MA-Net

showstack / protocols / ma-net

Also called MA-Net2, MA-Net3, grandMA network protocol.

MA Lighting's proprietary session and device-networking protocol linking grandMA2/grandMA3 consoles, onPC stations, NPUs and MA nodes over UDP multicast (plus TCP for large transfers). It is what actually carries console session data, backup/redundancy state and DMX output between everything on the MA network switch, not a separately branded product.

Lighting controlProprietary, documentedMA Lighting International GmbHReported

Control Small, urgent, must arrive

Small messages that either repeat constantly or fire once. Bandwidth is almost never the problem.

What kills it. Latency and loss on the messages that fire once. A repeating level survives a dropped packet; a GO does not.

The four flows, and why the model is worth having →

Ports

udp/30020 MA-Net3 general session communication (session 1)
Documented by MA Lighting for MA-Net3 (grandMA3) only. MA Lighting does not similarly publish MA-Net2 (grandMA2-era) port numbers.

udp/30021 MA-Net3 extended session communication (session 1)

tcp/30022 MA-Net3 station-to-station high-volume/unicast data transfer
Additional sessions use higher port numbers by a fixed offset per session.

Multicast

236.4.1.0-236.4.1.3 (MA-Net3 session 1 groups)
239.4.1.x (alternate base if 236.4.1.x conflicts)
From MA Lighting's own grandMA3 online manual, for MA-Net3 specifically. Up to 32 sessions are supported by shifting the base address per session. No equivalent public documentation of MA-Net2 multicast ranges was found.

What goes wrong

MA Lighting publishes network/port configuration for MA-Net3 in the grandMA3 online manual, but not a message-format or packet-structure specification, so there is enough to wire a network but not enough to write an independent interoperable client from official docs alone.

MA-Net2 (grandMA2) and MA-Net3 (grandMA3) are different, non-interoperable protocol generations; a grandMA2-era NPU or node does not simply join a grandMA3 MA-Net3 session.

No open-source MA-Net client is known to exist. Open Lighting Architecture, which reverse-engineers many proprietary lighting protocols (Pathport, KiNET), lists no MA-Net support, so third parties depend on official MA Lighting licensing (ArKaos, MADRIX) rather than reverse engineering.

What speaks MA-Net (6)

Product	Direction	Notes
Hippotizer Green Hippo (an ACT Entertainment brand)	in	The DMX component accepts MA-Net alongside Art-Net and sACN, and there is a dedicated MA-Net3 component; 4.9.0 release notes add MA-Net3 networking support.
L8 L8 LLC	in needs licence	MA-Net 2/3 DMX input, documented on the Trace and Unlimited editions only.
MA 3D MA Lighting	in	Driven directly over MA-Net from a grandMA session.
Vectorworks Vision Vectorworks, Inc.	in needs licence	MA-Net2 input requires a Vision-specific USB dongle; MA-Net3 requires an MA viz-key plus a grandMA3 console or onPC, per Vision's own manual.
grandMA2 full-size MA Lighting	bidirectional	MA-Net2 for sessions with other grandMA2 devices and NPUs.
MA Lighting grandMA3 light MA Lighting	bidirectional	Session networking between MA devices.

Typical use

Linking grandMA2/grandMA3 consoles, onPC sessions and NPUs into one rig-wide session
Session backup and redundancy between primary and backup consoles/processing units
DMX output distribution to MA 2Port/4Port Nodes
Third-party media servers and pixel-mapping tools joining a console's session for show sync

Sources

grandMA3 online manual — Network Design, Protocol Details (MA-Net3 ports and multicast ranges) — MA Lighting International GmbH primary
Input, Interoperability, And Remote Control — MA Lighting MA-Net (described as "a proprietary Ethernet network protocol") — inoage GmbH (MADRIX)
MediaMaster 3.1, GrandMA2 and Ma-Net2 (third-party MA-Net2 integration for show sync) — ArKaos
Open Lighting Architecture — supported protocols (no MA-Net entry) — Open Lighting Project

Understand the mechanism

DMX on the wire Show networks

Something wrong, or missing?

Known gaps on this entry: first_published, implementations. If you can source one of them, that is a ten minute pull request.

Edit this entry on GitHub — one file, editable in your browser, and your handle goes on it permanently.

Work at MA Lighting International GmbH? Confirm or correct this entry — it is free, it stays free, and nothing about it is for sale.