LSP Update Announcement

Benslights

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totally agree Beacy I have been saying the same thing for the past 2 years. communication is the key.

as work we give a monthly update to our customers and if it just to say "this product has been delayed by 1 month" then all good as our customers know they need to wait or find supply from another Supplier
 

Pircy

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Couldn't agree more with the communication issues. People have been openly searching for answers, updates and genuine service assistance with LSP for months, if not more than a year now. Not just on this forum, but also on DIYC and even on LSP's own forums. There has been so, so little to come from those who run LSP that some of the people that I talk with actually thought, despite the denials, that LSP was out of business. There are a number of programs at the moment that seem to have so much momentum, communication and 'demonstrated' ability, that their users have great confidence that the program 1. will work, & 2. continue to be improved on a regular basis. On all counts, at present, LSP has really been left in their wake.

I used to work in marketing. LSP's marketing has been dismal. I understand that the developers are working to make something spectacular, and it may live up to the standard they have described, but people pay handsomely for their product, and it's never really delivered on what it aspired to be.

Anyone in business knows, people are wary of change, and the best way to avoid the anxiety/fear of change is to take people on the voyage when you make change. Include them so they have the knowledge and emotional investment in what has happened and what is to come. When the reach the journey's destination they can have confidence in the product they will receive.

As a LSP user my whole lighting 'career' (for want of a better word), I couldn't even be sure there was a change was occuring, let alone have any confidence we would reach a satisfactory end point.
 

BradsXmasLights

WiFi Interactive
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Fasteddy said:

As we begin

They really need to get some screen-captured demos happening ASAP on YT/Vimeo so they can prove to the skeptics like me that they really have been doing a re-write all this time. Otherwise they risk even more people jumping ship as we get closer to preparing for this years displays
 

mararunr

Here to learn! (and share)
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Like most people I have money put away for this hobby each year. Since I spent about $300 in the fire sale for LSP last year, I shelled out another $300 this year for software....and ever penny of it went as a donation to the developers working on that free software that has had multiple alpha and beta release now and adds new functionality just about each week. I could have spent that money upgrading LSP - but why? At least I have another year of free updates from LSP so I'm breaking even there.
 

gerry

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Dec 19, 2012
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I have been using LSP -2.8 since I started at the beginning of last year and last year ran my first show with the LSP scheduler.
This year , I decided that I would try the PI and whilst waiting for the LSP upgrade , did a few more sequences , learnt a bit more on the macro effects and finally understood how to get LSP chases copied and pasted correctly thanks to folks on the LSP facebook forum. Learnt how to export from LSP , import into xlights and then convert to output that would run on the PI.

With no sign of the LSP upgrade and with my modest computer (I5 , 8gb) taking longer and longer to seq LSP as I experimented with macros for my 2015 show and added more and more channels , I decided to look at alternate sequencers. I tried Vixen and then started with xlights4 about a month ago.

I found xlights (integrated with nutcracker now) quite easy to use , and there are numerous videos (> 350) on different components.
The new version , with a grid like front end is quite new (from xlights 4.0 onwards) and is still very much in Beta.
The approach has been different to that taken by the LSP folks ie the software continues to evolve with each release whilst bugs are being fixed at the same time.

For example , the ability to copy and paste or just got added in this month and Undo got added in this week.
But the rendering of each effect is very fast , saving a seq uses multi thread and takes a few seconds only and there are ready made effects (with defaults) that one can just drag and drop on the grid and have it instantly display the result. Best of all it runs on my even more modest I3 laptop and therefore my train commute gets more productive.
It also runs on a MAC.

There is also the ability to import LOR , Vixen and LSP sequences into xlights

Previously LSP sequences were imported as images that could not then be easily edited , but since the last week , functionality has been rolled out to enable LSP sequences to be imported and edited - thought this is still being worked on.

Until two weeks ago , crashes very regularly occurred , but these are soon fixed by the developers as identified - in many cases multiple releases a week and some cases there were even two releases on the same day.

As soon as the new LSP is being made available , I will no doubt have a look at it too.

But , I am one of those folks who prefer to use the winter months here to get some sequences under my belt, so will be using xlights4 with the PI and the BBB for this years show.

Most probably , I will import all my previous LSP sequences and not change them , but then add new effects using xlights4 for the new channels (eg mega tree , spinners ) and have some sequences completely done in xlights4.

Just thought I'd share my observations.
 

