Events

Vari-Lite goes Quiet

Details: 14 March 2016

Vari-Lite's new toy was the Series 3000Q luminaire, an expansion of the powerful 1200W Series 3000 fixtures, but designed with low-noise operation in mind. With its 'Q' for 'quiet', the new fixture claims an audible noise output reduction of 50% from the original Series 3000 series, say VL. This reduction has been achieved by slowing the fixture's seven fans and redesigning some key elements to better handle the increased heat load. A high-performance UV/IR window filters unwanted non-visible wavelengths from the lamp that would otherwise be passed through the optical path; other changes include the use of higher temperature materials and more efficient airflow paths. The Series 3000Q features all operational features currently in the Series 3000 fixtures - the trade-off is strictly thermal, say VL.

Vari-Lite will provide a "Q-kit" which includes everything you need to conver

Enliten / White Light

Details: 14 March 2016

Enliten's Exhibition PAR has been a big seller to rental houses serving the auto show market in the US: now its incorporation of Osram's new 150W HSD 7000°K daylight lamp, as demonstrated at LDI, makes this a lighter, whiter proposition than ever before. White Light showed its VSFX range of moving effects projectors

https://www.claypaky.it/products/ultimo-hybrid/

Fourth Phase / PRG

Details: 14 March 2016

Fourth Phase showed the Mbox system. MBox integrates the versatility of video with the flexible control of automated lighting, enabling video, stills and real-time effects to be combined for visual effects that can be displayed by any projector, LED wall or monitor.

L&SI Networks with Cirque Du Soleil

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Lighting&Sound International magazine (L&SI) will stage its second Networking event in February, when it offers readers a unique opportunity to take a behind the scenes tour of Dralion, the latest production from the world-renowned Cirque Du Soleil, which comes to London's Royal Albert Hall in the New Year. The first Networking event was a great success, providing 56 delegates with a backstage tour and performance of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium.

For the next event, which will take place on 13 February, delegates will be able to join L&SI at the Royal Albert Hall and meet with members of the Cirque Du Soleil production team, the Royal Albert Hall's technical crew and representatives of the companies who have supplied lighting, sound and rigging expertise to the production.

The day will include a guided tour of the historic venue and modern produ

CKI accessories from City Theatrical

Details: 14 March 2016

City Theatrical's latest lighting tools included a line of versatile accessories for use with Color Kinetics' LED-based lighting systems. The first accessories in the line are for use with Color Kinetics' popular ColorBlast, ColorBurst and ColorBlaze units: standard accessories include accessory holders, top hats, half top hats, spread lenses, egg crate louvres, and barndoors. The company showed moving prototype versions of the Color Kinetics ColorBlaze 48 (pictured), while also on display was a moving version of ETC's MultiPAR-3, with Wybron CXI colour mixing scroller; both were motorized in the tilt axis with 180° of movement, 16-bit control, and encoder feedback.

Also from this prolific award-winner was Lightwright 4, which picked up the LDI Product of the Year award in the Software category. V4 is the latest version of Lightwright with a host of new features - among them a 62 DMX

Syncrolite

Details: 14 March 2016

The 'big' lighting specialist from Texas, Syncrolite showed a prototype of its new fixture, the MX1000 - but the unit is so new that we'll have to wait to tell you about it.

Pacific followspot from Selecon

Details: 14 March 2016

Selecon introduced the followspot version of the Pacific luminaire (pictured right, with Philip Sargent), bearing the familiar characteristics of the Pacific's innovative heat management technology. The Pacific followspot offers a wide choice of lamp sources to suit most throw requirements, is silent due to its fanless design, and is built with easy maintenance and ergonomics in mind.

Strand shows SLD

Details: 14 March 2016

Strand's new SLD sinewave dimmers received their world debut at LDI. The SLD dimmers feature true sinewave output, making for quiet lamps and accurate control. The SST (Solid State Transformer) dimmer modules can dim a wide range of loads including incandescent, inductive and capacitive devices from a fraction of a watt to full capacity, and produce less than 1% harmonic distortion. The units carry built-in short circuit and overload protection, and SLD status reporting and advanced waveform compensation is standard. The units are available with Single Pole, Double Pole and RCD circuit breakers.

Strand also introduced a new USB Key drive with its Designer Remote software built in. Plug the new drive into the USB port on a PC or Mac notebook with a wired or wireless Ethernet connection and you'll be able to access displays and controls on any Strand 300 or 500 series console.

