sACN Streaming ACN E1.31
Streaming ACN (sACN) is a standard protocol developed by ESTA to efficiently transport DMX universes over the network. It is comparable to ArtNET in many aspects. One nice thing is the multicast option allowing very easy configuration. sACN is a popular protocol to control a large number of RGB LEDs. You can find very affordable LED controllers taking sACN input like the Advatek PixLite 16 and the very professional Enttec Pixelator. See more controllers...
A custom installation by Daniel Schaeffer using Lightjams to output sACN to control LED strips via Advatek controllers. Lightjams is being remotely controlled by TouchDesigner in real-time.
Here's a video from Michael Spitzler using Lightjams and Light-O-Rama (LOR) to create a great Christmas light show. Lightjams contains all lighting effects and LOR is used to create a timeline and trigger the effects in Lightjams in sync with the music.
128 Output Universes
128 universes give you 65536 DMX channels to create with, enough for individually controlling 21760 RGB LEDs.
16 Input Universes
Easily receive commands from other lighting software over sACN. For example, you can use Vixen and Light-O-Rama (LOR) to do your sequencing and triggers the effects in Lightjams via sACN. This duo is really powerful and will save you many hours of sequence programming.
Wireless Network (WIFI) Optimized
Contrary to ArtNET, sACN defaults to using multicast instead of broadcast. Broadcasting literally kills a wireless network. So sACN performs great out of the box with a WIFI. Make sure you get a router supporting multicast (look for IGMP support), otherwise the performance will be like broadcasting.
Multicast
Multicasting means that the sender (Lightjams in this case) sends DMX universes to those subscribed, in one copy only, even when there are multiple receivers (sACN to DMX nodes for example) at the other end. This is a standard in the network world and is implemented at the hardware level by most routers and switches. The end result is a really optimized network usage and easy configuration since the sender doesn't need to know the IP addresses of the receivers.
