************************************************************************ Media Pro 4000 Brief January 21, 2000 File: AlcornMcBride_DigitalBinlooop_BR012100.TXT Module: ICM4020, SEM4020 Title: Midi Show Control Driver with Alcorn McBride's Digital Binloop ************************************************************************ c2000 Anitech Systems Incorporated, 25021 Anza Drive, Valencia, CA 91355 This Driver is available in SEM-4020 Firmware SEMdl063.cod and later. This Driver is not available in ICM-4020 Firmware (under development). Introduction: The Alcorn McBride Digital Binloop is a multi-'reproducer', multi-segment audio and video player, from source material stored on its removable hard drives and flash drives. It can play from any reproducer on command or in synchronism with received SMPTE. Each rack can also generate SMPTE. One of its several control options is a serial connection using a variant of the Midi Show Control protocol. Technical information for the Digital Binloop can be found at www.alcorn.com. The MP4000 Midi Show Control driver can be used to control the Binloop on the ICM4020 or SEM4020. The driver converts certain applicable Media Pro Control Language statements into appropriate messages for the Binloop. The useful commands are described here. We are trying, in the spirit of MSC universality, to keep a single driver that can serve MANY devices, even when connected in a multidrop scenario. This has made us adopt a two-part specification for device, so we know not only the unit's address on the communications, but also what KIND of device it is, since the Midi Show Control specification permits a wide variety of messaging even for similar devices. An example of that variety occurs here with the Digital Binloop. Each reproducer has two PCMCIA sockets, and a 'mode' must be selected with the command. The name for the 'mode' directive is 'socket' in the AMI literature, but the values do not directly correspond to the physical PCMCIA sockets. --o----o----o-- Midi Show Control Driver Translations The driver translates five MPCL statements, and supports also the 'SEND' statement. There are other Midi Show Control driver statements, but none are applicable to the Digital Binloop. As mentioned above, the Midi Show Control driver now requires that the device type be provided. This will not affect previously written cues for the WholeHog lightboard or the Horizon DMX controller, since they have been assigned the value 0, which is the default. The 'types' assigned for the Digital Binloop are: 1 AMI Digital Binloop, play unsynchronized 2 AMI Digital Binloop, play synchronized 3 AMI Digital Binloop, SMPTE generator PLAY 'db' DEVICE ua-ty TRACK tk-sk SEGMENT sn ; where 'db' is the alias or @Rr,s,p designation of the MSC serial port ua-ty is the hyphenated unit address (1-based) and type tk-sk is the reproducer number (1-based) and socket ('mode') sn is the sound number or video number on the reproducer. generates F0 7F id 02 7F 01 T1 T0 00 SK 00 S2 S1 S0 F7 for type 1 or F0 7F id 02 7F 03 T1 T0 00 SK 00 S2 S1 S0 F7 for type 2 id is either 7F (if ua is 127) or ua + 8 (since ua is 1-based). T1/T0 is a two ascii-digit sequence giving tk, i.e, if tk is 20, this short string is "20". SK is an ascii-digit giving the value of sk, i.e., 1 -> "1". S2/S1/S0 is a three ascii-digit sequence giving the value of sn; for the Digital Binloop the range is "001" to "511". These are direct translations of sn, no offsets. for values of tk from 50-62, 'groups' of reproducers are played, see the AlcornMcBride manual. If tk is 63, all reproducers play. STOP 'db' DEVICE ua-ty TRACK tk-sk SEGMENT sn ; as for PLAY; generates F0 7F id 02 7F 02 T1 T0 00 SK 00 S2 S1 S0 F7 for type 1 or 2 PLAY 'db' DEVICE ua-3 ; starts the SMPTE generator generates F0 7F id 02 7F 15 F7 STOP 'db' DEVICE ua-3 ; stops the SMPTE generator generates F0 7F id 02 7F 16 F7 RESET 'db' DEVICE ua-3 ; resets the SMPTE generator generates F0 7F id 02 7F 17 F7 SEND 'db' "anystring\xD" ; transmits the character string included within the quotes, verbatim, to the Binloop Autopatch device. This can be used to transmit commands that are not directly supported by the driver. --o----o----o-- EXAMPLES: In our test unit there was a single reproducer installed in the left-most slot, with a single PCMCIA hard disk, containing one sound segment. The controlling SEM was in slot 5 of rack 0, and we used port 0 for it... To play that segment, the Media Pro statement was: PLAY @R0,5,0 DEVICE 127-1 TRACK 1-1 SEGMENT 1 ; 127-1 specifies an unsynchronized play to the 'wildcard' device id 1-1 specifies reproducer 1 'socket' 1 (both channels mono or stereo) 1 specifies sound number 1 The stop command is IDENTICAL except that the verb PLAY is changed to STOP: STOP @R0,5,0 DEVICE 127-1 TRACK 1-1 SEGMENT 1 ; To set up for synchronous play, use: PLAY @R0,5,0 DEVICE 127-2 TRACK 1-1 SEGMENT 1 ; Notice that the device type has changed to permit the driver to send the synchronized play command rather than the unsychronized play command. For STOP commands, either type 1 or type 2 may be used. The SMPTE code generator statements look like: PLAY @R0,5,0 DEVICE 127-3 ; STOP @R0,5,0 DEVICE 127-3 ; RESET @R0,5,0 DEVICE 127-3 ; If there are really multiple devices multidropped on the MSC output, replacing 127 with the unit ID will provide the correct messaging. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Specifications subject to change at any time. The data in this document incorporates proprietary rights of Anitech Systems Inc., 25021 Anza Drive, Valencia, CA 91355 USA. Phone (661) 257-2184 Fax (661) 257-2025 email Mail@Anitech-Systems.com Web http://www.Anitech-Systems.com Any party accepting this document does so in confidence and agrees that it shall not be duplicated in whole or in part, without the consent of ANITECH SYSTEMS.