Escient Vision
RicardoSiqueira
Posts: 373
I just got my first Escient Vision to test today and unfortunately the current (v6.0.1) and older Escient modules (v5.0.1) don't work well with the Vision. I few commands work (play, stop, pause) and after a while the Escient Vision stops responding. It looks like they rearranged and changed the default commands set. They don't have a module online yet. The IR control using the Escient supplied remote is very erratic. It also looks like they are now using a different IR receiver built into the unit that made IR control way less responsive. I had the Escient control for previous models all working great with multiple Modero panels via IP, but my Sales Rep. decided to sell the new Vision series, which as most first generation products are full of bugs. This is very desappointing for a 6K retail price unit. I will have to wait for a module release from Escient or AMX. Any ideas?
Thanks.
Thanks.
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The one unit we have (test unit now as we gave the customer a DVDM100 and changer) still gets sluggish after a day and will lock up eventually.
My advice it to run away..
Kevin D.
The current firmware has some issues though - the spotty slow responses, hanging (sometimes as much as 30 seconds after sending a command before anything happens), all occur even using the web GUI. Escient has a firmware released scheduled for Wednesday ... but of course, that is subject to change. The person I talked to hinted that there may be a module update at the same time, but I somewhat doubt it will happen. In any case, the firmware release is supposed to deal with some of the more egregious quirks in the external control. Anotherm set of issues regard integration with the FP1 iPod dock ... it willl play media directly from the iPod, for example, but not Playlists; I've also noticed much of the spotty response times clear up somewhat when the FP1 is disconnected.
The bottom line is they pushed this out the door without the external control being quite ready. It's an understandable action, since many people aren't using control systems. Hopefully the update coming will deal with enough of this that the existing modules will be a reasonable stop-gap. Right now, you may as well use IR.
Ricardo
I'm probably looking at a day's work to make this work with my panels, and any update (bound to happen, since it's so fresh) will require doing it again, then repeating it on any project previously integrated.
Oh, it doesn't take much looking at the code to see that much. They are clearly talented programmers porting to a platform they don't know very well. If they weren't talented, it wouldn't work at all, but there are a lot of things in there that just make me cringe.
I'm not sure why this is a complaint.
This is in their Master file demo in the setup of their example systems. If FIRST_LOCAL_PORT was used somewhere within the module I would definitely understand.
How is what they've done any more offensive than them specifying '172.16.0.39' for their IP address when that isn't the IP address I'm going to use?
I'm just getting started doing this myself, so I'm not yet frustrated with Escient. I'm sure in a few hours I'll be sorry I defended them
Because it was meant to be an include file you incorporate in your own main file, and if you weren't checking it carefully, you'd miss that. And you're right, it's not a big deal, it's just indicative of a lack of familiarity with easy integration of NetLinx modules to existing products.
Here are the few things I have done to the Escient Vision module so far.
* Moved iPlayerSource to signature to share with Master file (not a bug but a change made to work with my code).
* Added ";Vision Guide" to several @ppn commands that did not specify which page to show the popup (in the following sections):
BUTTON_EVENT[aTP_VN,bGuideListExpand]
BUTTON_EVENT[aTP_VN,bGuideListContract]
I should be going live with it some time this week. One thing I need to add to it is a command line for basic controls so my multi-room system can talk to it without a specific panel being "activated." It's also nice for when you have keypads on the system not using the UI code. But that's pretty easy to do. I just hope I don't need to spend a lot of time going through stuff like I had to with v.5.0.1 ... things like false feedback causing blinking transport buttons, that kind of irritant.
I found another annoying deployment issue though: they use icon slots, which of course, are not preserved merging with another panel design, so I had to manually fix that. It would have been a nightmare if my original panel was using icon slots and I had to move them all around. As it is, I just had to go back and put the proper images in the right slots.
There are a few minor errors. One, there are no page flips on the Home buttons that are on the main pages, so pressing Home didn't act like it did anything unless you were already on the Guide page. Forcing it to that page produces a better result. Two, the single arrow forward and back buttons on the cover page slider are reversed; the forward goes backwards, and vica-versa. Easy enough to fix.
Cover page browsing is a bit slow. At first I thought it was altogether broken, but the goofed up arrow buttons had me confused. There were times, however, when the images did not refresh properly, and sometimes not at all. But then again, they are slow even on the video output of the device itself ... hopefully they will address this eventually in future Vision firmwares. It just lags a real lot calling the images off its own drive.
Ipod integration is definitely not all there yet either, but this is not an issue with the module so much as the Vision itself. If you are using an FP-1 dock, you can't access playlists off the iPod directly, and trying to do so sometimes crashes the entire IP connection. You can play individual songs though. They have been promising a Fireball firmware that would also apply to the FP-1, but it hasn't surfaced yet.
Overall, I'd say it's about in the same state as the version 6 Fireball module: usable but a little quirky.
My general attitude toward things Escient.
Are there any other gotchas to watch out for when integrating these units?
That's pretty much how Escient works ... you will see the update on the web site when it exists, and updates are few and far between. In all fairness, however, they do update the box firmware far more frequently, and many times that is all that is really needed. Since they release source code with their modules, you can tweak minor changes there easily enough yourself.
Did you have any further problems with the installs you completed earlier this year?
I'm having some issues with the Vision module and wanted to see if anyone else has experienced this:
When you select the Vision (and using a DO_PUSH to connect the TP to the module) it pops up the pages, looks fine, then you select movies, still ok, then Titles, and then nothing. It won't populate the movie titles (same for music) but if you use the arrows to go up and down the list it will eventually populate some of the titles but won't change after that. Any ideas?
Also in the panel log there are errors showing up saying:
"TcpRequest::closeSocket 142[Vision_Guide_Cover_4]" other error messages change the socet number and guide cover number. I'm assuming it can't find the dynamic image for cover art. Again any ideas?
I can control the unit via the One-Way Remote so I know it's connecting, but after that no ideas.
Jack
Jack Piehn
Distinctive Mark A/V