Colortran Innovator .inn file

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timmrogers
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 4:29 am

Colortran Innovator .inn file

Post by timmrogers »

This is a long shot - but I thought that I'd ask.

I'm working with some local theaters where they are using Colortran Innovator consoles. I'd like to be able to import cues from them into LXConsole. The Innovator saves cues and patches and so on as a .inn file - binary and proprietary, as far as I can tell.

Does anyone know of a utility or any other way to convert the .inn data to ASCII that could be imported into LXConsole?
admin
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Post by admin »

LXConsole can import information stored in USITT ASCII format. This specification was specifically created for moving cues between consoles made by different manufacturers. It is relatively easy to implement. But, it has been supported by only a few companies. Most ETC consoles, with the notable exception of Obsession, have some way of reading and writing ASCII files, either directly or with an offline editor. Because USITT ASCII only covers basic functions that are pretty much common to all light boards, it is not generally used as the primary file format for most consoles. Most consoles store their data using some proprietary binary scheme.

As a side note: LXConsole's .lxcues files actually store their information in XML format. It is proprietary in the sense that it is not published in a defined way as open source, but it is not hidden either. You can look at it with a regular text editor. If you do this, you'll find that the cue data is internally saved in USITT format between <ascii> and </ascii> tags, along with a lot of other tags that define everything else that needs saved in the file. If LXConsole did not export in USITT ASCII format, it would still be relatively easy to extract the ASCII information from a .lxcues file by only reading text found between <ascii> and </ascii>. A binary file format is not so transparent and it is more difficult to extract cue data from it, particularly if you do not have access to a published specification.

Having explained all that, the Innovator manual makes no mention of saving ASCII files. It does allow you to create fixture definitions in a text editor. But, that is not the same thing. You may need to contact Leviton and ask if there is any way of translating their files into ASCII.
timmrogers
Posts: 51
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2014 4:29 am

Post by timmrogers »

Thank you.
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