Art-Net 4 Wins PLASA Award for InnovationArtistic Licence, inventor of the Art-Net Ethernet lighting control protocol, is celebrating a win for Art-Net 4 at the 2016 PLASA Awards for Innovation ceremony. As one of the most widely supported Ethernet lighting protocols in the industry, Art-Net has arguably come of age. This is particularly so with the release of version 4, which was timed to coincide with the PLASA Show. The judges noted that Art-Net continually evolves to support the back-bone of production technology, incorporating complementary protocols with full backwards compatibility. Art-Net 4 is unique in that it incorporates management of the gateway data source; this allows users to choose Art-Net as the discovery, management and RDM tool, while using sACN for the live control data. While many users are happy to work completely within the Art-Net realm, some installations and specifiers require or prefer the use of sACN, the accredited ANSI E1.31-2009 standard. However, unlike Art-Net, sACN does not support network management or RDM, which could leave users disadvantaged. Art-Net 4 solves this problem, offering an elegant solution that enables the protocols to be used in a complementary manner. Art-Net 4 also introduces a huge improvement in the way that gateways with multiple DMX ports are handled. Previously, gateways that supported more than four DMX ports required multiple IP addresses, a scenario called multi-homing. This was not ideal for users or developers, and could not be achieved on some hardware platforms. The new scheme allows a gateway (or any Art-Net product) to support over 1,000 DMX ports, all on a single IP address. It has been added in such a way that it is 100% backwards compatible with previous releases of Art-Net. From a developer perspective, the change is very small and quick to implement in a product design. Indeed, Art-Net 4 has already been incorporated into the Eaton Zero 88 FLX console, whose programmer deemed the process "much easier than I thought!" Developers will also appreciate a new software feature that enables all DMX ports to be assigned a fully independent universe. Finally, in a nod to the future, Art-Net 4 already has built-in support for VLC (Visible Light Communication) -- a technology that is likely to have a huge impact in the coming years. Wayne Howell, CEO of Artistic Licence and the inventor of Art-Net, comments, "I released the first version of Art-Net over 15 years ago in response to a pressing industry need. It's been very gratifying to see such widespread adoption of the technology, and I'm delighted that PLASA has now given official recognition to the important role that Art-Net plays within the industry." Howell's new book: Light Bytes - Inside Art-Net and sACN is now available in preview edition through Artistic Licence, www.ArtisticLicence.com. Further technical information: The Art-Net 4 Specification can be downloaded at http://www.artisticlicence.com/WebSiteMaster/User%20Guides/art-net.pdf. The latest version of DMX-Workshop, which supports Art-Net 4, can be downloaded http://plasa.me/1gbhh. Elimination of multi-homing is achieved by adding a field called BindIndex to four Art-Net packets, namely: ArtPollReply, ArtAddress, ArtInput, and ArtTodData. The BindIndex allows all Art-Net devices to identify the "page of DMX ports" to which a packet refers. Art-Net 4 can address over 30,000 universes. Previously, each group of four DMX ports was limited to universes from a consecutive block of 16. Art-Net 4 removes this limitation as the developer can choose to identify each DMX port individually. This simply involves encoding a single DMX port in each ArtPollReply. Using this mechanism, all DMX ports can be assigned a fully independent universe. Change summary:
• ArtPollReply -> BindAddress can now be identical in all BindIndex
• ArtAddress -> BindIndex added to discriminate packets from same IP
• ArtInput -> BindIndex added to discriminate packets from same IP
• ArtTodData -> BindIndex added to discriminate packets from same IP
• ArtAddress -> Command options added to select sACN or Art-Net conversion 
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