CrowdGlow Broadcast

This guide will walk you through operating the key features of the CrowdGlow Broadcast app. If you require any assistance at all, please don’t hesitate to ask for help via email: hello@crowdglow.uk

Features

  • LIGHTS

  • CROWDNET

  • ARTNET

  • SETTINGS

Lights

You can control your light show in real-time in the Lights tab by simply clicking on the colour or mode settings that you wish to use. A variety of screen effects and LED effect are available each with their own speed control. Master will respect global master when a lighting console is connected via ArtNet, it will also change the screen brightness of the phones.

SCREEN MODES

App Screen

This is the default app screen which will display the welcome message to your audience. It is best practice to keep this mode activated until the moment you’d like to start the light show.



Instant

All of the phones will change colour in perfect sync with a solid colour set by the RGB values. Tip: Don’t linger on a black screen for too long before or after the light show, always start and return to the App Screen, otherwise the audience may think their phone screen has locked.



Random

Each phone will pick a random delay to display the next colour change, the speed slider will determine how fast or slow this randomisation occurs. Random is meant for solid colour changes, and doesn’t support fading between colour values.



Flash Bulb

Each phone will pick a random delay time and only turn on for a brief flash, using the speed control you can vary this effect from a subtle twinkle pattern to an intense flash bulb effect. RGB colour can be snap changed or smoothly faded while in this mode.



Shimmer

Each phone will pick a random delay time and will dim the current RGB colour to 70% and back to 100%. Speed control lets you vary this from a subtle effect to a more upbeat effect. the RGB colour can be snap changed or smoothly faded while in this mode.



Strobe

This mode will strobe the currently selected phone screen colour. RGB colour can be smoothly changed during the strobe mode, it is best to snap change the speed while in this mode rather than to fade any speed changes. On slower speeds, the phones will eventually drift out of sync in this mode. For slow speed flashing it is better to use Instant mode and manually strobe the colour from black to your desired colour.



Random Strobe

This is a hybrid mixture of the Flash Bulb and Strobe modes, it is great for doing momentary “glitch” looks. Colour RGB and Speed can be changed in this mode.



Random Hold A & B

These are special modes designed to be toggled between A & B. Each time you toggle between A & B every individual phone will decide based on a 1 in 3 chance if it will turn on to the current colour or stay black. When toggled again, if a phone was on previously it will turn off, if it was already off it will have a 1 in 3 chance of turning back on. This means there will always be a random movement on every toggle and is great effect for hitting a beat with a subset of phones being turned on at anyone time. Speed currently has no impact on this effect mode.



Stats

The Stats mode is perfect for checking your signal in the venue and debugging any issues. It will display the current RGB value as a solid colour, overlaid by the current frames per second that phone is receiving. Due to the nature all mobile phones being slightly different, with different antennas, these fps do bounce around a little, this is completely normal. On average we expect between 10 to 15 fps for every transmitter you have in range.

LED MODES

Off & On

Turns all phone LED flashes off and on instantly.


Random Off & Random On

Each phone will pick a random delay in turning off or on based on the speed control. This is great for doing a dissolve style fade.


Flash Bulb

Each phone will pick a random delay time and only turn on for a brief flash of the LED, using the speed control you can vary this effect from a subtle twinkle pattern to an intense flash bulb effect.


Strobe

This mode will strobe the LED Flash. It is best to snap change the speed while in this mode rather than to fade any speed changes. On slower speeds, the phones will eventually drift out of sync in this mode. For slow speed flashing it is better to use the on and off modes and manually strobe the LED Flash.


Random Strobe

This is a hybrid mixture of the Flash Bulb and Strobe modes, it is great for doing momentary “glitch” looks. Speed can be changed in this mode.


Random Hold A & B

These are special modes designed to be toggled between A & B. Each time you toggle between A & B every individual phone will decide based on a 1 in 3 chance if it will turn on the LED Flash. When toggled again, if a phone flash was on previously it will turn off, if it was already off it will have a 1 in 3 chance of turning back on. This means there will always be a random movement on every toggle and is great effect for hitting a beat with a subset of phones being turned on at anyone time. Speed currently has no impact on this effect mode.

CrowdNet

The CrowdNet section displays all of the transmitters currently connected to on your network. The CrowdNet menu item will be green when all transmitters have a good status, amber if some of the transmitters go offline and red if all transmitters go offline. Restarting the Broadcast app will clear the transmitter list of any red offline transmitters.

USB Transmitter
USB Transmitters require no configuration on modern MacOSX. Simply plug in the USB transmitter with the supplied cable and it will appear in the CrowdNet list. The USB transmitters status light will turn green when it is transmitting. On older MacOSX versions such as High Sierra, you may require an additional driver installation. If your transmitter status led stays red and the CrowdGlow Broadcast app is running, contact our support via hello@crowdglow.uk and we’ll get you set up with the correct drivers.

POE Transmitter
Each POE transmitter displays its important information including ID, IP Address etc…

If the transmitters’ status colour changes to red, this means that communication has been lost with that specific transmitter.

On the right side, a list of detected network adapters are displayed and this is useful for debugging any networking issues or IP range related configuration.

All CrowdNet POE transmitters have a static address in the 10.224.120.x range with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.

  • You will need to add an IP address to your Mac in the 10.224.120.x to be able to communicate with them. To do this go to:

    • System Preference > Network

    • Click the + Icon at the bottom left of the window

    • Select the Apple USB Ethernet Adapter as the interface

    • Change Configure IPv4 to Manually

    • Enter 10.224.120.150 as the IP address

    • Enter 255.255.255.0 as the subnet mask

    • Click Apply

ArtNet

The ArtNet section allows you to configure an incoming ArtNet feed from a lighting console to take control of CrowdGlow Broadcast.

To get started, download the appropriate fixture profile from the Documentation section for your lighting console or create your own patch using the DMX Channel Definition.

  • On your console patch a single instance of the CrowdGlow Broadcast fixture.

  • Enable ArtNet output of the universe that you patched the fixture into (If you are unfamiliar with ArtNet, there are a number of walkthroughs on Youtube on how to do this depending on the console you are using)

  • Depending on your network setup, you may need to configure an additional 10.0.0.x IP address on your Mac to receive the ArtNet signal.

  • ArtNet can be configured to Broadcast, however if CrowdGlow is the only system requiring it you can Unicast directly to the 10.0.0.x address of your Mac.

  • Once you are outputting ArtNet from your console, it is time to configure CrowdGlow Broadcast to receive it.

  • Click on the ArtNet tab on the left menu.

  • Enter the Universe, Subnet, Net and start channel that you patched the fixture into on your console.

  • Tap the green Enable ArtNet button.

  • If configured correctly, the red line on the ArtNet menu will change to Green. If it changes to Amber, this means the software is expecting ArtNet but isn’t receiving it yet. If this happens double check your network setup and the ArtNet output settings on your console.

The ArtNet menu button will be red if ArtNet hasn’t been configured or enabled, amber if it has been enabled but not currently receiving ArtNet, and green if it is receiving ArtNet.

Settings

Clear All Settings & Restart

Clicking this button will clear all settings, and cached channel values and restart the app for you. This is essentially taking you back to a clean install of the CrowdGlow Broadcast app.