Ilda Digital Network (IDN)

[mixedgas]

For those of us who work in the odd professional venue where ILDA cables are frowned upon, or need a long distance link, this is a Godsend..

Dexlogic, do you have an APP that will record the packets and store them on the PC?



Steve

[JohnYayas]

Ethernet makes perfect sense. First and foremost, it is THE way to send data these days so that is where you will see the immediate improvements in transmission technology. Not only that but things like routers and switches are commodity items now. If we get to the day where every projector comes standard with an IDN adapter inside all of those proprietary DACs can be thrown in the trash. They'll go the way of the SoundBlaster. The cost will come down because there will be competition from anyone who wants a piece of the pie. IDN adapters will on par with the DMX show cards that are thrown in with a pair of scanners these days.

Ethernet can be a pain. I have witnessed the frustration of trying to get a QM2000.net box working. But, that's old technology and it doesn't have to be that way. The days I go to BestBuy and buy a networked printer, plug it in, and I am up and printing.

[flecom]

1) The standard is open, the custom implementation is not.

2) This is not about FB4 vs IDN. That would be like FB3 vs Ilda cable. The FB3 uses the Ilda cable to work, you're nothing without it. Only has Pangolin decided to make the "FB3" uncompatible with the modern version of an "Ilda cable", estranging their whole user base from the many benefits that IDN compatible systems will have and making many projectors fundamentally uncompatible.

3) You don't need an ADC for IDN as your computer can send out ethernet signals directly. That's the whole point. An ADC is only required if "a" manufacturer decides to not support IDN (but their customers are usually used to spending lots of money anyway).

4) It is currently possible to make existing software compatible with IDN by using a modified driver. Including but not limited to LSX, LDS, Dynamics, LazyMame, ZoofPack, in short everything that uses an Easylase driver. In all fairness I haven't seen that driver myself yet but others can testify for it.

5) Not using network in the entertainment business was already frowned upon five years ago. How old is art-net again?

maybe and maybe not... art-net is neat and all but I still run DMX cables... anyway, about lasers.... how many people use pangolin vs something else in real show/production environments? I am glad those other things exist since a market NEEDS competition and options, and some of it is darn cool (LSX abstracts still blow me away) but I just find that for what *I* need to do pangolin is my best option... if pangolin supported IDN that would be incredible... but I am not going to hold my breath since I don't think it gets that cold in hell

The standard is open and you're free to do your own implementation.
And - You will have to use a DAC somewhere between your PC and the laser.
My ADC is just a possible migration path for legacy systems.

BTW: IDN is not limited to networks. It's built around messages that can be transported how ever and stored where ever you like.

does it have any encryption? could I use wireshark capture all the packets from the ADC and spit them back out to the DAC?

[JohnYayas]

Pangolin will support IDN if it becomes a standard and everyone else starts using it. It will certainly take awhile before IDN is common place but it has start somewhere and at sometime. There is no reason for you to drop what you are doing and hop on the IDN train since you are a consumer. Right now it is time for industry members to take care of business and let you know when it is ready. Continue to do what you are doing. No problem.

There are many ways to do encryption but as mentioned before, the transport mechanism has not been defined. So, yes, it can certainly have encryption and it can be an industry standard encryption that is known to be secure.

[edison]

Fiesta and moncha are both ethernet and easy to install in projectors. But as we all know there is no real competition in lasersoftware world. The professional company,s use pangolin and every china box/toy comes with an fb3. The guys that bought that same chinabox and really get addicted and eventually doing lasershows every weekend will keep using pangolin since they are working with it right from the start. Recently phoenix was bought by pangolin and eventually phoenix will disappear from the market. Riya has a awesome dac that can be installed in a projector wich solves everything. But it doesn,t work with software from pangolin so hardly anyone uses it.

I noticed that Dirk spitz from dexlogic is one of to contributors/supporters of this new standard wich i find a bit suspicious since he is also selling the products for it wich in my book is a conflict of interest. Its like supporting a law for some safety equipment and sell the equipment at the same time. Don,t get me wrong here its good that someone is involved that has a wide knowledge about it but it just rings a bell with me. Maybe its just me When it becomes a standard is up to the industry or maybe even more how popular it is amongst users. I believe that john yayas is totally right, ethernet is the future for connecting and sending data.

[JohnYayas]

Pangolin is a small company and small companies don't last forever. Eventually Bill will retire or the company will go bankrupt or who knows what. It isn't set in stone that Pangolin will always be the leader and it would be foolish for the rest of the industry to just sit by and do nothing in the meantime. Besides, IDN isn't about Pangolin. It's about solving a problem that has existed for a long time in a way that will benefit everyone, not just a single company.

