DMX Manual

DMX

Introduction

Congratulations with the purchase of the DMX-4242, Demux MCD Controller, to change music anywhere on the grid!

Concept created by: Andrion Acker (the one-man ThinkTank!)

Placing the DMX


The product you received is 'boxed'. Rez the box by dragging it from your inventory onto an empty spot in world.
Left click the box to open it's content and do copy all to inventory. Take care not do this procedure with the actual board, because then you will end up having the scripts inside your inventory and a not functioning product.
You will now have a folder in your inventory called: [SHX-DMX-4242 - Grid Music Control]

Inside the folder you will find a couple of objects:
- SHX-DMX-4242 - This is the DMX controller
- SHX-MCD [3.2] - The MCD (Media Control Device)
- SHX Module Rack [1 MCD + 1 DMX] - A module rack together with the DMX and a MCD

 

How it works

To be able to remotely change music with the DMX controller, you need to place a MCD on every parcel in SL you wish to control. Every MCD you place has to be set in slave mode.

Since the DMX needs to know where each MCD is located, you have to add this data to the slaves notecard in the contents of the DMX. To ease the process, the MCD will give the the proper data format in chat when you activate the slave mode, so you can copy and paste this information.

When having set up the MCDs, set them in slave mode and copied the proper information to the slaves notecard in the DMX, you can start using the DMX by touching it, and selecting: Reload MCD.
This will start reading the information you added to make a list of distributed MCDs.

The first entry of the displayed list will be a generic one, where you can optional send a stream change to every MCD listed. Note that due to a built-in delay, it takes approximately 2.8 seconds per MCD when sending to all MCDs listed.

Note that as a sim performance degradation (lag) prevention it can take up to 30 seconds for a slave MCD to actually receive and change the music.

That is in a nutshell the setup and usage.

The MCD is versatile and is able to work in every situation possible.
It can even reverse update a SRC receiver while in slave mode: see the MCD manual!
More detailed information about the MCD can be found here: MCD manual

Functional overview

Overview Image 1

 

 

 

The stream list / Radiolist

The list with streams that pop up when you click on modify can be modified by editing the Radiolist notecard inside the contents of the DMX.

The Radiolist is in the same format as used in all SHX products.
Of course the radiolist is not limited to radiostations, you can add any stream url, from your club, a DJ whether ICEcast, SHOUTcast or Nicecast.

If you are not familiar with the list, the format is as follows:

SC or IC for SHOUTcast or Icecast | StreamName | GenreName | Stream Address | Image UUID

Obviously the Image uuid is not used by the DMX, yet you can not derive from the format.
An example of  a minimal entry in the list, would be:

SC|psyradio|progressive|http://81.88.36.42:8010/|

SC for SHOUTcast, psyradio is the name of the entry, progressive for sorting per genre

More detailed information on the radiolist can be found here: SRC - Radiolist

 

Access for Managers/Group

To give managers access, you have to edit the managers list notecard inside the DMX.
Place an avatar per line in the card and save it.

To load the changes, you have to click the Reload ML button, which is in the menu [Options]-[Access]

Alternatively you can grant group access by selecting it in the [Access] menu. The group the DMX is set to then will have access to the board.

 

Things NOT to do

We can not stress this enough: Do not place a MCD in master mode on the same parcel where a MCD in slave and sync mode is placed, as this would create an infinite loop of changing the music.
Don't say we didn't warn you!

 

Suggestions

All SHX products evolve over time due to new insights, changes to Second Life, but most of all, because of your input.

If you have any suggestions, please contact Saii Hallard via IM, or just send in a notecard.