PLASA’s Technical Resource Office announces that the RDM and sACN Developers Conference and Plugfest returns for 2013 and will take place on the 25^th-27^th April, in the UK, at Gatwick Manor, London Road at Lowfield Heath, just south of Gatwick Airport.

This Developers Conference aims to provide a European forum for manufacturers, designers, consultants and prospective users; and to ensure that the adoption of these new standards achieves desired levels of interoperability and reliability.

The “Conference” includes presentations in understanding, implementing and using the published PLASA control protocols suites. Discussions will also embrace the current protocol developments that form part of the PLASA Technical Standards Program.  The past 12 months has seen considerable advancement in the development of “RDMnet” – with various drafts of BSR E1.33 being offered for public review, so this is an active topic for consideration.

The “Plugfest” is a hands-on opportunity for product developers to try their products and code implementations with products from a variety of other manufacturers, with support from their industry peers in an environment that encourages co-operation and improved understanding of the standards, and with the aim of achieving high levels of interoperability.  Typically, engineers participate in these events with the ability to code and debug aspects of their implementations on site, sometimes retreating to their hotel rooms to craft improvements before returning to the “Plugfest” to continue testing.

The sessions, despite their apparent informality, can be a valuable opportunity to learn how not to make the same mistakes, or misguided assumptions, as others may have done.

Participation is by invitation, and limited to registered delegates.  The conference is designed to appeal to Lighting Designers, System integrators, Theatre Consultants, Production Electricians, Rental company technical staff and product development engineers. The focus for Thursday will be broad, and designed to appeal to all categories of participant.  Friday and Saturday will be orientated towards product development engineers who are either considering or actively implementing these standards.

A single registration fee of UK£60 per person, payable in advance, covers participation and a buffet lunch.  Delegates may attend one or more days as they think appropriate. The registration fee is fixed, regardless of the number of days you attend, but you are required to indicate your proposed level of participation in advance.

Further information and signup is available at http://www.plasa.org/rdm/

Any enquiries should be directed to Ron Bonner at PLASA. (ron.bonner@plasa.org)

4/2/2013

At the January Control Protocols Plugfest, Peter Kirkup suggested that I analyse at the data collected by the rdm.openlighting.org site and see if there are any interesting patterns in the supported parameters reported.

Of the 112 responders we have supported parameters information for, I took the latest software version of each and counted the number of responders that supported each PID. If a PID occurs multiple times in a SUPPORTED_PARAMETERS response, it was only counted once.

There are a couple of interesting trends here. Firstly, there are still some devices that continue to declare support for required PIDs. Those PIDs are highlighted in red in the table below. If you have a copy of E1.20 (RDM) around, you can refer to section 10.4.1 where it says:

“PIDs that are included in the minimum support list, indicated by the “Required” column of Table A-3, shall not be reported.”

I won’t name the devices here, but if you’re in the business of building responders, be sure to run the RDM Responder Tests against your device. It will detect problems like this.

Of the non-required PIDs, DEVICE_MODEL_DESCRIPTION is the most-supported, closely followed by DEVICE_LABEL and MANUFACTURER_LABEL. The least supported PIDs are ones from E1.37-1, which doesn’t come as a huge surprise since it’s still relatively new.

There are 5 devices which declare support for PIDs 0×2070 and 0×2080. These PIDs are within the PLASA standard range (0×0000 – 0x7fff), but to my knowledge have not been used in any PLASA standard. If you convert the PIDs to decimal you get 8304 and 8320 so someone is probably confusing hexadecimal and decimal here. I’ve emailed the manufacturer involved.

QUEUED_MESSAGE is only supported in 31 responders, or 28% of those analysed.  STATUS_MESSAGE does a bit better with support in 51 responders, but CLEAR_STATUS_ID only comes in with 7. The expected behaviour of CLEAR_STATUS_ID is not well defined in the E1.20 standard, which probably contributes to the lack of support. The task group is planning on correcting this in the next iteration of RDM.

Sensor support is widespread, with 82 responders (73%) reporting support for SENSOR_DEFINITION and SENSOR_VALUE. Only 4 responders support RECORD_SENSORS however.

The Mac III Performance wins the ‘most manufacturer specific PIDs’ (28) and the ‘most supported PIDs’  (54) categories. I suspect the LabPack XT actually beats it in the latter category, but that’s not listed in the responder index.

I’ve made a change to the rdm.openlighting.org site so on the page for each PID, it now shows which responders support the PID. For example if you want to see devices which support the PROXIED_DEVICES PID, you can do so here.

Update: Michael Karlsson pointed out I should look at the PIDs that none of the responders supported. I’ve added a second table with this data. Of these PIDs, all except SUB_DEVICE_STATUS_REPORT_THRESHOLD are from E1.37-1.

Table 1. Number of Responders Supporting each PID

Table 2. PIDs which none of the 112 responders support

Organised by Peter Willis (Howard Eaton Lighting), Simon Hobday (Artistic Licence Engineering), Hamish Dumbreck (Jese Ltd) and Peter Kirkup (Lumen Radio), in conjunction with PLASA’s Technical Resources Manager, Ron Bonner, the event attracted some 35 engineers from over 22 manufacturing companies, with representation across the Entertainment and Architectural lighting sectors.