Marquee ILC with Horizon

Details: 14 March 2016

Robert Bell was showing the new Marquee ILC (Intelligent Lighting Control) console, which received a good reception on the ET stand. The Marquee line - consisting of the 24/48, 48/96 and now the ILC - brings a theatre-friendly hardware interface to the power of the Horizon lighting control software which has previously found favour in architectural and worship markets. ILC features four attribute encoders, a dedicated level wheel and 14 pageable hardware playbacks. Many visitors made positive comments on the 'Century Array' - a panel of 100 buttons for fixture selection that serves as group and palette select: usually a feature of more expensive consoles, this is an inexpensive add-on option to ILC.

ILC also features what ET call a 'Flat' fixture model, presenting all moving lights (of whatever make or model) to the user in the same way, e.g. strobe values are shown in hertz and gobo r

I got RDM . . .

Details: 14 March 2016

ESTA's dedicated Interconnectivity Pavilion was designed to offer an engineering model of how Remote Device Management (RDM) actually works, and an illustration of the benefits it will offer the lighting industry. And the benefits are many: it provides an automatic equipment check, telling the controller exactly what fixtures are connected; it does away with the need for DIP switch/fixture display settings - parameters can now be set directly from the console or RDM controller (good news for manufacturers and for productions with DMX devices in inaccessible places); also, the controller is alerted with status and error messages, including faults and lamp hours. The Pavilion also ably demonstrated how the RDM data packets run through the DMX data stream with no ill-effects on performance, even on non-RDM compatible fixtures.

Robe Show Lighting

Details: 14 March 2016

Robe Show Lighting displayed their full range of luminaires, including the latest ColorSpot 1200 AT (for Advanced Technology) and the 1200E AT version - which includes an electronic ballast for flicker-free operation, improved light output and lamp life, and power-saving mode.

Tomcat opens TheLodestarStore.com

Details: 14 March 2016

Tomcat's John James had news of the company's new web venture - TheLodestarStore.com - which offers next-day delivery across the US for its CM Lodestar products. This site goes live on 1 January 2004, and the service extends to the global market from 1 April.

Martin Pro picks up Awards

Details: 14 March 2016

Martin Professional picked up the Entertainment Lighting Product of the Year Award for its Maxxyz lighting console and the Staging & Effects Product of the Year for Jem's ZR 24/7 Hazer. On top of this, to satisfy customer demand, they introduced a new moving head laser fixture - the MAC 250 Laser. This high intensity 532nm, 250mW (green) YAG laser offers 540° pan and 257° tilt, plug and play operation and a patented intelligent safety feature. It comes with a range of effects, including radial flowering effects and an upgradeable library of graphics. Other features include full range electronic dimming and a pulsating variable-speed strobe, while a high-speed, rotating, three-facet prism effect extends the effects capability. Martin also showed its Jem and Magnum brand smoke machines, seen in September at PLASA, while the audio branch of the family, Mach, showed the new, low profile SP

DiGiCo

Details: 14 March 2016

Perhaps surprisingly for what is predominantly a lighting-oriented show, J Eric Wade, the president and CEO of DiGiCo USA, said that he thought the 'immediate' response at LDI had been stronger even than that received at AES in New York; that could be because this is a more 'immediate' market; but whatever the reason Wade (pictured here with Dave Webster) was well pleased with the show.

LDI Orlando

Details: 14 March 2016

If the PLASA Show in September provided a much-needed boost of optimism to a largely struggling industry, North America's main showcase, LDI - The Entertainment Technology Show, has emphasized the perception that, at last, the economic downturn is becoming an upturn. With over 10,000 visitors on day one and palpably more buzz than in Vegas last year, LDI has, to quote one long-term exhibitor who no doubt echoed the thoughts of many, returned to the quality of business of three years ago. It's been a tough time economically, compounded by terrorism, disease and war - but things, it seems, are looking up.

Pulsar

Details: 14 March 2016

Pulsar's increasingly evident Chroma range of LED lighting fixtures was on show, including the new 30% brighter ChromaBank batten and the ChromaPanel300 - the half-size version of the ChromaPanel600 (600mm square) colour changing LED tile.

