come to full strength before going back to the off state ?
And last thing . Has anybody actually tested this at that speed ? ( 25 ms ) at night time ? ( tested - meaning in real mode - outside at night-time , not simulated on Vixen )

Yes you can see 25ms nicely.
I ran one song for halloween and had 15 C9 pumpkin lights as a front border. I ran them in a looping chance sequence with a single 25ms time period for each light and it was very nice. Not sure if it made it to full 100%, but it was close enough. I would have liked to go even faster in a few places, but did not want to resequence at faster speed. It is amazing how fast electricity flows, and how sensitive your eyes are.

- Michael

[ErnieHorning]

I would have liked to go even faster in a few places... Here’s something to think about before you try going faster. The SSR’s are synced to the AC line, but Vixen is not. If you turn on a channel in Vixen, the zero crossing point may not show up for another 8.3 mS. This leaves 17 mS left minus the time that needs to pass for the dimming level that you chose. Because a full cycle takes 16.6 mS, you might miss the turn off time and so the output may stay on for another 8.3 mS.

AS you can see, you’re already on the hairy edge of timing.

[mrpackethead]

Im runnign 40 frames a second out my DMX interface for the grid..
All i can say is that i'm glad i did'nt hand program these sequcnes!