Stop, Blackout and Output Off
The DMX Core 100 has three global ways to stop output. They differ in two things: what the room looks like afterward, and whether it is a one-time action or a state you switch on and off.
| Action | Kind | The room afterward | What it stops | What stays |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | One-time | Your resting look | Cues, timelines, sound, and any preset or manual fixture control | The ambient preset, if you have one |
| Blackout | Switched on and off | Black and silent | Nothing: everything keeps running underneath, you just cannot see or hear it | Everything; switching Blackout off shows it again |
| Output Off | Switched on and off | Silent (no signal) | Everything, and nothing new can start | Your fixture settings, ready for Output On |
Stop
Stop ends everything that is playing — cues, timelines and sounds — and releases any preset or manual control you have put on the fixtures. The room returns to its resting look: the ambient preset if one is configured, otherwise whatever the End of Data setting does.
If you want a particular look to survive a Stop, make it an ambient preset. That is what ambient presets are for: the look that is there when nothing is playing.
To stop one cue or sound without touching anything else, use that item’s own stop button, or the Fade Out action.
Blackout
Blackout works like the blackout key on a lighting console: it is a mask over the output, and it stays on until you switch it off. While it is on, every DMX channel is sent as 0% and audio is muted, but nothing that is playing is stopped. Cues, timelines, schedules and sounds carry on underneath. Switch it off and whatever is current appears at once; a show that was chasing timecode is still in time.
Nothing else releases it: not a preset, not a schedule, not a cue starting. That is the point. During an evacuation nothing can bring the lights back by accident. Blackout is not saved across a restart.
Channels in a Cue Fade Mask — gobo and color wheels, pan and tilt — keep their live value instead of going to 0%, so moving heads stay where the cue wants them rather than swinging to their end stops and back when the blackout lifts. If a channel should stay put under a blackout, add it to the fade mask for that universe.
Blackout is a trigger action with Set To On, Off or Toggle, available in custom menus, schedules, input triggers, control surfaces, scripts and the system.blackout switch for plugins. A button assigned to it lights while the blackout is on, the Web UI header shows BLACKOUT, the Faders page has a BLACKOUT button, and the touchscreen status line reads BLACKOUT. On the touchscreen, Utilities > Stop/Blackout is a tile (shown only to a signed-in user with the Start/Stop output permission — the built-in Operator and Standard roles do not have it). A tap switches Blackout on (tap again to release); a hold stops. On a control surface, turn on Hold to confirm so an accidental tap cannot black out the room.
To stop everything and stay dark, press Stop and then Blackout. When a cue ends while Blackout is on, the End of Data setting applies exactly as it would otherwise; the last thing the receivers saw was black, so a receiver that holds its last look stays dark.
Output Off
Output Off is the Toggle Output action: the unit stops everything, sends a stream terminate so receivers know it has gone, and then transmits nothing. Nothing that plays can start while output is off. Your fixture settings are kept, so Output On brings the room back exactly as it was — like a reboot — without restarting any cue that was playing.
This is the switch a backup unit is parked with. Unlike Blackout it is saved, so a parked unit stays silent after a power cycle. Note that Output Off cannot promise a dark room: after a terminate, what a receiver shows is up to the receiver. Blackout can.
Routed input and the hardware passthrough
Input that the DMX Core 100 routes from a console is an external source, not something it plays: Stop leaves it streaming, Blackout masks it to zero until Blackout is switched off, and Output Off parks it until Output On.
The 2-port DMX-512 board’s firmware Passthrough is outside all three. It forwards port to port in the board itself, so while a console is connected to the input port, a Blackout darkens every other output and the passthrough port keeps showing the console. If the stop states must apply, route the input with stream routing instead of the firmware passthrough.