PM1D cable options from Link

Details: 14 March 2016

Italian cable manufacturer Link showed two new cabling options for the Yamaha PM1D digital mixing console, as part of its Eurocable range. Bundling SCSI, video sync and audio cables into one casing and mating it with its proprietary LK connectors, Link's new solution offers offers reduced set-up and get-out times with greater cable connection integrity. The elegantly-named CVS LK YMHSCSI is suitable for connecting the CS1D and DSP1D modules, as well for cascading DSP1D, DSP1D EX and AO8/DIO8 connections. The CVS LK YMHPM1D is composed of a single cable to connect the PM1D control surface to the brain unit. In the US, these products are available from distributor Atlantic Audio, headed up by Craig Beyrooti.

Altman

Details: 14 March 2016

Among the new architectural lighting fixtures on show from Altman was the SpectraPar (right) - an LED-based colour changing luminaire for indoor or outdoor use. SpectraPar utilizes 36 1W LEDs inside a cast aluminium housing, and offers three interchangeable lenses.

ETC's Revolution

Details: 14 March 2016

ETC was making an impression at LDI on two fronts. Product first, and the US launch of the Source Four Revolution, the moving head version of the industry standard profile luminaire, with improved optical system. Bill Gallinghouse, VP of business development and marketing, told me that the response to the Revolution has been excellent since its launch at PLASA, and the interest shown at LDI had certainly continued the trend.Away from product, ETC was also noted for its LDI Student Sponsorship programme, which again saw six lucky lighting design students from across the US join the company on an all-expenses-paid trip to LDI to 'schmooze' with leading industry practitioners. ETC's Fred Foster semi-joked that this initiative was introduced in an attempt to do something better with ETC's money than simply throwing big parties - and it looks like it'll pay off (although the parties were good

Martin Audio all smiles

Details: 14 March 2016

Martin Audio had a good show: apart from the joy of being one of the hardy Brits who filed into the Cricketers pub at an unholy hour to watch England win the Rugby World Cup, sales director Rob Lingfield also reported that the company's W8LM mini line array has been selling very well since its PLASA launch, with in excess of 350 boxes sold and systems currently out with Eddie Izzard and the Stereophonics.

BSS Audio

Details: 14 March 2016

BSS Audio's new software control suite for the Omnidrive Compact Plus - SB2 - has undergone rigorous testing at the hands of Adlib Audio on David Bowie's Reality tour (see page 16). The software allows selection of the new 'WhiseWorks - NTM' filter in the FDS-366T, which provides a higher performance 4th order crossover filter. The new software is designed to run on the latest PC operating systems, including Windows 2000 and XP.

High End is watching

Details: 14 March 2016

Under the creative direction of Richard Belliveau, the High End Systems stand was one of the highlights of the show. Eschewing the 'architectural' approach to stand design which seems to have predominated in recent years, their demonstration of the Catalyst DL1's considerable capabilities was conducted in an enclosed 'black box' - and was all the more powerful for it. The stand was continuously packed with visitors - if some thought the aisles were quiet at times, High End could be to blame. Interestingly, the Catalyst DL1 (running off the new Catalyst Version 3 Media Server) now incorporates a Sony camera in its head, and was therefore able to simultaneously film and project the audience, stylishly incorporating us into the demo. This show was a reminder of what powerful lighting effects - combined with strong imagery and a thumping soundtrack - can do.

James Thomas: PixelDrive for Mac

Details: 14 March 2016

As its Pixelline LED fixtures become an increasingly common sight on tour and on TV, James Thomas Engineering used LDI to launch PixelDrive for Mac, the Macintosh-based version of its new control concept for driving DMX fixtures, which has been developed alongside IRAD, the developers of the RADlite digital media server. The Mac version is expected to find particular favour in the US market and we can expect further additions to the range next year with the development of a 'value-engineered', streamlined version of RADlite on both platforms.

IES shows iSine sinewave dimming

Details: 14 March 2016

Dimming specialist IES showed its iSine dimming technology, which it claims is the world's most advanced sinewave dimming technology. With a number of high profile installations across Europe and a Best Product Award from this year's Showtech exhibition in Berlin, the Dutch manufacturer has some weight to back up its claim. With iSine, IES dispenses with what it calls the 'mature' phase control techniques of conventional dimming systems, which inherently create unwanted noise and harmonic distortion because of the way they 'chop' into the wave form. iSine technology's far greener solution employs an Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT). For more on IGBT, sinewave dimming and dimming technology in general, see this month's Technical Focus feature on installed dimming systems.

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