Presented during the PLASA Awards for Innovation on the second night of PLASA08, and named in honour of the late designer, developer and commentator Tony Gottelier, this award aims to recognise innovative developers who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of the equipment and tools that enable entertainment technology practitioners to continually push the boundaries of event production, presentation and installation.
Voted for by the industry, the Award was presented to John Stadius by Tony's wife Susie.
Stadius is a distinguished audio designer: in 1978, he joined Soundtracs PLC, designing disco consoles, mixers, power amplifiers and speakers. As technical director between 1980-1994, he continued to design a wide range of analogue mixing consoles for live, broadcast and recording uses - from the company's first digitally-controlled analogue console in 1982, to its first fully digital console - the Virtua - in 1996. He was also instrumental in designing Soundtracs' first large-format digital console, the DPC-II.
In 2002 the company was bought by DiGiCo, and Stadius created the D5 - the company's first truly live digital console - then the DS00 for post and broadcast, the D5T for theatres and the D1 for the live arena.
The latest development from Stadius and his team is the creation of 'Stealth Digital Processing' - a departure from the DSP approach in favour of a single large-scale FPGA. The first product to use this technology is DiGiCo's SD7 console, followed by the company's latest product, launched at PLASA08, the SD8.
(Jim Evans)
