garageCube

I want to use 5 minimads as a backup for a software based system. I see mad light recorder and this would be great. Is it possible to record 300 universes (not using all channels my data fits into 1 gigabit nic).

Is there a way to record the data in sync on 1 machine and then distribute it according over 5 minimads?

MiniMad synchronization is available in the Video app only for the moment.

Recording 300 universes using the MadLight Recorder in real-time / full framerate is most probably possible with the right machine, but a MiniMad will most probably suffer playing them all at full framerate (although it depends on the content: the more the channel change, the more heavy it will be on the MiniMad). It's worth trying using your content if you have a MiniMad available.

Is synchronised dmx playback for minimad something that might appear any time soon?

We could implement the same synchronization mechanism we've created for MiniMad Video, but the problem lies more in the recording / exporting process:
- How can we go from a single 300-universes recording to separate recordings split and spread to several MiniMad units?
- If we would go for recording those 300-universes in several smaller recordings, how can we make sure the recordings are well synchronized in MadMapper, prior to exporting them to the different MiniMad units?

I understand it is difficult, but I could imagine all 300 universes must be recorded at once, and as for playback, I guess you select which fixtures or universes are attached to each minimad and then each unit only plays back the ones it has, it would require segmenting the recorded data into universes as it is recorded, but I can imagine you must be doing something like that anyway. In the export process to each mini-mad it would parse your recorded file (the custom format you have created to store this info) and remove any universes that do not correspond to that mini mad.

Not an impossible problem but likely one you wont tackle in a hurry. It would definitely be a very useful tool though for large light installations.

Everything's possible indeed, and here it's more a matter of ergonomics and priority.
The easiest way would be, for each MiniMad, to select the range of universes to be exported.
Then of course we would need to implement a synchronization mechanism similar to what we did for MiniMad Video.

By the way, did you try playing your whole setup on a single MiniMad Light using the latest update (which features performance improvements)?
Depending on the content, the framerate, it could do the job and it's worth give it a try.

Another possibility for your actual backup solution would be using a small Windows PC (like the Intel NUC) with MadMapper running on it...

No I didn't try, mostly because I need to use a video codec with 4:4:4 chroma subsampling. It is for a large installation and h264 does not keep the colours as they were designed (especially as the video is packed pixels from a UV map so lights that are not next to each other physically are fed from adjacent pixels. The 4:2:0 of h264 blends the colours together too much so a minimad with video was not an option, hence the artnet recording question.

At any rate the fact that the minimad and madmapper can do as much as they can for the cost is amazing. Great products thanks.