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Kaleidescape

TurnipTruckTurnipTruck Posts: 1,485
in AMX General Discussion
Greetings,

I have not yet worked with Kaleidescape media servers.

Are you guys having success with any of the modules provided by AMX or Kaleidescape with minimal tweaking?

Thanks.

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    ericmedleyericmedley Posts: 4,177
    TurnipTruck wrote: »
    Greetings,

    I have not yet worked with Kaleidescape media servers.

    Are you guys having success with any of the modules provided by AMX or Kaleidescape with minimal tweaking?

    Thanks.

    We've been doing Kaleidescape for quite some time. the module seems to work well and makes sense. I did a few modifications on it to change how feedback works. I also completely redid their interface. But, it's all open and you can tweak to your heart's content.
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    bcirrisibcirrisi Posts: 148
    Same here, nothing but good luck with their module. I will warn you that the addressing (Kscape player addressing) can be a little confusing at first glance. Their tech support is great and can walk you through any part of the module very intelligently.
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    ProdigalProdigal Posts: 90
    Also been working with Kaleidescape for around 4 years now.

    Great piece of equipment. The module that Kaleidescape provides works perfectly, and all the tweaking is made easily, just need to read the comments.
    Has examples for everything.
    I also redid entirely all the Interface as it is quite ugly in my opinion, but..just use the same port/chanels and you'r good to go.

    The tech support is very helpfull as well. You get what you pay for
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    alexsquaredalexsquared Posts: 166
    If only Escient's had been as easy to implement :)
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    DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    alexsquared wrote: »
    If only Escient's had been as easy to implement :)

    When Escient first came out, there was nothing but a protocol document. I called them fairly early and told them how they needed to modify that awful protocol to make it actually useful, and there response was to build their own module that really worked poorly. I was very annoyed, as I had already spent weeks rolling my own, and to add insult, theirs wasn't any real improvement.

    I remember thinking at the time that if that was how they were going to manage things, we were in for a rough ride ... and I guess we see now how that played out.
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    the8thstthe8thst Posts: 470
    ericmedley wrote: »
    We've been doing Kaleidescape for quite some time. the module seems to work well and makes sense. I did a few modifications on it to change how feedback works. I also completely redid their interface. But, it's all open and you can tweak to your heart's content.

    Did your feedback tweaks make the module more efficient?

    I just figured out yesterday that the KScape module is the biggest resource hog in the job I was trying to refactor yesterday. With the KScape module commented out the master (one of 3 in the system) runs around 19% CPU Usage, but jumps to 89% when the KScape module is included. This seems pretty excessive to me.

    The KScape system has 9 Players and 1 3U server. There are also 26 touch panels and 14 R4s in the system.

    I haven't had a chance to dig into the module yet, so any pointers you can throw my way on where the big resource hog functions are will really give me a good jump start.

    Thanks.
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    a_riot42a_riot42 Posts: 1,624
    Its a decent module, but it was written in a way that kind of assumes that the only source is kaleidescape. I don't like the way button feedback is done, and I don't like the do_push required to control a player, so I have changed these. There are some subtle bugs in the module, so be on the lookout for them, but overall it works quite well.
    Paul
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    BigsquatchBigsquatch Posts: 216
    Take a look in the DEFINE_PROGRAM in the Ksacpe module. I don't remember specifics right now but the module is constantly running a sizeable chuck of code.

    If I remember correctly I put the code iside a wait so that it at least would only run through every half second or so. It will slow feedback slightly but not enough to matter.

    That's about the only modification I've done to the module and it works well for me.
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    the8thstthe8thst Posts: 470
    Thanks for the suggestions.

    I should clarify that the module has been running and working very well in the job for the last year to 18 months. It wasn't until recently that I had time to really start tracking down the resource hogging chunks of code to optimize the system.

    The problem is that the KScape module is bugging me because it is a resource hog, but there isn't anything actually wrong with it. I kind of wish I could turn a blind eye to it, but my brain doesn't work that way.
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    Duncan EllisDuncan Ellis Posts: 155
    Kscape Feedback

    I worte my own kaleidescape module, but initially I used theirs. When I looked at their code they had used a FOR loop in DEFINE_PROGRAM to create feedback. I'm not a fan of this, its a waste of processor time and with a lot of panels, slows down the processor generally.

    In mine, everything is event driven. They may have changed this now in the Manufacturers module...but its probably a good place to start?

    hope tis helps

    Duncan
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