Need a full profile for Chauvet colorstrip

James,

I just finished programming a sample show with my new ShowXpress Plus DMX controller from Chauvet and it controls all of my Chauvet, Elation and American DJ fixtures without a single problem, I couldn't be more happy with it.

It was more expensive than the Elation Compu and my dealer (knowing what I've gone through trying to get the Compu to work) just swapped it for the Compu.

Like I said earlier, I like the Elation software a little bit more than the ShowXpress software, but...

...I like the ShowXpress hardware a lot more.

Not having to have a computer on and plugged in to play a show is a great feature for my needs. I won't need to buy a laptop to go from one venue to another

The ShowXpress software does everything that I need to do and it works with all of my fixtures, so I'm sure I won't mourn for the things I liked about the Compu software over the ShowXpress software.

So I'll just let drop the issue, especially since I'm no longer a Compu user/owner. I don't want to sound like I'm saying the ShowXpress solution is better than the Compu solution. I'm just saying one works with all of my fixtures and the other does not, so the choice between the two is pretty much out of my hands.

I'd like to thank you for all of the time and effort you put into trying to help me James. You are one of the reasons I wanted the Compu to work so bad. It is hard to find a company with someone like you that will "go the extra mile" to help a customer. As far as I'm concerned, you deserve a raise

Jeron, thanks for the kind words. Again sorry we couldn't get it to work. And now only to find out that the issue was out of our hands. I do hope one day you'll go back to compu as it is a GREAT software. I wish you all the best. Post some pics up of your rig sometime.
Sincerely,

Has this issue been resolved? I am installing 4 of the colorstrips and have 12 used for rental....a lot is riding on this and now i just find out that they wont work with compulive? I just had the client convinced tonight to upgrade even more and also get compulive.

Am i going to have to go back to my client and let them know that that the ENTIRE design now has to change?

We got out Elation dealership papers approved but have yet to place our our initial order. I have to say that this may weigh heavily on that process.

I will call our rep on Monday

mark

This is a classic issue that seems to pervade this industry (and to be fair, others as well). Everyone chooses to pass the blame to the other and never seeks to resolve the problem in-house and be the better company for it. I know Elation and Chauvet want to refuse the existence of each other, but unfortunately this presents a tragic reality that leaves valuable customers stuck in the middle of two stubborn companies that clearly feel that good customer service entails blaming someone else. Anyone that knows the first thing about customer service understands that this represents a complete disregard for customer care and should be avoided at all costs. Assuming responsibility speaks volumes.

Increasing compatibility so users don't jump ship or get slammed by clients who are relying on a compatible system install can only make a company stronger. This industry is made up of many companies, whose products are expected to interact to a reasonable level of satisfaction. Proprietary protocols and parts may help a single product line work well, but when interoperability is a must, why put your end users in such a predicament?

I've seen this happen with various companies and it is very disheartening - especially when the industry has adopted a universal communications protocol that is expected to work with many varieties of products. Unfortunately, companies do not use the same internal parts/components to handle the protocol and therefore we see issues like line noise and fixtures that do not "play well with others".

When two products don't get along, something is going to give and chances are, one will be abandoned. Why risk it? Instead of losing customers who choose not to use one brand exclusively, why not seek to retain the future investments of those who bridge the gaps (which clearly represent the larger portion of the customer base anyway). I would think that it would be better to have a part of something, rather than nothing at all.

This would only be stronger if one line of products proved to be the consistent backbone of a system versus the peripheral components.

All said and done, choosing to avoid cooperation is just a missed opportunity for success.

But what do I know, I'm just the customer - right?

Mark, The American DJ mega pixels operate perfectly fine with the compu live software if you were to choose those fixtures they would work. however there is no way right now to modify the software to get the colorstrips to work with it. It really is a unfortunate circumstance but a few choices you have are:
1) Have chauvet modify the colorstrips to work with compu live
or
2) Return the colorstrips and replace them with ADJ mega pixel's
Sincerely,

Dear Light Tech and Mark of the wild.

I completely hear and understand what both of you are saying. However lets keep something in mind.. the software has been around for over 10 years.. it is a worldwide software used a lot in Europe, South America, Central america Asia and very widley in the US. looking at the profile library you can see it it supports the biggest library of manufacturere products.
You can do a search on this forum of about 3 other cases where the color strip did not work with i believe a hog or other very popular manufacturer console and also showed the same problamatic response to the Magic 260.
Which is to say that this 1 glitch that is represented in 1 product that has issues with multiple consoles needs to be fixed on the product end not the software end or controller end.

Would you expect High End to fix the Hog 3 because the Chauvet colorstrip is not working?

I don't know the colorstrip however I would gues main problem would have to do with a DMX refresh rate or baud rate that most fixtures are set to.
Since the Compu live has been proven to work with 99.9% of lighting fixtures it would not make sense to tamper with this DMX refresh rate or buad rate as it would create issues with many more manufacture products.. The solution therefor would be for Chuavet to adjust their colorstrip to the standard of most lighting fixtures.

What i've just done is give you an answer that Chauvet should have to figure out for themselves. Almost a trade secret if you will.

I am very sorry to say that our job here in this forum is not to find solutions to other manufacturers issues.

I hope that you get your products to work soon.

Sincerely,

I saw some postings on here about some of you having trouble with colorstrip not working with compulive. The truth on the whole thing is, they will work but not fully. They have half the refresh rate on them as the compulive puts out. Do not know why chauvet made them that way. The only way to get to halfway work is to set it up as a generic fixture and adjust the first channel. that will get you the preset colors without flickering and a handfull of effects. But Ive done alot of testing and thats the problem that causes the flickering is the refresh rate.