The conference kicked off with a review of the impact of the RDM exhibition stand presented at the recent PLASA show at Earl’s Court, and the issues of compliance that sometimes surface whilst attempting to utilise RDM enabled products.

Discussions on possible methods for reviewing products and their adherence to the standard ensued, with separate proposals for Responders, Data Distribution (Splitters) and Controllers emerging.

As always, Plugfests provide an opportunity for engineers to scrutinise their product’s operation in conjunction with a variety of other devices, make changes as required and re-evaluate. It is also an opportunity to discuss best practices, identify known pitfalls and improve your product for the benefit of the industry as a whole.

On the second day, an attempt was made to trial a procedure for evaluating responders, in an effort to facilitate a more robust and standardised means of reviewing RDM compatibility.

Based on initial feedback, it is clear that these events should be regular, to enable manufactures to build consistency into their products, and planning is now underway for further activities in 2013.

For those companies actively involved with (or who are considering) implementing RDM and have not yet attended a Plugfest, the PLASA Technical Resource Office would encourage you make to the effort to support and attend future events.

4/10/2012 – 5/10/2012

I recently attended the RDM plugfest in Gatwick and had the opportunity to run the RDM Responder Tests on diverse set of responders. At the suggestion of Peter Kirkup, I’ve run some analysis on the data in an attempt to understand how the quality of RDM implementations is progressing.  The data presented here has been aggregated and anonymized so that test results for any specific manufacture aren’t identifiable. The tests themselves do not perform exhaustive timing checks so even if a responder achieves a perfect score it may not fully comply with the RDM standard.

The procedure involved running the RDM Responder Tests (git SHA1 id 58fb444b9342ea6d9ba70ecdda8f720cc88692ff for those who are interested) on a Macbook Pro with a Robe Universal Interface.  During the course of testing I found two bugs in the RDM tests which caused the test script to crash. I fixed both bugs and since these bugs caused crashes rather than false positives, the bugs would not have affected the results of the responders tested prior to the bugs being found.

In total 27 responders from 20 manufacturers were tested. 7 of the 27 responders received perfect scores, which is the highest result ever for a plugfest. At previous plugfests only two responders have managed a similar result. Congratulations to Cooper Controls – Zero 88, Creative Lighting, Howard Eaton Lighting Limited, LumenRadio & SUMOLIGHT GMBH. The test scores for each responder is shown in Table 1.

The median score is 95.2% and the median number of tests run is 229 out of 235 tests. Note that not every test is run for each responder because there is often a dependency chain between two or more tests. For example the tests need to know if a PID is supported before they know what to expect when sending a GET command for that PID.  If a test that other tests depend on fails, then the number of tests run will be reduced as is the case for the last responders in the table.

Each test is assigned to a category, which roughly corresponds to the RDM Categories/Parameter ID Defines table in the E1.20 document. When broken down by category, the results are seen in Table 2.

The RDM Responder Tests also produce warnings to indicate responder behavior which, while not serious enough to cause a failure, should still be correctly handled. Five responders produced no warnings. The maximum warnings produced was 261 and the median was 10.

Finally Table 3 shows the pass results for each test. This provides a useful insight into which areas of an RDM implementation are most often overlooked. Ignoring the tests which cover error conditions, the most common failure is the SetPersonality, followed by ResetFactoryDefaults & GetParamDescription.

I plan to continue performing this analysis at future plugfests so we’ll have an idea of how RDM implementations are improving. It will be useful to track the maturity of RDM responders and well as monitor the diversity of manufacturers and devices we see at the plugfests.  Judging by the amount of work that got done over the 2 days I think we can expect even better scores next time! Stay tuned for another report after the Dallas plugfest in January 2013.

This year is no exception, yet brings a slightly different approach that reflects how the RDM protocol has become more widely recognised, understood and adopted as an industry standard. This year’s stand will go beyond explaining the basics of what RDM is and how to use it, and explore the uses and applications to which it can be put within two major market areas.

The stand will demonstrate two fully functioning RDM systems, one dedicated to architectural applications and one to entertainment use. Each system will have a fully working RDM network showing the strengths of the RDM protocol and how it can be used in these different environments.

The entertainment system will be composed of a control desk and dimmer racks and concentrate on the configuration side of the RDM protocol. Demonstrations will show how the entertainment controller allows the user to set up and configure RDM fixtures without leaving the comfort of their control desk.

By contrast, the architectural system will concentrate on real-time monitoring of RDM fixtures. This illustrates how the user is able to see up-to-date sensor values such as temperature and lamp life, and how this information can be sent to the outside world in the form of information or warnings.

The working systems will be augmented by a range of other RDM compliant equipment that demonstrates the breadth of equipment and number of manufacturers that now support the RDM protocol.

Members of PLASA’s Technical Resource Office and other industry RDM specialists will be on hand to demonstrate the systems and answer any RDM questions you may have.

RDM Stand Number: EC2-R4

The format will be an advance on April’s meeting which concentrated on introducing newcomers to RDM and discussions concerning RDM basics.