AAH

I love blinky lights :)
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A week ago in a post I said that it was horrendous news that LSP was "expected" to release in September. Well today I popped over to LOR to have a look at S4 which has been in open beta since March. In the last 3 months the LOR S4 beta has been through 34 releases. The good news is that provided the even more complicated LSP works on a similar sort of release schedule after it gets released to the public as LOR has been doing then sometime during December they should be getting a fair portion of the bugs out. Did I say an expected release in September was horrendous?
 

lithgowlights

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The alpha seems to be extremely stable and the features work well with very few bugs, so I can see a few public beta releases of LSP, but dont expect more than a months worth of updates. Having said that I am actually disappointed it was not released in Feb as was initially rumoured
 

multicast

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lithgowlights said:
The alpha seems to be extremely stable and the features work well with very few bugs, so I can see a few public beta releases of LSP, but dont expect more than a months worth of updates. Having said that I am actually disappointed it was not released in Feb as was initially rumoured


Love your sig.
 

Beacy

It's so much better on the dark side
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Must say I disppointed that LSP have chosen to ignore this post, yes they have their own site but as ACL has a huge member base and a large amount of their existing a potential client base they have not posted on here anything at all, not sure if it is aggorance or stupitity at this point I would suggest that silence is not the best course of action
 

gerry

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Beacy said:
Must say I disppointed that LSP have chosen to ignore this post, yes they have their own site but as ACL has a huge member base and a large amount of their existing a potential client base they have not posted on here anything at all, not sure if it is aggorance or stupitity at this point I would suggest that silence is not the best course of action

Hi Beacy,

I think that that is why Eddy posted the update here. I am sure that there are some at LSP that care and perhaps the folks there , are working hard to get it out, so some niceties tend to get overlooked - lets hope that the Beta comes out swinging..
 

arw01

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Been some family issues for the gents programming too, and who knows what the nda's have in them. They might be going after the high end software and want to have a jump on them for at least a year or two.
 

Benslights

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yeah i found it hard to find the announcement on the lsp website also so im glad it got posted here by Ed also
 

fasteddy

I have C.L.A.P
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Im sure LSP will raise the bar once again and leave LOR behind. Good things do take time. LSP is being written for the long term and this year it will be a little late which is regrettable and the programmers know this as they do shows themselves. So a delayed release is not what was wanted, but im sure it was the right decision
Many of the features that we all enjoy now days in other software packages came from LSP, so I believe LSP will continue to lead with great ideas and features that others will want to incorporate into their software into the future once LSP is released.
And to Alan, remember that the LOR update was supposed to be for last Christmas, so its no wonder they have released early this year because they also missed their deadlines which is very common in the world of software and to have 34 releases tells me it must have still been more an Alpha than a beta when it was released for public testing.
And the community based software packages are in constant beta because they have a release nearly every week, which is an acceptable model for a community based software package but not for a commercial software package. Thats why LOR software is still S3 and has not been officially released yet for sale on its website as its effectively still being developed.

In the end the developers of LSP are doing their best to bring new innovative software that will push the boundaries of our hobby once again, regrettably this is taking longer than was originally planned.
 

caffeine

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Fasteddy said:
And to Alan, remember that the LOR update was supposed to be for last Christmas, so its no wonder they have released early this year because they also missed their deadlines which is very common in the world of software and to have 34 releases tells me it must have still been more an Alpha than a beta when it was released for public testing.
I remember that FAR too well.


As I commence 2015 planning (late for most, WAY early for me historically 11th hour) having lived through the lack of S4 delivery last year I was disappointed with the end outcome.
The interface hasn't advanced enough for me to warrant my investment in it, especially as whilst the pixel editor is a needed addition other components like SuperStar pricing and the visualiser haven't kept pace with the changing displays.


As such I am now 'in the market'to choose a replacement. That makes it problematic as whilst I agree sequencing can wait until October for me, learning a new package and sequencing may not. If it is, indeed, a ground up rewrite then I presume existing users are in the same boat as well.


Also having lived through that LOR release issue last year I naturally have trouble committing to that potentially same experience. It would not take much of an over-run to render it useless for 2015.


I'm probably going to have to try and work with xLights at this stage, and hope that LSP gets delivered on time and is significant enough for me to jump in. I'm keen for all advances in this space as I still thing noone has nailed the sequencing component yet and hope that I will be wowed later this year and forced to jump.
 
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