Art-Net transports DMX512 and RDM lighting data over an Ethernet network

Art-Net is an open, royalty-free protocol that encapsulates DMX512 (the standard 512-channel lighting-control bus) and RDM (Remote Device Management) packets inside Ethernet frames. Instead of running one physical DMX cable per 512-channel universe, a single Ethernet network carries many universes at once, so large LED/pixel and lighting rigs scale far beyond what direct DMX cabling allows. Standard Ethernet switches route the traffic; software addresses universes numerically rather than by cable. Art-Net is authored and copyrighted by Artistic Licence Engineering Ltd, who published the spec for anyone to use royalty-free subject to attribution conditions. It is the most widely supported networked-lighting protocol, implemented by hundreds of manufacturers and by VJ/media tools (Resolume, MadMapper, WLED). For a live-coder or VJ this is the bridge between a laptop and physical lights/LEDs.

Examples

A laptop running VJ software joins the same LAN as a DMX-to-Ethernet node or a WLED LED controller and addresses individual universes (Universe 0, 1, 2…) over the network — no per-fixture DMX cable back to the laptop.

Assessment

Explain what Art-Net encapsulates and why a single Ethernet cable can replace many DMX cables in a large installation.