IMS and Home Assistant Communication

[Bruce Cloutier]

On a higher level relative to protocols, cinema relies way too much (IMHO) on issuing open-ended commands. Doremi makes a network connection, fires out a command string, and closes the connection. Actually (relating to fader command discussions) we are not sure if the Doremi properly closes connections. That might potentially cause commands to be lost after a period of time (when handles are exhausted).

There is no ability for JNIOR or anything else to send back an error code or even acknowledge the command. So you might potentially not know of the problem until a patron walks out and asks if the show has sound? Or, if the house lights will go off eventually? Even though it is TCP that is not much better than UDP in this case. You know the joke? I'll tell it to you but you might not get it.

This is a lack of protocol.

And I kind of miss the KSR33 Teletype. Can you even buy paper tape anymore? Let alone roles of paper? I also really kick myself for contributing my modified Selectric typewriter to the dumpster. It had a parallel interface so I could use it as a printer (c1978).

[Carsten Kurz]

Our Sony actually uses a CP750 protocol with feedback. It will even request if a CP750 is connected after boot up and will output a warning if it's not answering within a timeout period. Similar to what Dolbys DSS do.

[Ryan Gallagher]

On a higher level relative to protocols, cinema relies was too much (IMHO) on issuing open-ended commands. Doremi makes a network connection, fires out a command string, and closes the connection. Actually (relating to fader command discussions) we are not sure if the Doremi properly closes connections. That might potentially cause commands to be lost after a period of time (when handles are exhausted).

Yeah in the back of my head I was worrying about connection management too. My egregious commands were AP20 to AP20 though, but similarly may have it's own connection management issues. If Doremi is really behaving that badly even modest amounts of automation could eventually overrun another piece of equipment that isn't cleaning up after it, or has been on too long. So like the fact I was convinced I needed to test the automation each day to catch the problem, but only making the problem occur sooner maybe.

I don't think I can avoid basic fader commands, perhaps in a perfect world Doremi would relay it's commands to a smarter device like a JNIOR that is able to compensate for the poor connection protocols?

[Bruce Cloutier]

I think you probably need to understand what limitation you are running into before we could say if a JNIOR or anything else can be helpful. I'll jump over into the thread you started on that topic.