Projector control

[gafferted]

The Problem:

I'm looking after a theatre show involving images (moving and still) and would like if possible to operate the shutter in the projector as part of either the lighting or media cue stacks.

 

Lighting will be magicq and media will be from Multiplay, although since Multiplay has limited video capability and afaik doesn't handle still images, visuals will probably be from Screenmonkey, midi triggered from Multiplay.

 

The projector in the venue is a Panasonic PT-D4000. Looking at the manual the serial port doesn't seem to support a shutter command so PJlink appears to be the only way.

From looking on the internet - sending PJlink commands via Telnet from Multiplay is not an option as the projector won't keep the connection open for long enough.

As usual, it's an amateur production so budget is very limited!

 

The question:

Does anyone know of a midi or Artnet triggerable PJlink app for Windows?

Surely this has been done before - does anyone have any other suggestions?

Next time I'm in the venue I'll try the Multiplay/Telnet thing but as I said I don't hold out much hope there. I might also try a script with tst10 to see if connecting and sending a command straight away works.

If it can't be done I'll just have to use to web server interface to control the shutter which is fine, but it would be easier to incorporate the shutter open/closing into the cue stack if possible.

Thanks in anticipation

Eddie

[dbuckley]

I found the RS232 manual here (horrible URL via google, may not work!)

 

It says (section 2.5, page 6/51) shutter on/off is supported over RS232.

 

My beat up old Panny projector has

 

shutter_open = $02 OSH:1 $03

shutter_close = $02 OSH:0 $03

 

And the PT-D4000 looks similar, but with a longer string: $02 ADZZ:OSH: <1 or 0> $03

 

Having said that: On my Panny the shutter is nothing of the sort, it is a "switch the video off but leave the light path intact and running", so you get a dull grey screen rather than a black.

[Dave m]

What about a separate DMX standalone shutter?They're about £200

[gafferted]

Thanks David that's really useful.

I also didn't know how to send ascii codes as part of the serial string - I presume the $ is the key.

What's the syntax regarding spaces?

If I put this

$02ADZZ;OSH:0$03

in the Multiplay serial cue should it work or do I need spaces separating the hex codes from the normal characters?

 

ps I think you may have missed the subtle mixture of colons and semicolons in the manual?

 

one more question - in your experience roughly how far in terms of cable length will RS232 survive - is 10/15 metres realistic?

 

pps this projector does properly black out with the shutter - I've used it before but controlled it via the web server.

[dosxuk]

one more question - in your experience roughly how far in terms of cable length will RS232 survive - is 10/15 metres realistic?

 

It doesn't say what baud rate the projector uses in that manual, but at low speeds (less than 100k), I've had no problem with RS232 over a couple of hundred metres.

[dbuckley]

I also didn't know how to send ascii codes as part of the serial string - I presume the $ is the key.

Hold the bus there a moment!!!

 

What I illustrated was what the byte codes need to be to send the command; how you actually encode them in your application I have no idea. The spaces are just to make the bytes clearer, and aren't part of the command. So, as you note:

 

$02ADZZ;OSH:0$03

 

Is the honey, where $03 means the byte of value 03 hexadicimal. How Multiplay enmcodes that I have no idea, it might be a dollar sign either side, or C format like \0x03 or octal \003 or use a percent sign or something. Some RTFMing required, I'm afraid.

 

ps I think you may have missed the subtle mixture of colons and semicolons in the manual?

It's entirely possible, I just typed the stuff from the PDF manual rather than copy/paste. I do, however, know the stings for my projector work :) And I've just looked again, and yes, the hex codes for the two puntuation things differ.

 

one more question - in your experience roughly how far in terms of cable length will RS232 survive - is 10/15 metres realistic?

No problemo at that distance.

 

pps this projector does properly black out with the shutter - I've used it before but controlled it via the web server.

Nice. My Panny projector is old and a piece of junk :)

[AHYoung]

panasonic are very consistent with their control codes so OSH 0 and OSH 1 will definitely open and close your shutter on a p4000 unit. The baud rates will be 9600 so you will have no problem running reliably over a long distance. The shutters a snap to black and slightly laggy, so your better fading to black then closing the shutter when you are there and vice versa, on the newer units the shutter can be set to fade smoothly and theres also artnet control, but not on a p4000 im afraid.

[gafferted]

Thanks again David.

 

Right so does anyone know how to send get Multiplay to send the STX and ETX codes (0x02 and 0x03)?

 

As far as I can see the manual doesn't mention it, but, looking at the info for Serial Buttons from the same author...

 

 

"Enter the desired serial data in either decimal

or hex format with a space between the bytes.

Decimal example:

.1 .15 .128 .255

Hex example:

0x01 0x0f 0x80 0xff

To send ASCII data, simply enclose it in square brackets.

Example: [Hello]

The only restriction is that the ASCII can't contain spaces."

 

I'll try this when I can get to the projector.

[J Pearce]

I tried getting multiplay to automate the shutter on a Sanyo projector and had to give up. David's equally useful serial buttons did it just fine, but multiplay couldn't.

[gafferted]

cracked it

 

there's a useful command line pjlink tool here, with a brief explanation of the syntax needed

 

Then use a run cue in multiplay to open the shutter

 

command: C:\Programs\pjlink.exe - or wherever you've put pjlink.exe

parameter: 192.168.1.8 4352 panasonic %1AVMT 30

 

or obviously %1AVMT 31 to close it

[David Duffy]

These should work:

 

shutter_open:

0x02 [OSH:1] 0x03

 

shutter_close:

0x02 [OSH:0] 0x03

 

The 0x prefixed items are hex codes. The ASCII parts are enclosed with square brackets.

 

You can mix the syntax. Make sure you leave spaces between the various 0x and [] elements though.

[gafferted]

Thanks David - for the reply and for a very useful piece of software.

 

Eddie

 

ps If you do have time to think about adding the ability to show stills as well as video in a future release it would be even more useful!

[dwright2104]

We tried using the internal shutter on a projector and found it just want very quick at responding to serial commands. The remote was a lot better but still very inconvenient,

 

We ended up hireing a DMX shutter at last minute. Best solution. Wasn't expensive either.