not very soft transitions between steps when using leds

[ManMartin]

Hello:

We have new leds in our club and we use your software to make slow soft transitions between colors.
Last year we used it with Eurolite bars and we thought that the problem was the bars but this year we added
new leds to decorate the club and the problem is still there. Tested with other software or hardware or
internal programs the transitions are soft but with your software we can see the little steps in witch the
scene is divided. (we use of course the fade "/" in the channels and not the clock (no fade) symbol)

This is more noticeable when the leds are at low levels (25% or so).

Can you check the rate of the dmx transmission or the fade code to verify this problem please? cause
we are thinking to migrate to other software solutions and we have many clubs using your software and
leds are starting to be introduced very hard in ours clubs.

Also the generator with a sinus curve for example give us the same stuttering effect.

I am sorry if this is not a software problem but it really seems.

Thanks a lot

[tomrbland]

Just to beat support to the standard questions:

What is your OS? What interface are you using? Are you running the latest software and drivers?

I have run LED fixtures many times and I have only had a problem once with non-smooth fades, but that was with some cheap Chinese fixtures.

[ManMartin]

Hello:

We use windows 7 ultimate in one club running the very last version
of the software running eurolite led bars and
in other clubs we use XP as we started believing in Sweetlight
software many years ago. As an active user I even translated
early versions of the software and the manual to Spanish and I posted
a lot of messages in the old v5 forum.

Cheap Chinese led fixtures seems to be used more and more nowadays
cause their low price but the problem is that other software solutions don't cause
this problem and I think I must to advice the coders about this situation.

Maybe a "curve" type of fade (like the pan and tilt) must to be added to
the leds to get softer transitions at low levels or add non linear transitions,
"lets say" logarithmic type of curve (I dont know).

I would like they try a long time fade scene with real leds using values
from 30% to zero to discover this effect.

I don't post this message to damage the public image of the software but to prevent
possible problems to next users, don't get me wrong. There is a new thing in the market
every week and there is no software ready for all the situations that can appear.

I don't want to expose here other software solutions we use for led
panels (oxtrom), more led panels (DMT pannels), leds tubes from different
companies included pulsar... and the list goes on, cause they also have
problems that I post in their respective forums as well.

Sweetlight guys are great, I discover some bugs that they fix for me
in less than a day when using early versions. They got all my confidence.

Cheers from Majorca island.

Manuel Martin

[support]

We made several tests with Chinese leds. The dmx speed refresh of software V6 is almost twice more than V5, then fade is now pretty smoothed.

You spoke about a software which gives better results than our software. Could you please tell us what software it is ?

Another thing, many Chinese leds are not 100% dmx compatible (this is not a question of fade ; just sometimes they randomly flick). We made firmware V1.06 to fix that problem, for the interfaces D512 and Remote.

[ManMartin]

Sorry but can I update the firmware of the box interface in an easy way?

it seems box interface is out of date an a new interface similar to it took
its place.

thanks

[support]

There is no new firmware for the Box.
The "random flick" problem was not existing with the Box and Chinese lights. It was only with D512 and Remote, with an old firmware.
D512 is effectively sucessor of Box.
V6 speed refresh is same for Box and D512.

We were thinking fade transitions with our software were pretty ok now (even with Chinese leds). We would like to be able to compare with software which make it better. Could you please tell us, with which software the fade transitions are better ?

[ManMartin]

sorry for the delay.

we tried other software solutions but the problems are still there, this seems to tell us
that is a chinese-harware problem but...

other installation with the same hardware and other software called sunli...
is working with no flicker effect.

the reason we don't use sweetlight in that situation is cause we need no human intervention
and even you add some stand alone features to your usb box we have been forced to use
other brand.

we believe in your product and some day I will send you images to document the clubs we use it
to share with you and your future costumers.

cheers

[support]

If, in your place, the problem exists with both our software and the other software, we can not be conclude the problem comes from our software.

The best test will be to check our software in the working installation (the other place with the other software).