heinz57 Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Hi all, I noticed how the Strand530i and Magic MQ200 have like 6000 plus control channels. Why? Who would want this many control channels. Have you ever used this many channels? To me it might seem a little pointless. But I can kind of see why - to sell more desks probably Thoughts? Cheers, Heinz P.S. Sorry if this is in the wrong section. Mods, feel free to move it if you think it will be better somwhere else Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyld Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Why so many channels? 1 channel is 1 only piece of control. Bog standard moving lights easily use up 30 odd channels each these days. Media servers and LED arrays use a ton more. Until we stop using a "channel" based control system all together, modern desks will need to provide more "pieces" of control. //edit - Yes, I know all control systems are channel based effectively, but you know what I mean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gaffa Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Seconded. EG. 1=Dimmer2=Colour3=Focus4=Pan5=Tiltetc.etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnhuson Posted November 6, 2008 Share Posted November 6, 2008 Whilst perhaps an extreme example of channel consumption, when you consider that a High End Showpix consumes 451 DMX channels in it's extended mode then 6000 suddenly doesn't seem that many. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wol Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 The MagicQ software is the same for all consoles and PC solutions, so its 18 universes (short of 10 thousand channels) whether you have a miniwing, or a MQ300! And the amount of media and LED fixtures nowadays require a heck of a lot of channels. As John has stated there, thats 451 channels per fixture. However this is in full individual control of each LED in the thing (I think, after what I saw at PLASA)! Media servers also take up an awful lot of channels. Have a look at the manual for the Robe DigitalSpot 7000 or something like that. Has 170 channels for basic media control, and theres other servers which still use more. A LED array of 10 by 10 pixels (fairly small), is instantly 300 channels (without a virtual dimmer). 25 by 50 array goes up to 2 and a half universes worth, and so forth. I'm guessing that at some point, a fair few years ago, someone went "512 channels?! Why would you want 512 channels". In the same way with computers people didn't really comprehend how much storage a computer could happily use, and now I'm sitting here with nearly a terabyte of HDD space! I guess if consoles of these days are designed in mind with more channels than currently 'necessary' for most situations, they'll at least still happily support the amount of channels we might end up using in a few years time! my 2p. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Allen Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 This is an excerpt from the ALIA forum ALIA P_C on Bejing Olympics Lighting Fixtures 112 Clay Paky Alpha Wash 980 Martin Mac 2000 Wash 162 Martin Mac 2000 XB Wash 308 Vari*Lite 3500 Spot 316 Vari*Lite 3000 Spot 180 Vari*Lite 3500 Wash 12 High End Show Gun 20 Ushio 2k Xenon Follow Spot 16 Kupo Super Sol 3k Xenon Follow Spot 204 PureLight City Color 80 FineArt Fine2000 Wash 32 FineArt LED Par Can 46 Sliver Star LED bank Lighting Control - grand MA 3 Sessions consisting of two full-size consoles in multi user mode. Two MA Lite consoles acting as remote surfaces for focusing. Session 1 (Red): 15921 Parameters. 834 Fixtures. 14 NSP Session 2 (Green): 13503 Parameters, 884 Fixtures, 16 NSP Session 3 (Blue): 15987 Parameters, 624 Fixtures, 16 NSP each paramater uses at least one channel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Bleasdale Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 Lets not forget the 120 axon media servers and 4 wholehog 3s for control... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heinz57 Posted November 7, 2008 Author Share Posted November 7, 2008 So you guys are saying this many channels is good. In some cases it is just enough. So I suppose having this many channels helps you alot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew C Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 So I suppose having this many channels helps you alot? Only if you need them. If I were in the market for a desk, I'd look at the number of dimmers we have, how many we might squeeze in, and add a fist full for hired movers to do a reasonable show. So 96 ways of dimming, add say 36 for a hired rack, and 90-100 for movers, so something around 250 would do me, in my particular circumstance. If we were then to do something with media servers and dozens of 30+ channel movers, I'd hire a fancy desk (and possibly a programmer, I know the limits of my knowledge) for the event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pattern123 Posted November 7, 2008 Share Posted November 7, 2008 2 DMX Universes is really a basic, small desk these days. 48 Generic channels, a dozen movers, and 20 LED's will eat up most of these pretty rapidly. The more headroom you have, channel wise, the more 'future proof' your desk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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