System Limits & Capacities

Pharos Designer imposes the following project limits which can not be exceeded:

General Limitations

Timelines 1000  
Custom Presets 256  
Media Presets 256 Imported media clips
Fonts 128  
Scenes 1000  
Folders (for Scenes, Media, Custom Presets) 256  
Triggers 1024  
Conditions Per Trigger 32  
Actions Per Trigger 32  
Trigger Scripts 256  
IO Modules 256  
IO Module Instances 32768  
LPC Family Controllers 40  
VLC Family Controllers 10  
Remote Devices in project 200 Total number of remote devices in a single project. Remote Devices are RIO, EDN, TPS and BPS.
Remote Devices A TPC or an LPC 1, 2 or 4 can support up to 64 remote devices. Per controller per Designer project.
An LPC X can support up to 100 remote devices.
A VLC/VLC+ can support up to 100 remote devices
Install Replications 100  
DALI   Please see DALI Interfaces for DALI limitations
KiNET power supplies 10000  
Timecode Buses 12 MIDI or linear (SMPTE/EBU) timecode sources
Network Buses 5 Ethernet trigger sources eg. UDP
Audio Buses 4 Audio trigger sources
Web Interface Connections 6 Connections to the controller's web server (each tab in a browser, or separate device counts towards this limit)
Patch Universes 10000 Total number of patched universes in the project
Frame Arrays 1000 Instances of media, perlin noise, starfield, text and custom presets deployed on timelines

LPC Family Limitations

Layouts 64  
Layout Size (pixels) 8192x8192  
Fixture Groups 2000  
Fixtures 40000 Discrete or compound fixtures
Fixture Elements 60000 Elements within compound fixtures eg. 18 per James Thomas Pixeline 1044
Pixel Matrices 256  
Pixel Matrix Size (Pixels) 4096 x 4096  
LPC Layers (Transparency) 4 Exceeding this will remove the first layer so that only 4 are running at once
LPC X Video Input Resolution Max 1920x1080p30 Maximum video input resolution (DVI/DisplayPort Input)
Touch Device Pages in Project 10240 Total number of Touch Device pages within the project
Touch Device Interfaces in Project 40  
Maximum SD Card Size 8Gb  
Maximum ARP table size (LPC/TPC) 500 devices Devices that add to the ARP table include Pharos Remote Devices, Art-Net nodes, KiNET Power Supplies, etc.; any device with an IP address that the Controller must talk to.
Maximum ARP table size (LPC X) 1000 devices

VLC Family Limitations

VLC/VLC+ Layouts Per Controller 1 Each VLC Controller can only have 1 layout.
VLC Layout Size (pixels) 16384x16384 Layout and fixture library scale is 1cm:1pixel (0.394":1pixel)
VLC Fixture Limit 256,000 Each VLC within a project can have up to 256,000 fixture elements on its layout
VLC+ Fixture Limit 512,000 Each VLC+ within a project can have up to 512,000 fixture elements on its layout
VLC/VLC+ Group Limit 2000 VLC groups are designed purely for patching and cannot be used for programming.
VLC/VLC+ Fixtures per Group Limit 10000  
VLC/VLC+ Compositions 100 per project  
VLC/VLC+ Content Target Size Max area 2,073,600 pixels 1920x1080 by default. The longest x narrowest the content target can be is 16384x126
VLC Players 2 This is our suggested limit, as using more players will prevent fading from one Timeline to another.
VLC+ HD Players 4
VLC Layers (Transparency) 4 Exceeding this will remove enough layers from the bottom of the LTP stack so that only the given amount are running at once. This allows fading from one timeline using the full player count (mentioned above) to another.
VLC+ Layers (Transparency) 8
VLC+ Adjustment Targets 8  
VLC/VLC+ Video Input Resolution Max 1920x1080p60 Maximum video input resolution (DVI Input)
Maximum ARP table size VLC/VLC+ 2000 devices Devices that add to the ARP table include Pharos Remote Devices, Art-Net nodes, KiNET Power Supplies, etc.; any device with an IP address that the Controller must talk to.

As you can see from the above limits, the Pharos control system can scale to an impressive size that rivals even state-of-the-art lighting consoles.

For very large projects, or projects where some of the above limitations are restrictive, please contact support to discuss your requirements in advance.

Best Practices

Just like any other computational device, Controllers have a finite amount of resources available to them.

Triggering and Playback Expectations

The Pharos system is designed to spread the load across all Controllers in a project. You can aid this by patching fixtures as evenly as possible across all Controllers.

As well as lighting playback, Controllers are often used as interfaces to a wider system. This was intentional and is why the system is so flexible but bear in mind that if a Controller is being asked to deal with a substantial amount of incoming triggers or outgoing actions (such as Ethernet or serial communications) then this may have a negative impact on show playback and system responsiveness. If you have any questions about this, please contact support with your project requirements and we'll be happy to advise.

Looping and Holding at End

If you need a timeline to run continuously, we'd always recommend setting it to hold at end (rather than loop) where appropriate. A looping timeline requires significantly more processing power because the Controller has to track the time position until released. You should always release timelines when they are not actively affecting output. More information about the differences between loop and hold at end can be found here.

Transparency

Transparency is a very processor-intensive effect for Controllers to generate. Having one or two layers of transparency on some fixtures will be fine, but having several layers on a fully patched LPC 4 may cause some playback to be choppier than normal.

Touch Device Pages

The limit above is for the total number of pages in a project, not for the number of pages in an interface.

The practical limit for number of pages is affected by the complexity of the pages in the interface, as this is due to the internal memory size of the controller. A better real-world limit would be around 20 pages.

Media Encoding for Pixel Matrices and Primary/Secondary Content Targets

A Pharos project should be able to run any video, however some settings that are known to work well for video without audio are as follows:

Live Video Settings

The live video input on the LPC X and VLC/VLC+ can accept a variety of incoming resolutions and frame rates. Choose a resolution below to show the accepted frame rate/s.

Resolution
Frame Rate/s

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