Vaddio Production View HD - MIDI TO SERIAL commands

Hello,

I am very excited about the potential this may hold. Our church is using a 2 camera PTZ (Point, Tilt, Zoom) system. We have been broadcasting over FaceBook Live and have had great response from those not able to attend. Sometimes however we do not have anyone upstairs to switch the cameras and video feed. I would love to be able to do the following:

• Use a wireless MIDI controller to generate trigger and control messages
• Send these messages to our iMac upstairs and use MIDI Translate to convert the incoming MIDi messages into SERIAL commands from the Vaddio API
• Send the SERIAL messages from MIDI TRANSLATOR out through a USB to SERIAL adapter to the Vaddio Production View HD

Here is some info on the Production View HD protocol:

Vaddio uses simple control protocols to accomplish custom programming with the ProductionVIEW HD. The Communication Specification, API and Programming Language are listed below and definitions are listed on the next page. Note: All commands must be followed by a carriage return.

Communication Specification Communication Speed: 9600 bps (default) Start bit: 1 Stop bit: 1 Data bits: 8 Parity: None No Flow control

Control Port - RS-232 on DB-9F Connector PIN#     Signal 2)            TXD 3)            RXD 5)            GND All other pins - Unused

I have attached the Serial Control API info below.

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

I look forward to updating everyone on my progress.

Joyfully,

Simeon Amburgey PraiseTracks.com

So it seems that using an iPad I can do MIDI over Wi-Fi.
So using a generic MIDI control App I could send MIDI messages that way.

The question is what could I use on the Mac that could receive those signals?
The Mac is hardwired to the network wireless router. So is there some sort of virtual MIDI port I could run on the Mac to intercept the MIDI commands and pass them to MIDI Translator and out to the USB serial port?

Hi,

I believe your idea is quite possible. For receiving MIDI over a network from your controller, you would likely need some sort of wifi gateway/router on your network or maybe even a wifi dongle on your Mac if configured correctly. You could even use BomeBOX.

 

 

Then you could use either Bome-Network Pro or Apple’s RTP-MIDI to expose an incoming MIDI port to Mac. Any exposed MIDI port on your MAC could be used to connect Bome MIDI Translator Pro.

Would would need to define midi mappings for your controller and then set up the translators to put out ASCII text from your mappings to your connected Serial Port. The serial port should be able to be configured by MT-Pro and you would need to make sure you dongle cable pin-outs match that of your camera controller.

I would recommend you start by setting up your USB to Serial Dongle on your MAC and then downloading an evaluation copy of MT Pro (it will run for only 20 minutes at a time). This will minimize your initial investment. Hopefully you can use some virtual MIDI controller on your MAC for testing and setting up your mappings.

One that is working, phase 2 would be getting the network midi and wifi connections working and purchasing a copy of MT Pro.

Steve

 

bome@sniz.biz

 

Independent Bome Programming Specialist

 

Bome Q&A moderator

 

Sounds like an interesting project. Let me know via email if you would like to contract will me to help get it working. Just send me an email and I will be happy to scope the project and send you a bid.

Steve Caldwell
bome@sniz.biz

Thanks so much, I will keep that in mind.
Looks like I will be getting the USB to SERIAL Adapter today and tonight I will be at church where I can run some preliminary tests. I think I am going to try and build to test translators here on my MacBook with the serial and iPad controllers at home first and then see if I can load them into the church iMac.
Very excited to see what happens.
Simeon
PraiseTracks.com

Yes, I believe Florian said he provided you with Beta Version of MT Pro for testing. I ran some preliminary tests on MT Pro 1.8.2 and ran into some problems. I ran same tests on Beta 1.8.3 with no problems at all. (Using virtual loopback COM port software instead of a real cable)

** UPDATE **
The USB to SERIAL came in today. I downloaded the beta version of MTP and installed it on my MacBook for testing.
I was able to get the iPad Wireless WiFi setup as well and found a really simple MIDI control surface App that gives me some very simple options for the control surface.
I have setup the Translator and it appears that signal is going out to the SERIAL Port. In a few hours I will be able to test this on the video switcher itself.

Stay Tuned!!!
Simeon
PraiseTracks.com

Looking good!

Hi, Simeon,

How is your project coming along?

Steve

Well I tried getting everything running on Wednesday and had some mixed results. I am not able to do anything further for a few days but I am hopeful I can get this to work. I was able to capture the commands from the Vaddio but not getting any response when I try sending commands out. The SERIAL indicator in the event section is lighting up I am just not sure what the Vaddio is actually seeing.
I think I am going to try setting up a VIRTUAL SERIAL PORT to capture the output just to see what is going out of MTP.

