Embedded Show Computer Working!

anon

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Dec 30, 2011
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I've written some software for an embedded computer that lets me run an LSP sequence to an E1.31 device.


The idea is that come show time I will do away with the LSP scheduler and show PC. The benefits are many:
- No LSP scheduler (if it screws up I've only got my own code to blame and CAN FIX IT).
- No laptop/PC necessary
- Consumes only a few watts
- Easily mountable in an enclosure
- Can do admin tasks remotely given it is an ethernet device.
- No reason why it can't play show audio as well (I don't have a need for audio so haven't done that just yet).


It takes in a conductor sequence exported from LSP. My app re-encodes the file into a native format optimizing for playback speed and size. It could take in any file, as long as the format is known to convert it to the native format.


The video below is only using one universe out of my Carol Of The Bells sequence (210 channels), connected to an ECGP12-R and W2811 strip.


If there is interest I'd be looking to provide these as complete units which would mean spending a lot more time developing it into a finished product with a web front end to upload and schedule the sequences.


http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t182/mdoecke/VIDEO0041_zps381f91d4.mp4
 

SmartAlecLights

Im a SmartAlec what can i say!
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all that from the 'raspberrypi' as a e1.31 controller.. what a great idea..
if you can get the sound bit working there could be big intrest..

any idea how many pixels the raspberrypi cpu can handle?

i would be very intrested in the project
 

Bill Ellick

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NY
Nice job.
And so begins the world of distributed computer display systems!
I can just see having several of these in a display and just sending out command strings to each for different areas of a display. Could make some very interesting ways of doing displays possible with this.


I am interested in seeing more of what this is capable of as well.
 

anon

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Adelaide
I'll start looking into the sound playback. Initial investigation shows that it shouldn't be too hard at all, at least with wavs, mp3s might be a bit more work.


To be honest I wouldn't have a clue how much this can handle, it's too high level to start looking at clock cycles. This debug build is barely (if it all) registering any CPU usage. Some quick profiling shows that I've got plenty of head room to retrieve more data (I don't think I'm getting past the resolution of the timer!), so I think it will come down to how quick the data can be pushed out over ethernet. I'll dodgy up 16K channels which is the limit of a conductor sequence file and see how it copes.


I've had some thoughts about distributed playback if the unit's could cope with big display sizes and more than one was needed to get the throughput. The 2 options would be using NTP to sync the times very accurately, but the better option would be having a master and the rest slaves with the master queuing up a sequence on the slaves. From what I've done thus far, again this would be a small step.
 

anon

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Dec 30, 2011
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Adelaide
smartalec said:
if you can get the sound bit working there could be big intrest..


Sounds is now working....and not as hard as I thought.


Currently playing my 210 channels with real time mp3 decoding and playback utilizing 6% CPU.
 

AAH

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Sounds good but as it's been said before. Pictures/video or it hasn't happened.
 

anon

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Dec 30, 2011
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Adelaide
For some reason I can't get some good scaling of channels, I think there are some quirks between the way I'm sending data and the ECGP12R.


Having said that 210 channels and no MP3 playback left 49.5ms of breathing space between 50ms frames. ~1800 channels and mp3 playback leaves 48ms. I can't see large displays worrying this little guy.


Anywho the core is there for a show computer, next stop will be cleaning this up a bit and then onto the scheduling engine.


Now I have something to show, I'll be at the mini :)
 
G

GoofyGuy

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