Here I am again reviewing yet another DMX calculator for the iPhone. Will there ever be a point of market saturation for these applications? DMXRef provides you with pretty much identical features to other offerings on the App Store so does anything make it stand out from the crowd?
DMXRef is advertised as being designed to take the math out of working with DMX lighting equipment. It can certainly do that and it takes care of those nasty dip switch settings that you will still come across from time to time as well. There are several modes of operation on offer, each one is found on a different tab. I’ll address each mode individually.
DMXDIPster
Converts your DMX addresses into binary addresses for DIP switch configuration. It also offers a setting to allow for address 1 to be represented by all switches off, which is sometimes required.
There is some slightly odd functionality present here though. The application gives you nice toggle switches to represent the DIP switches, and it is possible to alter them manually. This enables you to put DIP switch settings in the application and have it calculate the address. However, this poses a problem since the values do not update in real-time. So, if I enter a DMX value of 300 and hit “Get Switches”, all the switches are changed to reflect the address correctly. But it is now possible to change the switches manually, however the DMX address is not updated. So you could find that you are setting the wrong values if you accidentally knock a switch on the touch screen without realising. This puts the program out of sync with itself. It should be a simple matter to make the switches update the DMX Address in real-time to avoid this potential problem. Until this is fixed you can never be completely certain you have the right settings.
It is also not possible to configure more that one universe of DMX with this mode. It would have been nice to be able to enter higher values than 512 and see the DIP switch settings for whichever universe you are working in.
It’s worth noting that if this mode is all you are interested in then it is available as a separate application on the App Store for £1.19. However, if that’s case you’d be better served by DipSwitch which is free.
Auto Address
In this mode you can configure numerous devices using a DMX footprint. You enter a start address, the number of fixtures to configure and how many DMX addresses the device requires. Once all this information is entered you are given a list of addresses below with DIP switch settings for each one.
The display in this mode is not the most attractive thing to look at. It does get across all the information, but the list will be too large to display if you are configuring more than 9 devices. You can scroll through the list using the touch screen, but it would be nice to see the results displayed in a more user friendly fashion. For example, you can’t see the visual representation of the DIP switch settings in this mode. So you would have to write out all the addresses and then go back to the DMXDipster mode to enter each value individually to see the configuration.
It might be better to offer a feature such as the one found in DMXCalc where each address is shown one at a time.
One final thing I will mention about this mode is that I managed to break it. It actually crashed my whole iPhone and it rebooted itself. I was being a bit silly, but by entering a huge value in the number of fixtures and DMX Footprint (and we’re talking a lot of 9’s here) then asking it to get the addresses. The application first became unresponsive before eventually the iPhone just gave up and rebooted. I’m sure setting some realistic limits to these values would be a sensible addition to prevent someone recreating this.
Universe Convert
This mode will allow you to convert any global DMX value into its respective universe and address, or a universe and address to obtain the global DMX value. It’s a simple process that works quite well, it stores your previous results in a list beneath the data entry boxes. It does suffer from a similar problem to the DMXDipster where results are not updated in real-time. This makes it is possible to get confused if, for example, you have entered a new Global Address but not hit the button to recalculate the Universe Address. You can be left looking at data that is not in sync.
Doubler Ref
This is the final mode and has a very niche market. It is used to work out values for dimmer numbers where dimmer doubling has been implemented. This is something that the vast majority of people will never encounter, I’ve certainly not come across it in the UK. Though I’m not sure how popular it is in the USA.
Dimmer doubling is a process that enables you to double up the number of circuits you have available without the need to re-wire or install more dimmers. It’s not that complicated but this isn’t the place to go into the details. Go to the ETC website if you want more information on Dimmer Doubling.
All I can say about this mode is it appears to work, and like the Universe Convert mode it will save previous results in a list. As I have no experience with Dimmer Doubling I can’t really comment on how useful this mode is.
So, apart from the Dimmer Doubling which has a very limited appeal the application offers nothing new. In fact, I feel that other applications handle several of the features better than DMXRef. For example, DMXCalc will give you all the other features and all from one page with no need to swap between tabs. The free DipSwitch application gives the nice Dip Switch toggle interface, and everything updates in real-time.
As this application is retailing for £2.99 I don’t really see anything here that would make me choose this over DMXCalc.
Rating: 3/5
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