General FPP config

spaulgal

spaulgal

Apprentice elf
Joined
Oct 14, 2022
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Last year we ran FPP for the first time and it was quite successful, but this year we are adding synced music and we can use some input on how to configure the system.

We will have an FPP Master running several controllers in bridge mode as well as about a dozen FPP remotes. How would we best integrate music playback into the FPP setup? There will be 4 music tracks. Loop 1 (30 minutes), Loop 2 (32 minutes), Tree lighting (2 minutes), Peace on earth (5 minutes). Each of these music tracks will have its own corresponding lightshow.

I assume the default choice is to put the music on it's own FPP instance and set it as a remote?... I wonder if this is the right choice because I've seen where my other remotes have stuttered in the past while (presumably) trying to regain sync with the master. It seems that would be worse for music than for lights.

Thanks in advance-- we just have never done synced music.

I do understand how the naming conventions work.
 
All you need to do is add the audio track to the xLights sequence and then using xLights - Tools - FPP connect upload it while making sure to include media to your FPP master. When the sequence plays the music will also play. At least that is how I do it. :D
 
Every sync packet received by a remote "pulls it back in line" which causes the slight shift in audio as they all play at ever so slightly different speeds.
This would occur no matter what's happening on that remote - even if it's just audio..
So, music should only be played from the master Player, due to these sync issues.

Distribute your audio from the master in a usual audio sense- either FM transmission, or cables out to remote speakers/amplifiers.
 
That makes sense. The master it is for the music.

Has anyone done the math on how many pixels the master can drive? My master is currently providing DDP show data to 17500 RGB pixels plus I'll now be adding music and whatever overhead is added by providing sync data to the remotes.
My master is a Pi4.
More than half of the 17.5k pixels are 2 matrixes. If it makes sense I can put a remote in front of those.
What do you guys think?
 
You'll be fine. That number of pixels is quite small when you consider other people's shows that run larger numbers.

I don't have any empirical data, however in 'controller mode' the BBB's max out driving around 80k pixels due to the CPU limits on incoming packet processing. I would imagine that sending the data out is very similar in requirements.
The Pi 3 & 4's have much more guts behind them and are multi-core, so I'd be surprised if you can't send out data for 100k pixels.

As for multisync data, this is only 1 packet sent every 1 second - it's multicasted so it's crazy low overhead sending that.
 
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