Hey Mick,

I am inspired by your idea. However, I have prided myself on being an expert using the effects generators on many lighting desk. Personally, I still like to use a media server.

In fact, I fought recently in a new venue design using LED tubes to have the client buy and extra media server to drive the LEDs. They scratched their heads but when I did a demo on a video screen, they understood.

Everything you mentioned doing is something I can imaging doing with stock content and color or visual effects in Catalyst. In fact, the amount of time to do it with a media server is less than the time I would need to do it in the effects generator.

To make an example, your "Knight Rider" idea:
Use the standard Open white file on layer 1 with Green and Blue at zero.
On layer 2, I use the shutter iris effect with FX1 at full to soften the edges.
I also rotate the Y until the circle becomes squished very thin.
I Set an effect to change the X position in steps so it jumps from left to right. Then I adjust the image speed until the red squished dot moves slowly back and forth.

The cool thing is I can do this on a Mac Mini running Catalyst Express and only require 80 channels for the media server. The Knight rider effect I believe is one of the harder ones you were asking for.

Still though, as a thought, you can uses something like an ETC net device and serial commands to mix and match DMX so that you can use pixel mad ad a group or use console DMX fixtures as another group.