-
Basic Questions for Spyder folks
I am trying to get my head wrapped around Advanced in virtual mode because I’m not a Spyder owner, just a freelance engineer. So do I have this right?
1) If a source is ‘Direct to Layer’, you can add it only once to the VI. If the source was a PPT presentation you could bring it up on a projected screen but couldn’t also add it (via the Spyder within the VI) to a downstage monitor.
2) If you use the ‘X20 Internal Router’ you can add the PPT source a 2nd time, even adding it up to the amount of sources you have going in, via the external router. But for every layer you add that PPT presentation computer to, you eat up another sources’ potential layer.
3) If say, I had 2 ‘Grfx’ sources and a IMag Camera and I wanted them up on the projected screen and each of the Grfx sources on each of 2 DSM’s I would need to use an external router and apply the Grfx and Imag sources to more than 1 out apiece on the router, so I could have multiple sources on the X20 of each Grfx computer. This assuming I’m trying to do this via the Spyder and the VI, as opposed to controlling an external aux router for the DSM’s. (Right now I’m trying to understand how the Spyder works, not trying to create the most logical setup:-)
-
2 Replies
-
1). Direct to layer is a holdover from the older Spyder units that had no internal routing capability. You would never use direct to layer in an x20.
2&3) since the x20 internal router is handling the feeds to the layers each source only needs to physically hit the back of the x20 once. Once a source is on an input it can feed any or all of the 16 layers.
External routers are only required when you use multiple x20 in the same system or when you have more of a certain flavor of input then the x20 has… Like 10 DVI sources.
On most shows I run out of dvi before video so ill use throw down converters to make some of the dvi into hdsdi. This eliminates the upstream router and streamlines operation.
-
Matt, I understand your response. Question 3 however wasn’t fully answered – or, maybe it was.
In the Spyder manual it says:
“Each layer is generated by one of the Spyder input modules, and therefore a 1‐to‐1 relationship exists between the number of layers in a Spyder system and the number of physical input
cards contained within that system.”
I took this to mean that if you had 3 Attached/active inputs you only had 3 layers to play with, even in internal router mode. I was playing with Advanced 2012 on a MBPro with Parallels and it seemed to function this way. So I tried it under Bootcamp, both times with Windows 8, and it seems to work differently. I’m assuming now that the statement in the manual means that the number of layers will be defined by whether I have an 8 input model with 8 layers or the 16 layer model of Spyder with 16 layers available; regardless of how many are actually plugged into. Is this correct? And thanks for your responses.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up