Xlights and FPP

[Juddge]

So as I was new last year , I used xscheduele to run my static lights from 6pm -10pm
This year I’ve added more , but was wondering about the master remote option for FPP
How does this work ?
Does the master need to be a controller ? Or can it just be a Pi with FPP or even a NUC with Debian and FPP

And are there any major advantages of using FPP as master as opposed to Xschedule

 

[MikeKrebs]

No "computer" required. A RPi with FPP usually saves energy (planet do-gooder) and therefore money. FPP overall is way more useful than computer running xSchedule. It is really easy to configure with xLights. Not quite xSchedule easy but very easy. If you are just looking for a player, a 3B+ with FPP is an efficient player with plenty of power and is less expensive and less energy hungry and less heat produced than a rPI 4 or 5.

 

[Skymaster]

but was wondering about the master remote option for FPP

Master (Player)/ Remote is for when you are running FPP based controllers. In this case, each FPP Based controller (Remote) has a copy of the sequences running on it. The Player sends a "start" and "stop" command as well as "keep in time" packets to the remotes.
The main advantage is to reduce network bandwidth; and is ideal for Wifi-connected remotes; and large panel based matrixes. If you've got any other type of controller (Falcon, Advatek, Hinks, etc) then you still need to stream network lighting data across to those anyway.

I have a number of FPP based controllers but don't bother with it; my show player sends DDP data out to all controllers. Much more simplified as far as having to upload sequences to only one location. All the other configuration for Network Lighting data (e1.31/ddp) is required on FPP anyway if you're using it as a proxy for Output to Lights to work from xLights.

xSchedule can also be a FPP Master/Player - so if you are more comfortable with xSchedule from a scheduling perspective; you can still use that, and just keep the FPP-based controllers as Remotes.