showstack / compare / dmx512-vs-sacn
DMX512 vs sACN
What is the difference between DMX and sACN? Below is every field we hold on both, side by side. Each one is sourced on the individual entry, and anything nobody could source is left blank rather than guessed.
Side by side
| DMX512 | sACN | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | lighting-control | lighting-control |
| Flow | Control — small, urgent, must arrive | Control — small, urgent, must arrive |
| Ports | UDP 5568 | |
| Transport | rs485 | udp |
| Multicast | no | 239.255.0.0/16 (IPv4, universe in low two octets), FF18::83:00:00:00/104 (IPv6) |
| Addressing | One universe = 1 start code plus up to 512 slots of 8-bit data, refreshed up to about 44 times per second. | 512 slots per universe; universes 1-63999, plus 64214 for E1.31 discovery. |
| Spec availability | open-published | open-published |
| Steward | ESTA (Entertainment Services and Technology Association) | ESTA (Entertainment Services and Technology Association) |
| First published | 1986 | 2009 |
| Status | current | current |
| Our confidence | verified | verified |
Both are control flows. Latency and loss on the messages that fire once. A repeating level survives a dropped packet; a GO does not. That applies equally to either, so it is not a discriminator here.
Speaks both (41)
These are the safe choices if you have not committed to either, or need to bridge the two.
- ArKaos MediaMaster ArKaos
- Avolites Titan Avolites
- ChamSys MagicQ ChamSys
- Chataigne Ben Kuper
- Daslight Daslight (Nicolaudie)
- DMX-Workshop Singularity (UK) Ltd
- DMXControl 3 DMXControl Projects e.V.
- Eos Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC)
- Lightkey Lightkey
- MadMapper garageCube
- Medialon Control System Medialon (Barco)
- Millumin Anomes (Philippe Chaurand)
- OLA (Open Lighting Architecture) Open Lighting Project
- ONYX Obsidian Control Systems
- QLC+ QLC+ project
- TouchDesigner Derivative
- Avolites Arena Avolites
- Avolites Diamond 9 Avolites
- Avolites Tiger Touch III Avolites
- ChamSys MagicQ MQ80 ChamSys
- ChamSys MagicQ MQ500M Stadium ChamSys
- Christie Pandoras Box Christie
- City Theatrical Multiverse Transmitter City Theatrical
- ELC dmXLAN node8 ELC Lighting
- ENTTEC DIN Ethergate MK2 ENTTEC
- ENTTEC ODE Mk3 ENTTEC
- ETC Eos Apex 10 ETC
- ETC Ion Xe 20 ETC
- ETC Response Mk2 DMX/RDM Gateway ETC
- ETC Sensor3 Dimmer Rack ETC
- ETC ThruPower Rack ETC
- grandMA2 full-size MA Lighting
- grandMA3 full-size MA Lighting
- MA Lighting grandMA3 light MA Lighting
- Hog 4 High End Systems
- LumenRadio CRMX Nova TX2 LumenRadio
- Luminex LumiNode 12 Luminex Network Intelligence
- Obsidian Control Systems NX4 Obsidian Control Systems
- Pathway Connectivity Pathport OCTO Pathway Connectivity
- Wireless Solution W-DMX BlackBox F-2 G6 Wireless Solution
- Zero 88 FLX S48 Zero 88
DMX512 only (12)
- ArtNet Monitor (PixiLab) PixiLab
- The ArtNetominator Lightjams Inc.
- ArtNetView Haute Technique
- DMXcat City Theatrical, Inc.
- ETCDmxTool ETC Labs
- Home Assistant Open Home Foundation
- Isadora TroikaTronix (Mark Coniglio)
- RDM Controller JESE
- Show Cue System (SCS) Show Cue Systems
- vvvv vvvv group
- ENTTEC DMX USB Pro ENTTEC
- Medialon Showmaster Pro Medialon (Barco)
sACN only (35)
- Capture Capture Visualisation AB
- Depence Syncronorm GmbH
- disguise Designer disguise
- dot2 onPC MA Lighting
- grandMA3 onPC MA Lighting
- Hippotizer Green Hippo (an ACT Entertainment brand)
- L8 L8 LLC
- LightConverse LightConverse
- PIXERA AV Stumpfl
- QLab Figure 53
- Realizzer 3D Realizzer
- sACNView
- Smode Smode Tech
- Stage Precision Stage Precision
- Unreal Engine Epic Games
- Vectorworks Vision Vectorworks, Inc.
- Wireshark Wireshark Foundation
- WYSIWYG CAST Group Inc.
- Analog Way Picturall Mark II Analog Way
- Avolites Ai Q3 Avolites
- Cisco Catalyst 9200 Series Cisco
- Cisco Catalyst 9300 Cisco
- disguise gx 3 disguise
- Eos Apex 5 ETC
- Follow-Me 3D Follow-Me
- Green Hippo Hippotizer Karst+ MK2 Green Hippo
- Hippotizer Boreal+ MK2 Green Hippo
- Luminex GigaCore 10 Luminex Network Intelligence
- Luminex GigaCore 16Xt Luminex Network Intelligence
- Luminex GigaCore 26i Luminex Network Intelligence
- Megapixel HELIOS LED Processing Platform Megapixel VR
- Modulo Kinetic Modulo Pi
- NETGEAR M4250 (AV Line) NETGEAR
- AV Stumpfl PIXERA one AV Stumpfl
- zactrack PRO zactrack
What goes wrong with DMX512
DMX is RS-485 and wants 120 ohm impedance cable with a terminator at the far end. Microphone cable works until the run is long or the rig is noisy, and then it fails in a way that looks like a fixture fault.
There is no error detection. A corrupted slot is simply acted on. Flicker that follows no logic is usually a data integrity problem, not a fixture.
Star topology is not part of the standard. Daisy chain, or use a real opto-splitter. Passive Y-splits are the source of an enormous amount of unexplained behaviour.
Start code 0x00 is dimmer data. Other start codes exist (0xCC is RDM), and a device that ignores start codes will act on RDM traffic as if it were levels.
What goes wrong with sACN
Multicast without IGMP snooping configured on the switch turns into a broadcast storm. This is the single most common cause of "the network died when we patched the second console".
Priority is per-universe (0-200, default 100) and sources with equal priority get merged by the receiver, not by the sender. Two consoles at default priority will fight.
Universe numbering is 1-based here but many products expose a 0-based index internally. Always confirm against the receiving device, not the console.
Sources
- ANSI E1.11 — USITT DMX512-A, Asynchronous Serial Digital Data Transmission Standard for Controlling Lighting Equipment and Accessories — ESTA Technical Standards Program primary
- Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry (port 5568, sdt) — IANA primary
Disagree with any of this?
Every claim above comes from one of the two entries and carries a source. If one is wrong, correcting it is a single file and it fixes this page automatically. Edit DMX512 or edit sACN.