City Theatrical Multiverse Transmitter Issues
NOTE: The City Theatrical Multiverse system may support up to 10 universes of DMX, but actual performance can vary depending on specific use cases and system configurations.
ETC does not control or validate the information published in City Theatrical’s Multiverse data sheets. We strongly encourage users to review this article to determine whether their application may fall into one of the edge cases where Multiverse may not function as expected within an ETC system.
We’ve outlined several known scenarios in the article, but please note that this is not an exhaustive list of all possible limitations or incompatibilities.
Shipping Hold and v2.2.0.9.0.6 Release
In February 2025 ETC placed the City Theatrical Multiverse Transmitter (MvTx) on a shipping hold after confirming reported site issues.
Issue
The Multiverse Transmitter could get into a state where it would no longer transmit levels on one or both radios resulting in partial or full loss of control of any Multiverse Receiver devices. This is a complex issue causing the loss of control and may result in a variety of symptoms noted here:
- Some or all of your connected Multiverse devices become unresponsive
- Because these are dual radio devices one radio or both may get into the bad state
- If one radio continues to operate it may fail at a later time
- Radio Signal/Quality:
- may still be present and showing sufficient strength
- may drop offline
- DMX Indication:
- may still be active but no levels being output
- may show inactive and no levels being output
- DMXCat Diagnostics:
- RDM:
- connected devices may show connected receiver devices
- connected devices may indicate devices but not load any properties
- may not show any connected devices
- Levels:
- DMX/Universes may appear or not
- RDM:
- Loss of control may occur in seconds after power up of the MvTx or may take several days to lose control
- Loss of control will persist until the Multiverse Transmitter is rebooted
Resolution
City Theatrical released v2.2.0.9.0.6 in September 2025 to address these issues after exhaustive testing in partnership with ETC. In October 2025 ETC resumed shipping the Multiverse Transmitter running v2.2.0.9.0.6. Any site with a MvTx should be updated to v2.2.0.9.0.6 at their earliest convenience, which is available on City Theatrical's website:https://www.citytheatrical.com/resou...5910-5911-5912. Install instructions and the MvTxUpdater application are available in that download. Be sure to download the correct bundle for your model of MvTx.
Remaining Known Issue
During the course of testing another defect was confirmed and is still present in v2.2.0.9.0.6. When using a large number of Universes¹ and/or Sources¹ with the Multiverse Transmitter it may experience packet loss¹ on a single Universe, Universe drop out, multiple Universe drop outs, or complete loss of output. All of ETC's testing has been using sACN and can not speak to performance with ArtNet. The MvTx supports up to 10 Universes of sACN transmission over the Multiverse Radio spectrum. During the investigation the handling capabilities of the MvTx appear limited and can trigger the aforementioned failure states based on a combination of Universes, Sources, and sACN refresh rate¹. Below are some scenarios to help guide MvTx usage in a Multiverse system. In all these scenarios the MvTx is configured for 10 Universes of output using 243xx SHoW IDs:
- Paradigm sourcing 10 Universes of sACN:
- With a variable refresh rate up to ~18Hz, 10 Universes single sourced from Paradigm, the transmitter should output without issue with marginal packet loss due to general wireless events
- Eos sole sourcing 10 Universes of sACN:
- With a variable refresh rate up to ~44Hz, 10 Universes single sourced from Eos, the transmitter may drop a noticeable number of packets that would cause fades to be more abrupt or steppy
- Paradigm sourcing 10 Universes and Eos sourcing 4 or more Universes:
- With a total of 14 sources (10 from Paradigm and 4 from Eos, with 4 Universes having two sources), with Paradigm having a variable refresh rate up to ~18Hz and Eos having a variable rate up to ~44Hz, the transmitter will start to drop an unusable number of packets, or stop transmitting one or more Universes for an indefinite period of time.
- Paradigm and Eos both sourcing 10 Universe of sACN:
- With a total of 20 sources (10 Universes * 2 Sources each), with one variable refresh rate up to ~18Hz and one variable refresh rate up to ~44Hz,the transmitter may drop an unusable number of packets, or stop transmitting one or more Universes for a period of time, or require a reboot of the Multiverse Transmitter to restore output
Considerations and Planning
Unfortunately at this time there is not a straight formula for determining what might tip the transmitter into an unusable state. The best rule of thumb is to not exceed 12 sources, whether that be 6 Universes * 2 Sources or 4 Universes single Sourced and 4 Universes dual Sourced. Keeping in mind the max refresh rate of the Sources plays a key role in the total source count max.
Definitions
- Universe(s) - referring to sACN Universe(s) of data which are converted ultimately to a DMX Universe by the Multiverse Receiver device.
- Source(s) - referring to each transmitting device per sACN Universe. For example: an Eos Console outputting 1 sACN Universe counts as a single source of sACN, that same console outputting 5 sACN Universes counts as a single source per sACN Universe which equates to 5 total sources, an Eos Console outputting 10 sACN Universes and a Paradigm Architectural Control Processor outputting the same 10 sACN Universes equates to a total of 20 sources (2 outputting devices * 10 sACN Universes = 20 total sources)
- sACN Refresh Rate - like DMX Refresh Rate, this is the count of packets sent per second, measured in Hertz (Hz). 1 Hz equals one data packet per second, 40 Hz equals 40 data packets per second. In most ETC products the outputting device may slow down the refresh rate if there are no level changes between packets. Most products will idle, meaning no level changes over a period of time, at approximately 1.1Hz (a packet sent every ~0.9 seconds). As level changes occur the refresh rate will increase to match the rate of level changes up to a maximum refresh rate defined in the product. This maximum sACN refresh rate varies from 18Hz up to 60Hz depending on the ETC product, while maximum DMX refresh rate is 44Hz or below.
- Packet Loss - packet loss in this article is referring to the loss of sACN/DMX packets, where a packet is a data bundle of 512 address values. If the outputting device is sending packets at a rate of 20 Hz, then the expected time interval is ~0.05 seconds. When packets are lost between the Multiverse Transmitter and Multiverse Receiver device there would be gaps in that timing interval and the resulting refresh rate would drop, but more importantly be erratically timed.
- In the image below, the red line and dots are the outputting device's sACN packets being sent to the MvTx. The orange line and dots are the DMX packets being output by the Multiverse Receiving device. Not the missing packets on the orange line compared to the red line. This is an example of packet loss or packet drops. Along with packet loss there may be packet timing delays or duplicate packet output as also evidenced along the orange line. Some of this is completely normal as wireless interference can affect receipt and output of DMX levels. Of note, the fixture being controlled by this orange line of data is performing as expected to the casual observer.
- Below is an example of when packet loss starts to become problematic due to repeated duplicate packets and dropped packets:
- In the image below, the red line and dots are the outputting device's sACN packets being sent to the MvTx. The orange line and dots are the DMX packets being output by the Multiverse Receiving device. Not the missing packets on the orange line compared to the red line. This is an example of packet loss or packet drops. Along with packet loss there may be packet timing delays or duplicate packet output as also evidenced along the orange line. Some of this is completely normal as wireless interference can affect receipt and output of DMX levels. Of note, the fixture being controlled by this orange line of data is performing as expected to the casual observer.