Features to improve the life of an LD

[RAW Lighting Power]

I already own a Fat Frog and a Leap Frog and I have just purchased and toured a Mambo Frog. Although the desk is on the whole very good, I have the following few suggestions for your consideration. (Apologies if I am duplicating anyone else's wishes, but I guess more votes for things makes them more likely to happen!)

 

1 ) When running theatre style shows on the playback X, a count down of how long the cue has to run would be very helpful possibly ending in a "Complete" message.

 

2 ) Although the Fat Frog through to the Bull Frog has the ability to patch multiple fixture, the Mambo Frog is lacking in this aspect. I regularly ran out of fixture buttons on tour due to trying to patch one parcan per fixture.

 

3 ) There is a home function on the desk which I find very useful. However a couple of extra of features would be useful when working with moving light rigs. A head reset function would be nice. Certain moving lights (Techno Beams, Macs etc) can be told to reset from the desk by outputting a combination of channels at certain levels. Suggest maybe a combination of "F4" and "Home". Similarly a function for "Lamp On" would be nice, possibly "F3" and "Home".

 

4 ) I agree with the other users that having the strobe function in Beamshape is not always the most useful. If there was some way of assigning an LTP channel as a 2nd Brightness attribute it would make more sense. At present if I select strobe, it will affect my gobo selection which isn't helpful.

 

5 ) I'm not sure how you could implement this, but there needs to be some way in the patch set up of outputting channels. Many times I go into theatre and you ask which channels are for example the Red Cyc Wash to be told "Oh they're somewhere between 85 and 97" That means I have to patch it to 85, come all the way out saving the show, exit super user and push the fader up only to find that it isn't 85. So we repeat the process until it appears half an hour later at 95!!! There needs to be a function where you can just type in a channel number and press "Home" and the channel will output live.

 

6 ) It would be nice if Backspace worked when labelling cues etc when you make a mistake typing instead of having to press the up arrow.

 

7 ) A "Back" feature would be very nice in Playback X

 

8 ) A Beat function as per the Sirius consoles would be useful

 

9 ) It would be helpful if I could change the speed of a chase running by changing the rate pot

 

10 ) I agree with all those who have asked for fixture editing on the desk. The sirius managed it and it was one of the most useful features of any console I have ever used. If I am in the middle of a field doing a festival, chances are I don't have a PC. Use a laptop you may say, but my laptop only writes CD-R, it doesn't have a floppy drive!

 

11 ) A Printer port for printing cue lists and a Ethernet port so I can connect it to my laptop would be wonderful.

 

12 ) On the Fat - Bull range, the ability to use the flash buttons to select generic channels and edit levels on the wheels would be nice again as per the Sirius 500. This might lead to being able to edit a group of generic channels brightnesses in one go rather than channel by channel which is time consuming.

 

13 ) Finally Can't we have Frog Run back on the desks?

 

I am hoping to take the Mambo Frog out to Middle East with me at the end of the month. I am going to need the multiple patch function by then otherwise I shall have to resort to my trusty Sirius 500. (Why did they get discontinued? A Sirius 1000 would have been a much better next move!!!)

[NZ]

K-Nine: I have added my comments in this post where appropriate:

 

Hi

 

A long list!!! Will try and go throught them in a sane way :wink: First off thanks for the support!

 

1) Countdown on playback, will put on the list for possible upgrades.

This has already been requested in this forum, CLICK HERE

 

2) Mambo Frog patching, good point, will talk to the software guys.

At present it is only possible to patch generic channels to multiple DMX addresses (duplicates). Fixtures (whether simple parcans or more complex scanners or moving heads) cannot be patched to more than one DMX address on any of the desks in the Frog Series. This is something we may wish to consider for future updates - Frog Reference 5463.

 

3) This is probably possible in some way. I am not sure how we would implement as we are using the F keys for some things in the next upgrade. I usually program a Cue that has the functions that you want...Yes I know you need the parameters and their levels.