The people who create industry standards are almost always players in the industry. They are the experts in the field so their input is the most valuable. Microsoft Visual C++ team members are on the ISO C++ standard committee. When I worked in semiconductor automation we had employees on the SEMI standards committee. That's just how it is and that is why there is a committee where all the member companies have a chance to voice their opinion and vote. There is absolutely nothing suspicious about Dirk being a contributor/supporter. From what has been said, Pangolin has been invited to participate but has chosen to do their own thing.

[colouredmirrorball]

... art-net is neat and all but I still run DMX cables...

At least DMX is digital In that respect we're 25 years behind! After all, all DMX equipment converts those digital signals to analog somehow... maybe not with the 100 kHz 12 bit precision we do but still...

does it have any encryption? could I use wireshark capture all the packets from the ADC and spit them back out to the DAC?

Encryption would be defined by the transport method which is not defined at this stage. I would say connecting an ADC to a current generation DAC would yield a similar result. We've been able to capture the output from any DAC and record to ADAT for how long now? Is it really an issue?

Fiesta and moncha are both ethernet and easy to install in projectors. But as we all know there is no real competition in lasersoftware world. The professional company,s use pangolin and every china box/toy comes with an fb3. The guys that bought that same chinabox and really get addicted and eventually doing lasershows every weekend will keep using pangolin since they are working with it right from the start.

The thing is, there shouldn't be a reason for those guys to not use Pangolin, if they ever wanted to use somthing that works with IDN. What if somebody writes something really useful, only to see his work never get used because Pangolin doesn't care enough about it? It happened a lot and will happen again and again in the future. I guess, as JohnYayas said, the only way to change this is to just make IDN the industry standard and if the Pangolin users realize what they're missing, they might demand IDN support.

I noticed that Dirk spitz from dexlogic is one of to contributors/supporters of this new standard wich i find a bit suspicious since he is also selling the products for it wich in my book is a conflict of interest. Its like supporting a law for some safety equipment and sell the equipment at the same time. Don,t get me wrong here its good that someone is involved that has a wide knowledge about it but it just rings a bell with me. Maybe its just me When it becomes a standard is up to the industry or maybe even more how popular it is amongst users. I believe that john yayas is totally right, ethernet is the future for connecting and sending data.

Just a minor correction. He's not selling "the" Ilda approved standard equipment. He's selling derivates of his hard work. Everybody can develop their own controllers, in fact you can contact him and can use his designs under license so you can get started right away if you wanted to do that. And again IDN is not a total way of communication but a protocol. With a firmware upgrade, the Etherdream, Fiesta.net and FB4 could probably read it, if their processor/memory is sufficient.

The only conflict of interest here could be that he's the first to have stuff ready to ship, but with the current state of IDN, that shouldn't be a big of a deal. Nobody is using it yet so nobody will be interested. It might even take a year before the bugs are sorted out and the first compatible software comes out. Plenty of time for others to make their own things compatible.

[DexLogic]

For those of us who work in the odd professional venue where ILDA cables are frowned upon, or need a long distance link, this is a Godsend..

Dexlogic, do you have an APP that will record the packets and store them on the PC?

Steve

I do have a very basic demo app in java (I actually use StageFeed ISP as a NF Oscilloscope with it). Although - this is quite easy since IDN is built around messages. All you need is copy the messages from network to file. There will be a file format standard that introduces some headers and indexing such that locating inside the file can be done easily.

[DexLogic]

does it have any encryption? could I use wireshark capture all the packets from the ADC and spit them back out to the DAC?

Hmmm - what would you need encryption for?

It can be encrypted in some ways - although it is not planned currently.
Generally - I'm not payed - and people that ask for encryption like to protect something they like to make money with.
So - Why can't people making money raise funds or implement the encryption? I'm open in all directions. In case you like to take part - let's talk.

There's other issues as well.
The way IDN is planned regarding networking is that filters can be used.
These filters can be switchers (like used when multiple show systems like to access a set of projectors) or transformations for color space and geometry and safety systems that may monitor the audience and E-Stop and record everything for reference in case of legal issues. All this will get hard with encryption.

[DexLogic]

I noticed that Dirk Apitz from dexlogic is one of to contributors/supporters of this new standard wich i find a bit suspicious since he is also selling the products for it wich in my book is a conflict of interest. Its like supporting a law for some safety equipment and sell the equipment at the same time. Don,t get me wrong here its good that someone is involved that has a wide knowledge about it but it just rings a bell with me. Maybe its just me When it becomes a standard is up to the industry or maybe even more how popular it is amongst users. I believe that john yayas is totally right, ethernet is the future for connecting and sending data.

Well - I can't see the conflict.
I did the main work regarding the standard. I did a proof of concept implementation in Java to be sure that there is a good object oriented representation and a reference implementation on hardware to be sure that it can be done with good performance. Plus - wouldn't there be hardware - who would care? Is this suspicious? Well - you can do your own implementation. I doubt that mine will ever pay off - but would it be reprehensible to have some return?