AvoTalk Version 1 and 2

[Wol]

Hi,

After seeing the tight implementation of media servers at PLASA this week, I downloaded the avotalk SDK a few days ago, and am trying it out with the diamond 4 software ( v1.5.1 ).

I cant seem to get anything working at the moment, but thats hardly suprising since ive been compiling stuff myself and have no idea what to do! /me works slowly at it.

I have run a packet analyser, and i get the "AvoTalk".... UDP message coming from the D4, however if i use the protocol documentation which was supplied in the SDK, i see that the version of the D4 im using, only uses version 1 of the AvoTalk protocol, yet the documentation is for version 2 :S

The messageID i get at the start, 7, contains "Diamond4" and the name of my computer, so im guessing this is part of the V1 protocol.

Is there any possibility to get hold of the V1 protocol, or has a new version of the d4 been released / will be released soon which supports the v2. Or does it currently support the v2 protocol and im just being stupid!!!

Thanks in advance!!!

Luke Lowrey

p.s. - does anyone know what the cocktail Avo had at plasa was? was very nice!

Edit: I have managed to get v2 protocol out by downloading the 1.5.2 beta version of the d4 software!! Things are starting to make more sense.

In the documentation it is stating that the udp stuff should be sent to port 4423, yet when i run the packet analyser, its saying the "AvoTalk" packet from the D4 when it starts up, is from and to port 4422 on the 192.168.1.255 broadcast ip. Im guessing that this is right, just wondering if theres any reason why the SDK is saying 4423 to send stuff on, but what im seeing is 4422.

Thanks

[Phil]

AvoTalk v2 was implemented in D4 v1.5.2 over the summer, along with 1.6. This incorporated certain changes to the way things work that were essentially breaking changes, the most important of which was the change of port from 4422 (in d4 1.5.1) to 4423 (around beta 26 of v1.5.2) due to a major problem in our implementation last year (discovered in July) that caused crashes.

The short answer is that you need a beta version of the Diamond 4 software - beta 26 or later from Avo since although v1 and v2 are very similar, there are key differences. If you're still seeing packets on port 4422, then the beta you've got certainly isn't late enough.

It's also worth noting that the multicast section of AvoTalk v2 isn't currently implemented in the Diamond 4 software - we didn't have time before PLASA - so you'll be forced into using UDP broadcast at present. I'd suggest if possible you support both broadcast and multicast packets if possible so that in future once Avo have implemented multicast, things'll connect the cleaner way (for the reasons given in the SDK document).

I'll let you have a play yourself with the AvoTalk stuff, but if you have any other questions, I'll try and remember to keep an eye on here for you

[Wol]

Hey!

Thanks for the reply!

I have beta 26 1.5.2 currently, but that is sending packets out on 4422?? ( the initial D4 startup).

The packet 1 (polldeviceinfo) im getting from the D4 software seems to have the right header, but the first thing im expecting in the data packet is an AvoTString, but it has the Avo esta manfacturer id as the first bit of the data array, rather than a string length as you'd expect :S.

Ive currently only been using the UDP broadcast anyway, rather than any multicasting stuff!

I managed to get my bit of code to send a polldeviceinfo , and the D4 responded with the deviceinfo packet, but it didnt follow up with a requestfixturecount packet as the active device document says it should. all rather confusing! Also the "fixturetype" (i think) parameter: I'm not quite sure what each fixture type value is! The avotalk spec is slightly vague in some areas, although im trying to play around with early beta stuff, so hardly suprising .

At what point will anything come up when you do "patch > active devices" since that always turns up blank, and doesnt do anything on the network. Again, this is probably something thats still "todo"!

"major problem in our implementation" - theyre always a bitch! Had a fair few of those in the past when developing software! heh.

Best bet is to tell me to bugger off and wait for you to get a proper release out

Thanks for your reply anyway! 'tis good having a company where you can actually talk to the people who make the products! great work so far!

p.s. do you have any timeframe for when the next beta/release is out?

[Phil]

In that case beta 36 or later! There's been so many, I didn't keep track of which ones had which fixes in! I certainly didn't change anything after that. The AvoTString was another change from v1, so you've probably got some of the new features, but not all of them. Given that I'm not actually at Avo anymore (back to university), best bet is to give the software dept a call, and ask either Olie or Shad to send you a newer version.

In your device info packet, you must set the device type to DEVICE_TYPE_FIXTURE (not remote, console or other), otherwise the Desk won't send the 101 (Request Fixture Count) packet. That said, if you're on an old version, the probably is probably that you're sending a correct v2 packet, but the old beta is parsing the data incorrectly (or if I remember rightly, rejecting the packet as the wrong length!) The device appears in the Active patch menu after the D4 has recieved at least one (ideally all) FixtureInfo messages (104).

[Wol]

Cool.

Ill see how far i can get with it! Handy to have the example program there for the hippotizer at least!

Thanks for your help