Fixture Reset has been raised on a number of occasions in the past and is not a trivial matter due to the fact that different manufacturers use totally different mechanisms to carry out the reset function. Some mechanisms involve several channels and/or times, so it is not simply a matter of setting channel x to y %.

 

4) Not sure how to solve this one at present. Interesting idea of having an LTP parameter in Brightness. Will see if we can change the software but my gut says this will be a major issue. I look forward to K9's pointed comments!

The way that the fixture personality data is defined at the moment means that a fixture can only have a single brightness parameter.

Brightness parameters are always processed as HTP; colour,beamshape and position parameters are always processed as LTP.

There have been requests for both additional HTP (brightness) parameters for fixtures and the ability to put LTP parameters in the Brightness attribute. Both of these would require changes in the desk software and the fixture editing utilities.

By adding more HTP parameters/fixture, the potential increase in processor load may well be significant.

There are also other isssues to be considered re submasters and SX buttons as to how additional parameters in brightness are handled in terms of their outputs (HTP or LTP).

Therefore , I believe that NZ's gut is correct

 

5) I think that this is probably going to be a lot harder to implement than you may think. K9 can no doubt be more specific about how the patching function works.

I think something similar has been suggested on the Illusion forum. Assuming we are looking at individual generic channels here, perhaps we could look into the possibility of adding an 'output' function when patching the generic channels to the DMX outputs enabling you to flash the DMX channel ?

 

6) The whole use of the keyboard is being reviewed in the next update.

 

7) Back maybe

Is this a "Go Previous" type of thing :?:

 

8 ) Beat is being added to the next upgrade

 

9) In the next upgrade.

 

10) Being reviewed

 

11) This is not an easy upgrade as it would mean changes to metal work but will be done on any new desks that we are doing.

 

12) I am afraid the whole concept of the desk is very different to Sirius 500 and I am not sure this is possible.

 

13) Frog Run is on the desks, there was one version of software which it was left out of but is there in current versions.

 

As to Sirius 500, if it had of been as well accepted as Frog has been it would possibly still be around in a different version. Unfortunately outside of a very small loyal band of followers it was not shall we say one of our all time best sellers! Due to the hardware and firmware platforms it was built on it also become very expensive to upgrade and maintain. Frog on the other hand has been very successful which means we are able to continue supporting it on a regular basis with software and we will use it as a platform to build Frog Two on.

[Pipo]

Tell me about FrogII!!!!!!!!

[NZ]

Hi

 

Frog Two is a little way away. I was more trying to explain why Sirius was discontinued. We do have ideas for Frog two and will post this as we develop the idea.

[RAW Lighting Power]

Thanks for the response. I shall wait for the more pointed comments on the technicalities of programming.

 

Do you know when the next upgrade will be available. My next big job is lighting a circus show in the middle east at the start of february. Do you think the duplicate fixtures feature will be available by then.

 

PS Say thanks to Claire for sorting out the press interview in Toronto - Which publication will it appear in?

[NZ]

Hi

 

I am honestly not sure about the fixture patching.....It is easy on faders but with the fixture buttons it is a whole different thing. If memory serves the fixtures are I think fairly reliant on having a single HTP channel...K9 will be better able to answer.

 

As to the article at the moment Lighting Dimmensions have said they will publish it, it will hopefully go into LSI or ???? It should be on our web site next week as well.

[Haytech]

Hi all,

 

I´am back from tour and I beg you to implement

5 ) I'm not sure how you could implement this, but there needs to be some way in the patch set up of outputting channels. Many times I go into theatre and you ask which channels are for example the Red Cyc Wash to be told "Oh they're somewhere between 85 and 97" That means I have to patch it to 85, come all the way out saving the show, exit super user and push the fader up only to find that it isn't 85. So we repeat the process until it appears half an hour later at 95!!! There needs to be a function where you can just type in a channel number and press "Home" and the channel will output live.

 

This would be very useful function if using more then 60 generics from house lighting. In my case I used another lighting desk to found out all the chans and wrote it on a list and then I patched to the frog this has took hours of programming.

 

greets