remote desktop w/LD2000

leak

New Member
Hi my name is ian and I am fairly new to pangolin software as well as to the laser display community. My knowledge mostly falls in the laser hardware and physics department.So i was wondering if i was able to use remote desktop to control my laser pc, i have the basic qm2000 card as well as ldpro,showtime,designer. Any help would be greatly appreciated also any pointers for a new laser show designer would be great.

OOPS i just saw a thread that answer my question, as far as i can do so. So a better question would be do i need to have designer on both machines?
 

I'm going to add another part to this original question. Has anyone used VNC? If so, does VNC carry the audio information across the network? I work in a planetarium where we'd like to have the computer with the QM2000 card in the theater, but be able to do show production in another office. We already have the network wiring all set up. But it would be hard to do production without hearing any sound from the other computer. :sniffle:
(If VNC just carries the screen and mouse/keyboard commands, then it wouldn't be useful.)

-Bill
 
BillWX:

If you are on a Local Network in the Planetarium, and both computers have the same OS (Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7), you should be able to use the built in Remote Desktop feature. This brings the screen, mouse, keyboard, and audio to the remote machine. I have not tried this for full programing, but I would think on a fast local network should work fine. You may have to tweek some of the timings on the actual system, as the audio may be slightly off.

Some features may not available in basic versions of Windows software, but depending on what you have, may be worth checking before you spend money on another VNC.

John
 
Thanks John for the input. The campus network is fast, so I'll have the network people look into using the remote desktop.
We actually went ahead and tried the free Tight VNC software which did work - but the audio didn't come through. The screen refreshing was not fast enough either for production use.
The other option we're considering is buying the Intro level QM2000 as an extra and use that for playback only in the theater. We'd use the Pro board for production in another office. (Since the Intro board would still be able to play what was produced on the Pro board.)
Our other option is to have a long run of fiber optic, since we're using a Raven System transcoder for recording full shows onto an ADAT HD system. (Which is a great little box to have that does all the converting of signals.)

-Bill

BillWX:

If you are on a Local Network in the Planetarium, and both computers have the same OS (Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7), you should be able to use the built in Remote Desktop feature. This brings the screen, mouse, keyboard, and audio to the remote machine. I have not tried this for full programing, but I would think on a fast local network should work fine. You may have to tweek some of the timings on the actual system, as the audio may be slightly off.

Some features may not available in basic versions of Windows software, but depending on what you have, may be worth checking before you spend money on another VNC.

John
 
Hi Guys

You don't need to use VNC to use LD. Install LD etc on your local machine. Run the network app on your remote machine, then open LD (etc) on your local machine and it should find your remote machines QM2000. You can then use everything just as if the board is in your local machine - no real lag and you have audio locally, but big frame files can take a while to load (as the data gets sent across the network). I found Live Pro will lag a bit on slower networks.

You can also use this method to run shows from a remote location, but the audio will not output from the remote machine so thats the time where VNC will come in handy for you.
 
As with anything over a network your are limited to the data speed of said network.

If you are using Remote Desktop or VNC over a wired network, you should in general experience near perfect control over your laser systems. However audio will not be transferred to the remote computer unless you have a software which allows this to happen (usually means it has a virtual audio driver rerouting the audio through your virtual connection)

To explain the following easier, I will call the computer with the QM2000 the "HOST" and the computer connecting to the QM2000 via network the "CLIENT"

Once you start to go wireless, or remote connectivity (outside your LAN), you may start to exprience lag due to low bandwidths. I personnally wouldn't recommend running remote desktop or VNC via wireless networks as this becomes extremely risky if your need to press esc or stop output and don't have an emergency kill button near by.

In most cases, you should run the network tool and load pangolin onto the client you intend to operate from and connect through pangolin directly. This can be done successfully via wireless networks and usually doesn't have any major issues unless you move out of range. Of course the downside is you save your files locally so you would need to transfer them onto the HOST computer if you intend for the show to be run later from the HOST. Doing this is not hard really, and all depends on how you want your system to run.

I have set up systems that I am able to remotely upload updated shows onto the HOST and then logging of from another location and then running the shows I loaded.

For a simply press play cue type application, VNC and Remote Desktops are fine when dialing in from a client. However to operate live shows, i do not recommend it as you are playing with fire.

I say the above on the premis that you have set up safe zones in your show and can be 100% sure that you will not put anyone at risk. Also you would need reliable scanner failure safety cards installed or similar.


REMEMBER..
Any changes you make to pallets, zones, beams, animations etc will be saved on the local hard drive of the CLIENT. They will not be uploaded to the HOST computer. They will stay on the CLIENT until you transfer them to the HOST. Don't be suprised if you remotely connect to the HOST and do hours of programing from a CLIENT and then expect to rock up with out the files on USB cause your files won't be there.

I have recently gotten into a habbit of replicating my pangolin file system for pallets, zones, shows etc on my website. This way I can do all I want where ever I wont and if I somehow forget to bring the files on USB I can just Tether my iPhone to my laptop and download the files and replace them as required on the host.
 
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