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[jharlow]

We are currently upgrading our system, aka light board and lights. We already have all the cabling. Is there a reason why we should upgrade the cables and go for a DMX system or should we stay with the cabling we have now and continue using MPX? Thanks

[len woelfel]

jharlow wrote on Wed, 12 May 2004 00:51

We are currently upgrading our system ...

I would think that you'd want to do absolutely everything that you can that will last the longest time.  That probably means dmx.  But I'd also look at stuff like ethernet cabling and all that.  The state of the art and the options available has changed so much in just the past 2 years that you should really look at what's best to get you through the next 5 - 10 years.  But there's a lot of factors you aren't mentioning, such as money, location, types of lights you have, types of events you're doing, whether you have 1 programmer or a bunch of different people, etc.  

[Scott S.]

Overall DMX is a much better system, and has more compatibility with more types of equipment than MPX does.... if you have the money, then you should definitely go through and upgrade that while you are at it.  

I also recommend that people who are running DMX cabling run at least one CAT5e ethernet cable along with their run of DMX cable... this will give you more flexibility down the road for several reasons:

1. we still really don't know where we are going to be going with the direction of enthernet based lighting control and

2. if you need another universe of DMX, you can simply slap some XLR connectors on the ends of your CAT5 cables and use that... trust me, it works in a pinch.  

Hope this helps.

Scott