ECG hyperDMX - the spec

[ɟɐsʇǝppʎ]

Do I understand correctly, normal DMX equipment can not be used on the Hyper DMX "Universe"?

Correct, Hyper DMX was created in collaboration with Ed, Phil and Tabor as a means to get many more channels out of the TP3244 controller, this only works with the TP3244. With standard DMX equipment you will then have to run a DMX output of the ECG-DR4 as a standard DMX universe. So basically the ECG-DR4 follows the DMX standard but on top of that it has Hyper DMX that works with the TP3244 to enable upto 4 universes on 1 ECG-DR-4 output to allow the TP3244 to run 4 universes. So effectively you could have 1 x ECG-DR4 with 4 x TP3244 all running in hyper DMX to give you a total of 16 DMX universes.

The best analogy I can think of is the current DMX / Renard mix installation some ppl have.  If you use HyperDMX and plain old DMX, you will need to in effect use two separated networks.
The benefit of Hyper DMX in jamming more data down a single P2P connection.  The saving is great particularly if you have an "all" hyper DMX equipment installation.  Other than the obvious savings of several lengths of Cat5 and several DMX dongles ( ignore the type at this stage), am I missing any other savings?

The ECG-DR4 effectively gives you 4 DMX/Renard/HyperDMX outputs, you can configure any of these outputs how you want. In standard DMX mode you will have 4 DMX outputs from the 1 ECG-DR4. The ECG-DR4 is a E1.31 ethernet controller and inputs the E1.31 and then spits out either DMX, Renard or hyper DMX. The value here is both the configuration options from the one unit and the fact that 4 x standard DMX universes will set you back around $120 ~ $130, when you consider the price per universe thats a lot cheaper than anything else out there for DMX universes. The other advantage is that you can use more than 1 ECG-DR4 on the same E1.31 network and you don't have to have these near your computer like a standard USB DMX dongle.

[mschell]

And just to clarify, it's not necessary to run all 4 outputs from the ECG-DR4 with HyperDMX.  You could run one output in "normal" DMX mode, and the other 3 in HyperDMX mode.

The real difference, other than the unique start codes to separate universes, is the speed at which the data is sent down the wire to the devices.  HyperDMX "speeds up" the timing, to send more in the same time interval. 

The DMX standard has specific timings.  These are violated by HyperDMX, and a normal DMX device may or may not respond to the faster timing, which means they are not compatible on the same output.

For those of us with the 8 way ECG-DMXRen8, we can output more DMX universes on more outputs, but there's a bandwidth limitation maximum that still is in effect, so we can't run more than 4 HyperDMX outputs at full speed.

[JTR]

Just goes to show that I came into this game a little too late. All my great ideas have been stolen from me even before I knew I had them! 

Just remember though. I had WARP-13 back in 1999.

I have been playing around with multiple universes and 1M baud rates and doing all sorts of math with my mock-ups.  Not too seriously though as to be honest E1.31 is the way things are going to go. Still just like the LIN bus still has its place under CAN, DMX/RDM will for a long time yet still exist both natively and as a sub layer to E1.31.

-Jim