Light Show Master Beta 2.0.1 Released!

[Xpendable]

We just released a quick new update this evening (September 30, 2008) with the following items:

New Features:

• Completely reworked the show schedule logic. The 7-day schedule has been replaced with show events that allow you to create an unlimited number of events that have their own start/stop date and times. You are no longer limited to starting/stopping your shows on the hour or half-hour. You can now have events that span minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years! You now can even create multiple events for a single day.
• Added new show trigger feature. With this option enabled, now your show will only start playing if it is currently during one of the scheduled events and if a specific Insteon device (such as a motion detector) has triggered Light Show Master to start playing. You just link the trigger device as a controller with the PLM as the responder, and enter the device id of the trigger device in the Show Properties window. When Light Show Master is triggered, it will play the show through once and then go back to waiting for a trigger.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed bug when trying to add sequences to the show that were created with 2.0.x that resulted in the file validation to fail.

Download the new version here:
http://www.jltsoft.com/downloads.aspx

 

[Squintz]

That's pretty cool stuff. Shame it only works with Insteon and not more protocols. I'd love to see it for Z-Wave. Z-Wave certainly has the speed required.

 

[ver0776]

Does your software support millisecond resolution?

 

[The Pod]

That's pretty cool stuff. Shame it only works with Insteon and not more protocols. I'd love to see it for Z-Wave. Z-Wave certainly has the speed required.

I used the older 1.2 version last halloween and found it easy to use and fun to work with. I also asked last year about adding Z-wave support to the application as the Intermatic Outdoor module (HA04) and Intermatic screw in module (HA05) would be ideal for this application. The issue I can see with the Z-Wave is you don't have as many options to the fade rates as you do with Insteon. If support was to be added for Z-Wave, it would most likely only allow you to set the On/Off times of the module and use what ever fade rate the module itself has built in it. Which wouldn't be that bad of an option. And if Light Show Master supported both protocols at once, you'd have a few more options available for lighting interfaces.

The Pod

 

[sic0048]

Does your software support millisecond resolution?

I haven't used it, but looking at the web site it seems to be 1/10th second resolution (which is pretty good IMHO).

 

[Xpendable]

Does your software support millisecond resolution?

I haven't used it, but looking at the web site it seems to be 1/10th second resolution (which is pretty good IMHO).

Actually, that information is inaccurate now. We need to update our website! With 2.0.x, you can send up to 20 commands per second sustained, and the millisecond resolution is much higher. You can now adjust the sequence tempo anywhere from 16 bpm to 220 bpm. At 220 bpm, a single cell represents about 1/58.6 of a second, or 0.017 seconds! I usually do most of my sequences at about 64 bpm, which gives me about 1/17 of a second resolution. So as you can see, you can get really precise with where you want your lighting effects. You still can't usually send more than 20 commands per second due to the limitations of the Insteon protocol communicating over the powerline, but you can get very accurate placement of those commands. I think we're going to see some cool displays from our customers this year!

 

[mustangcoupe]

why limit it to requesting z-wave lets get upb in there also....

 

[ver0776]

I was not referring to # of commands per second. I was referring to the new scheduling option. Can I say: Turn on Light 1 at 14:30:15.2, Light 2 at 14:30:15.8, or do you have to say at 14:30:15 turn on light 1 then light 2 and live with the timing inbetween?

Not that it is a big deal, just curious as timing like that get tricky to code for.

Vaughn

 

[Xpendable]

I was not referring to # of commands per second. I was referring to the new scheduling option. Can I say: Turn on Light 1 at 14:30:15.2, Light 2 at 14:30:15.8, or do you have to say at 14:30:15 turn on light 1 then light 2 and live with the timing inbetween?

Not that it is a big deal, just curious as timing like that get tricky to code for.

Vaughn

Ah, gotcha. Well you create show schedule that specifies when the show starts and when the show stops, and the show keeps repeating between those times. A show can be made up of 1 or more sequences, and a single sequence usually represents an entire song.

Light Show Master is a visual sequence editor. You don't "schedule" the light commands. You schedule when the show plays. The actual lighting commands go into the sequence, but you don't type in a time for each light command. You just click on the cells in the grid where you want the lighting commands. The sequence looks like a grid. Each column represents an instance of time and each row represents a channel (where 1 or more Insteon devices are assigned). The amount of time that each column represents depends on the sequence tempo. If you have the tempo set to 60 bpm, and you want channel 1 to turn on and then turn off for 1 beat, you would "turn on" 16 continous cells. Light Show Master will send the "ON" command when it sees the first cell and will send the "OFF" command when it sees the first empty cell. It will make a lot of sense once you see it. Speaking of which, why don't you download it now and try it out for free? The unregistered version will let you play sequences up to 1 minute in length.

 

[Squintz]

Many Z-Wave Devices do allow you to set fade rates. And they could keep up with the 20 commands per second rate I think. I'm not just wanting support for Z-Wave though. I'd love to see all of the major protocols supported. UPB, X10, Insteon, Z-Wave. It might be cool to have a plug-in type systems where programmers could write support for their own devices such as an LED Sign.

What I like about this software is the timeline interface that makes it easy to keep track of when things will happen.

 

[The Pod]

Many Z-Wave Devices do allow you to set fade rates. And they could keep up with the 20 commands per second rate I think. I'm not just wanting support for Z-Wave though. I'd love to see all of the major protocols supported. UPB, X10, Insteon, Z-Wave. It might be cool to have a plug-in type systems where programmers could write support for their own devices such as an LED Sign.

What I like about this software is the timeline interface that makes it easy to keep track of when things will happen.

Are the Z-Wave fade rates adjustable via software or on the device itself. With Insteon, you can program 7 or 8 different fade rates to a single switch and then call and use all of them at different times. I thought Z-Wave switches were limited to setting it to a single fade rate, yes adjustable, but only one rate. Z-Wave would work nicely as the ControlThink API gives you all the programming functions you need to simply add support to a program.

UPB I believe you can set multiple fade rates for a switch. Not sure about how fast the protocol is to keep up with the lighting commands (# per sec). But it seems that UPB devices and links are configured with UPStart. Is there an API available like Insteon and Z-Wave that allows you to add functions to your own applications to configure the UPB devices and create the links?

X-10 support might be easy to add, but lets just face it, it is too slow for this type of application.

The Pod

 

[Xpendable]

At one time I was going to add X-10 support, but it was too unreliable and too slow to be much useful. By the way, in Light Show Master 2.0, we support up to 20 different fade intervals. (There are 32 fade intervals in all supported by Insteon, but I choose not support any fade intervals over 1 minute long. I support all the fade intervals <= 60 seconds.)

I just uploaded a video on YouTube showing Light Show Master 2.0.1 in action so you can see what it can do. You can just kind of see the sequence scrolling on the screen in realtime, at least you could before I uploaded the video. It got compressed pretty bad after the upload.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_FqsCNliP0

Here's another one with even worse sound quality, but you can see the Light Show Master screen a little better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trYq7goZ3t4

 

[MikeB]

Speaking of which, why don't you download it now and try it out for free?

Once I installed the latest beta trial, and Jason sent me over some basic instructions, I definitely had a better feel of what I could do with LightShowMaster. Then I sent him my money.

I'd love to see all of the major protocols supported. UPB, X10, Insteon, Z-Wave.

While X10 support might be nice for the variety of devices available, you really need quick and consistent response times from the protocol/devices to take full advantage of this software. If you want to throw up a flood light at the crescendo of a song, it really loses the impact if it lights up a second or 2 later. I'm really impressed with how quickly I can make things happen with this software!