Back Cover Comments
We recommend this book to engineers and students who ask us, “How do I learn how to do what you do?” We also tell our newly hired engineers that they should be conversant with the entire contents of this book because it covers the core knowledge commonly needed in the design of show control systems.
— Glenn Birket, P.E., President, Birket Engineering, Inc., designers of show and ride control systems since 1984
Given the increasing complexity of entertainment systems, today’s tech needs access to an abundance of fresh information, and this book provides it in a well-organized, easy-to-digest manner. This is the best book you will find on the subject of entertainment control systems because Huntington not only teaches it but also uses it extensively in the real world. If you’re serious about your profession in the entertainment production industry, you’ll read this book now.
— Richard Cadena, Author of Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light in Theatre, Live Performance, Broadcast, and Entertainment (Focal Press 2006) and editor of PLSN Magazine.
The only definitive text for virtually every aspect of entertainment show control. Required reading for system designers, product designers, and show control technicians of all experience levels.
— Steve Terry, VP Research & Development, Electronic Theatre Controls
...exhaustively researched and clearly written... This is an excellent reference concerning what's going on in audio control as well as what lighting techs, studio heads, and TD's are doing... Suffice to say it will remain a permanent part of my collection.
--Live Sound! International
This book demystifies control systems for entertainment... I have not come across a better single-source reference text on this subject.
--Sounds & Video Contractor
Details
ISBN: 978-0-240-80937-3
ISBN10: 0-240-80937-8 Book/Paperback
Pages: 464
Imprint: Focal Press
Publication Date: 24 August 2007
Price: $49.95
What's New In This Edition?
From the Preface, which is viewable (along with the first chapter) here:
When I start the writing process for a new edition of this book, I first evaluate the organization of the book in light of the state of the market. I then go through every single word in the text and check and revise it as required and write new sections as needed. This is not necessarily a linear process. For example, when I started the second edition in the late 1990s, I initially moved the networking technology sections up to the front of the book, because I thought they covered basic information that needed to be understood by everyone in entertainment control. During the writing process, however, I moved them back to the “advanced” section, because I felt that the market wasn’t quite ready. How the market has changed since!
The Universal Data Transport and Book Restructuring
I’ve been following networking technology since the late 1980s, which means I’ve watched Ethernet knock out every other contender to become, especially in the last few years, the undisputed champion of the networking world. Ethernet is in the process of taking on a role as the near-universal data connectivity standard for the entertainment industry, and everyone in entertainment technology now needs to understand at least something about it. Therefore, in this third edition of the book, I’ve moved the networking chapters into the “basic” datacom section. Additionally, I have dramatically expanded the networking technology coverage from five pages in the first edition, to 38 pages in the second, to more than 75 in this edition. This may sound overwhelming, but the information is essential—networks are here to stay.
Of course, older standards such as DMX and MIDI will be around for a long, long time to come, so they are still included here, and there are several significant updates as well. The (finally) updated DMX standard (see Chapter 22, on page 217), and the new E1.17 “ACN” (see Chapter 24, on page 241) and RDM (see Chapter 23, on page 231) standards are covered here as well, as are more than a dozen other standards, new and old (but new to our market).
Convergence, Divergence, and More Book Restructuring
This book has been about “convergence” since the first edition, and, as of this writing, convergence is the buzzword du jour. For once, though, the buzzword actually seems to mean something, since significant changes are actually visible on the ground. While DMX was designed in the mid 1980s to control a few dimmer racks, it now can be found controlling a network of sophisticated video servers, fog machines, or even an HVAC system. MIDI, while designed to connect a few keyboards, is now routinely used to control lighting consoles or even trigger video clips or pyrotechnic effects. As a result of this convergence, there is also a bit of divergence: modern control protocols have less and less association with specific entertainment production disciplines (i.e., DMX is used not only by the lighting department) and are increasingly used as generic tools, applicable to many disciplines. This development has impacted not only the content, but also the structure of this book—I moved most of the protocol details out of the chapters on specific entertainment disciplines (lighting, sound, video, etc.) and into their own sections. As a result, the chapters describing the entertainment disciplines are now much smaller and contain lots of references to the more technical sections.
Moving the protocol information from individual discipline chapters also makes sense for another reason: Modern protocols increasingly use a layered, transport-independent design. This means they are shifting away from simple protocols that have direct association with hardware interfaces and toward sophisticated command languages that can be communicated using a common network (Ethernet). DMX, for example, was designed as a hardware standard and a command set. The 1986 standard defined everything from the 5-pin XLR connector, to the timing, format, and meaning of the bits travelling over the cable. MIDI, SMPTE Time Code, P-Com, Sony 9-Pin, and similar standards from that era all have close hardware ties. Today, however, why would anyone develop a hardware-intensive standard when they could simply write their own command set and use Ethernet (and associated protocols) as a hardware and data transport standard? Other “legacy” standards like DMX are being moved onto the network as well. ACN, a modern, layered standard, can transmit the dimmer level data currently carried by DMX, and various approaches are now available to transport the MIDI command set over any network (see “Real Time Protocol (RTP) MIDI Payload,” on page 315).
Obsolete Stuff
While there is a lot of new information in this edition, little of what was covered in the second edition is actually obsolete. I believe that this a very encouraging sign because it shows that the technology is stabilizing and maturing. Having said that, a few things that were removed in writing this edition are worth mentioning. I wrote about the failure of the AES-24 standards effort in the second edition, and that section has been removed. The SDX protocol never gained widespread use, so that section has been removed as well. A number of other “legacy” protocols, standards, and methods have been reorganized and minimized, but I’ve tried to keep as many of them as possible. Otherwise, the vast majority of content from the second edition is still here: revised, updated, and expanded.