October’s session will focus its discussions on the issue of compliance. Currently, no consistent, uniform method of RDM testing exists, so manufacturers design in isolation and test to different interpretations of the standard. The Plug Fest will provide a forum for informal discussion with the aim of formulating a plan to standardise these processes for the future. In addition there will be separate test locations for the three different categories of RDM equipment: Controllers, Splitters and Responders. This will give delegates an opportunity to bring their own RDM-compliant products for ‘plug & test’ sessions.

This event is organised in conjunction with PLASA Technical Resources and supported by industry leading manufacturers, many of whom will be attending the meeting. Full details of the discussion plan will be released nearer the time.

Attendance is by registration only.

Details

Date: Thursday 4th and Friday 5th October 2012
Location: Gatwick Manor, London Road, Lowfield Heath, just south of Gatwick Airport
Cost: £45 (including lunch)

For more information and to register, please see http://www.plasa.org/rdm/

This Developers Conference aims to provide a European forum for manufacturers, designers, consultants and prospective users; and to ensure that the adoption of these new standards achieves desired levels of interoperability and reliability.

The “Plugfest” is a hands-on opportunity for product developers to try their products and code implementations with products from a variety of other manufacturers, with support from their industry peers in an environment that encourages co-operation and improved understanding of the standards, and with the aim of achieving high levels of interoperability.

Typically, engineers participate in these events with the ability to code and debug aspects of their implementations on site, sometimes retreating to their hotel rooms to craft improvements before returning to the “Plugfest” to continue testing.

The sessions, despite their apparent informality, can be a valuable opportunity to learn how not to make the same mistakes, or misguided assumptions, as others may have done.

Participation is by invitation, and limited to registered delegates. The conference is designed to appeal to Lighting Designers, System integrators, Theatre Consultants, Production Electricians, Rental company technical staff and product development engineers. The focus for Thursday will be broad, and designed to appeal to all categories of participant. Friday and Saturday will be orientated towards product development engineers who are either considering or actively implementing these standards.

A single registration fee of UK£45 per person, payable in advance, covers participation and a buffet lunch. Delegates may attend one or more days as they think appropriate. The registration fee is fixed, regardless of the number of days you attend, but you are required to indicate your proposed level of participation in advance.

Full details and information on registration can be found on the PLASA website.

February 26, 2012

ANSI E1.37-1 (Additional Message Sets for RDM – Part 1, Dimmer Message Sets) has recently been published by PLASA.  This new standard is an extension to ANSI E1.20 (RDM) which provides a number of new RDM messages (PIDs) primarily geared towards dimming systems but also includes a variety of general purpose RDM messages that are useful in across a very broad range of products.

The full listing of new messages available and link to purchase ANSI E1.37-1 from the ESTA Foundation can be found at http://www.rdmprotocol.org/whats-next/rdm-additional-message-sets-e1-37-1/

With E1.37-1 now published, work has moved on to BSR E1.37-2 which defines additional RDM messages for remotely configuring network interfaces.  With more and more devices also using network interfaces BSR E1.37-2 provides a means to remotely configure these network settings.  BSR E1.37-2 is now in public review until April 23.  Anyone wishing to review and submit comments during the E1.37-2 Public Review may do so by downloading the draft document and comment review form from PLASA at: http://tsp.plasa.org/tsp/documents/public_review_docs.php

Some of the most important developments in the entertainment production industry in the last five years have been in the area of control and bi-directional communication, including Remote Device Management (RDM), a protocol for communicating bi-directionally between devices in a lighting or control system, Architecture for Control Networks (ACN), a TCP/IP-like protocol for bi-direct…ional communication over Ethernet, and Streaming ACN (sACN), a protocol for streaming DMX control protocol over an ACN network. Plugfest is designed to help implement these protocols in real-world devices in order to create the future of the industry.

Plugfest is a “must-not-miss” event for manufacturers and developers of control protocols and devices that use any of these protocols. The event is free to attend and participate and everyone is invited.
Each January and July, several manufacturers and members of the Control Protocols Working Group convene informally to test their newest firmware with other manufacturers and their gear. They methodically try to “break” their software by interconnecting it with a wide variety of devices and test equipment, which are conveniently brought by various attendees and laid out on a group of conference tables in a suite of the Marriott Solana Hotel in Westlake, Texas, the location of the bi-annual event. When they identify a bug, they can typically fix it on the spot and try it over again until it works properly. They usually work late into the night and begin again early in the morning, fueled by junk food and soft drinks.
The event was originally created to test and improve the Remote Device Management protocol (ANSI E1.20 RDM) but it has expanded to cover all of the CPWG protocols, including the popular ANSI E1.31 Lightweight Streaming Protocol for Transport of DMX over ACN.

Plugfest has grown every year, due to its popularity and success. The next Plugfest is from Friday, January 28 through Sunday, January 30 at the Marriott Solana in Westlake, TX. If you are interested in participating, please contact Scott Blair at sblair@rdmprotocol.org to register. Plugfest is open to all, but, with its growing popularity, registration is advised in order to make space accommodations.