Simeon

OK, the most likely issues could be:

Pins 2 and 3 on your connectors reversed. Not likely if one is female and the other is mail but if you are using some sort of adapter cable this could be an issue.

Wrong baud rate, stop bits or parity.

Null modem virtual port would only help if the issue is in the software.

If you have a standard ascii dumb terminal you can use to send commands to your VADDIO, that would help. Looking around, these days they are hard to come by or expensive. Those old dumb terminals were cheap as dirt back in the 70’s and 80’s but now they look like since there are so few left, they come at a premium price, even on Ebay.

Sometimes I wish I had kept mine.
Another idea is if your MAC has terminal emulation software to try and just type the commands from there and see if you VADDIO responds.

Good luck!

Steve

Curious to find your progress.

I have been away and not able to work on this for a few days. I should be able to try again next week as I will be able to get back over to the video room to try some other things and troubleshoot some more. I will keep you posted for sure. I might try taking some video of my process to share to see if it might help get some insight as to what might be going wrong.

Ok, thanks for your update. No reason why it shouldn’t work if set up correctly.

*** UPDATE ***

I got to spend some more time trying this out. It seems that I can capture the SERIAL messages coming from the VADDIO but it does not seem to be receiving them when I sent them back out.
I recorded a short video illustrating my setup and the steps to try getting this to work. Maybe someone can see where things might not be connecting or something

https://youtu.be/4928XYbaKKk

Thanks,
Simeon

1) Could you post your project file? I’d like to see better on how you have the translators set up.
2) Why did you not show the log window? It will probably show you a lot more detail on what is happening. You show the event window but not the log window (with incoming and outgoing checked)?

Hi posting a video with the test I ran. Uploading now but when it is done it should be at the below URL

https://youtu.be/AlyLaIL9Zpg

 

Also including the project file here. I hope this can get you a bit further along.

 

Also, make sure you are using the beta version of the software Florian sent you. The 1.8.2. production software has problems sending serial messages.

Another thought. Once you capture MIDI and are ready to test, make sure you uncheck capture midi. It seems to be messing things up with my tests if I leave it checked.

Also looking at the manual the command should probably be “ProgIn 1” not “Prog 1” which is probably the output status from the Vaddio device when you press the button.

Thanks for all the help.
I will be back over there Sunday and will try your suggestions.
I think we are getting closer!

My pleasure, Simeon! Keep us informed. I’m sure with a bit of effort we will be able to make it work. Also you might want to turn of echo on your Vaddio. “SerialEcho OFFr”

If you have a terminal emulation program, you might want to run that and send commands through that application first instead of Bome MT so you can interactively see what is happening and how the system reacts.
It may help you set up your command strings for MT better. For instance, I don’t think you will need a n character.

*** SUCCESS ***

I was able to spend some time today to work on this and am very happy to say that with the support and help from the group I was able to get this to actually work!

Some of the key things were me being confused at the initial commands being received from the Production View HD serial port. As you pointed out this was what was coming from the device as a response to the command being sent to it. When I made sure the command was formatted properly as well as the Note On matched up with the iPad App and MIDI Translator then everything worked as expected.

HERE IS A VIDEO DEMONSTRATION

A couple of observations:
* It seems that the iPad MIDI Control Surface App note numbers did not match MIDI Translator. So a D3 displayed on the iPad APP PAD was recognized as D4 in MIDI TRANSLATOR.

* Another issue it seemed was losing wireless connection from the iPAD to the wireless MIDI running on the MacBook Pro. I just had to make sure the iPad was on all the time and not close it down or allow it to go to sleep or in lock mode. This made me put it on a charger at times and run the backlight at a minimum.

** THE FUTURE **

I will continue to add commands to help expand the functionality with this particular application. For instance, each camera has multiple presets where you can have pre selected angles, zoom, pan settings. The idea would be to assign the individual camera presets to a PAD to trigger them. I also don’t know how using an X/Y pad on the MIDI APP could possibly allow me to do zoom, pan and tilt controls for the cameras.

I AM SO AMAZED at how MIDI TRANSLATOR can be used. It is an amazing piece of software. Thanks for all of the hard work and vision you put into it to bring it to us so we can continue to do crazy things with it!

Joyfully,
Simeon

So glad you got it working Simeon and am happy I could help. Hopefully this will help production of your services go much smoother.

Steve