Upgrade Procedure

1. Upgrading from: 1.0:

   It is not necessary to run the recovery CD to upgrade from Pearl Expert release 1.0, 1.1 or 2.0 to release 2.1. Download the Latest installer software from the Avolites download web site and save to a USB memory stick or CD. From the Pearl Expert's main console screen click the Yellow 'Folder Browser' icon on the tool bar to the right of the VDU and browse to the location where you saved the 'Pearl Expert v2.1 Setup.exe' file. Double click the file to start the setup process. The installer will guide you through a number of setup dialogs in which we recommend you accept all the default options when prompted. Once the setup is complete, click the "Restart Software" icon from the toolbar on the VDU and the console application will restart running the new software, Release 2.1.

Improvements

1. Support for new USB Panel hardware change:

   The software has been updated to support a change to the USB panel hardware. When using this hardware using previous software versions the panels would be prone to resetting spontaneously.

Upgrade Procedure

1. Upgrading from: 1.0:

   It is not necessary to run the recovery CD to upgrade from Pearl Expert release 1.0 or 1.1 to release 2.0. Download the Latest installer software from the Avolites download web site and save to a USB memory stick or CD. From the Pearl Expert's main console screen click the Yellow 'Folder Browser' icon on the tool bar to the right of the VDU and browse to the location where you saved the 'PearlExpertv2.exe' file. Double click the file to start the setup process. The installer will guide you through a number of setup dialogs in which we recommend you accept all the default options when prompted. Once the setup is complete, click the "Restart Software" icon from the toolbar on the VDU and the console application will restart running the new software, Release 2.0.

2. Upgrading from: 1.1:

   To upgrade from version 1.1, please follow the procedure described above for version 1.0.

New Features

1. Colour Picker:

   There is now an additional window that can be opened that allows one touch selection of a colour for fixtures with colour mixing capabilites. A graphic displays every colour that can be mixed by a fixture which, when clicked on, sends the appropriate CYM or RGB values to the fixture. By holding down the mouse button and moving the cursor around the graphic, it is possible to see in real time the effect you are having on the actual fixtures. By clicking on the colour picker graphic, the colour mixing attributes of the selected fixtures are also added to the programmer as they are when using the attribute wheels on the console.

Improvements

1. Save to USB Stick Root:

   If a show is saved to a USB memory stick on a Pearl 2008, two files (avo.sys and mempool.sys) are saved to the root directory on the memory stick. The Pearl Expert will now list this show as an option when loading from USB, in addition to those shows stored in the default shows folder created when saving Pearl Expert shows, making it easier to transfer shows between a Pearl 2008 and a Pearl Expert if required.

2. Loading a 2008/ Tiger Show into an Expert:

   The Expert can now load and save shows from both the Pearl 2008 and the Pearl Tiger consoles. This means that when saving a show to the USB stick on a Pearl 2008 console you can take that stick and directly load it into an Expert console. It is also possible to take an Expert USB Show stick and load the expert shows into the Pearl 2008.

Bugs Fixed

1. "USB Service Timedout" displayed at startup:
   Found in version: Pearl Expert 1.1

   If an application log file became corrupted, the console software was not able to recover.

2. Robe Digispot personality causing desk crash when patching:
   Found in version: Pearl Expert 1.1

   Using a Robe Digispot running software version 4, patching Layers 3 or 4 caused a dialog box to be displayed indicating the software had encountered a problem and needed to close. A modified personality file has been available on the personality Download site since 17/04/07 which rectifies this problem. Robe Digispots running software version 5 do not exhibit this problem.

3. Corrupt show history data causes desk to crash on startup:
   Found in version: Pearl Expert 1.1

   Console software is now able to recover if a corrupt history file is found

4. DMX port stops after USB panel reset:
   Found in version: Pearl Expert 1.1

   If a USB panel reset was performed while a DMX port was outputting changing DMX values, for example when running a chase, the port would stop outputting DMX altogther after the reset had completed. All DMX ports now correctly output DMX following a panel reset.