UK - Five prime window sites at Harrods used leading-edge audio-visual technology to promote the new cinema production of Peter Pan. The film, directed by PJ Hogan with Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed as executive producer, opened to great critical acclaim on 26 December.

Previews of the film were projected onto a series of floating Holo Screens - supplied by Danish company dnp through its UK distributor Paradigm Audio Visual - providing transparent suspended visualization, perfect for the theming of the windows. The whole idea had been the brainchild of WOW Factors' Mark Jones, who had demonstrated the Holo Screen technology to Al Fayed 12 months earlier.

UK - Top country band Brooks & Dunn have purchased a High End Systems Catalyst v3 Media Server to add high-tech visual effects to their Red Dirt Road tour, which kicked off in the US yesterday. The Catalyst v3 Media Server combines lighting with digital media and allows the content to be manipulated in endless ways. "I'm excited about using the Catalyst system," LD Larry Boster says. "I know it will be a major tool for me. It's a whole different avenue of creativity."

High End Systems' Mike Hanson worked with the duo at Ronnie Dunn's high-tech barn, where they played with Catalyst and digital images prior to production rehearsals. Joining in were video director Chris Keating (U2, Rod Stewart, Kylie Minogue) and B&D veteran video engineer Mike Bischof, both of whom are on the tour.

Hanson demonstrated the new features of Catalyst v3 software, such as the abi

UK - Giant video screen specialist Graham Burgess has launched displayLED, a giant video screen brokerage for all aspects of the business from the sale of previously-owned screens - an as yet untapped section of the market, say the company - to new screens and rental projects. The company's business hub is its website (address below), which went live on 1 February and carries details of screens available for purchase, as well as advice and background information to help potential buyers in their choice.

displayLED is independent of any screen manufacturer and will be able to offer purchasers a choice of many different manufacturers and models, advising impartially on the best model for a particular application, the most appropriate previously-owned screen for price-sensitive ventures, and bring the right people together for rental projects.

"The combined experience within

Italy - Eurovideo of Italy has recently used an Electrosonic Vector processor for an Italian TV show called Buona Domenica, shown on Channel 5 every Sunday at 2.00p.m. The celebrity guest show is presented by Maurizio Costanzo, one of the top anchormen in Italian television.

The large display installed by Eurovideo in the studio is a Lighthouse 10mm (pixel pitch) LED screen with additional image processing provided by Vector. The Lighthouse screen is made up of 64 10mm LED panels arranged in an 8 x 8 format, and requires four Vector outputs. The sources used are two SDI (digital video) feeds.

The advantage of using Vector in this application is that it can provide multiple outputs and multiple inputs. The video sources are applied to the Vector, which then provides multiple outputs to the Lighthouse LIP that prepares the image for the LED panels.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - Several thousand fans assembled in London's Trafalgar Square to catch a glimpse of pop stars Beyoncé, Britney Spears and Pink at the premiere of the new Pepsi advertisement - via a giant screen provided by imag specialist Creative Technology. The event marked the launch of the consumer brand's new multi-million TV and cinema campaign, held at the adjacent National Gallery near to the famous London Landmark.

Out of the Blue Production & Management Ltd, the overall event production company, contracted CT to provide the audio-visual and lighting equipment. Having provided the big screen reinforcement in the Square in September for nearly 14,000 fans - who witnessed a free concert lined up by Mayor Ken Livingstone and Visit London - CT returned this time as one of the contractors, providing a full lighting rig in addition to video services.

The ad, which was filmed in Rome

France - Barco hosted its annual European rental partner meeting at the Euro Disney resort in France last week. Barco's annual three-day European rental partner meeting, which brings together the company's rental partners for its annual strategy presentation and new product introductions, was attended by 120 key commercial and technical representatives from 60 rental and staging companies throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

This year's agenda included strategy and product line presentations, as well as hands-on workshops on some of the latest Barco products, including the revolutionary MiPIX LED block, the ViewScape, Barco's Events Controller and Solaris LC40. With Barco's recent acquisition of Sacramento-based Folsom Research, this year's agenda also presented Barco's rental partners with the opportunity to get hands-on demonstrations of the Folsom ImagePRO and Scree

UK - Canegreen Commercial supplied the PA system for the 2004 NME Awards, held in London's Hammersmith Palais recently, where Radiohead achieved a double swoop of awards for Best Video and Best Album, as did Kings of Leon for Best New Band and Best International Band, with other winners including Arthur Lee for Living Legend and Ozzy Osbourne for Godlike Genius.

Canegreen Commercial was tasked with ensuring speech and music could be heard by a room full of loud (and possibly drunk!) rock 'n' roll stars. Andrew Frengley, MD of Canegreen Commercial, designed and co-ordinated the system set up for the show's event director Paul Corrick of production company, Reality, the pair having worked together on numerous projects in the past, including last year's NME Awards. Corrick commented: "Andrews' ability to solve problems made Canegreen Commercial the obvious choice to ensure we

UK - Cambridge-based Screen Technology, innovators of large screen technology, has announced the completion of its ITrans production prototype, the first ever high brightness, 68" diagonal SVGA display made from 16 tiles, with an 85" diagonal XGA display to be built in March. The display has a luminance of greater than 2000Cd/sq.m and excellent contrast at all angles of view, say Screen Technology, and can deliver the performance required for use in large, well-lit venues which until now, have suffered from poor quality video display images.

The company is expecting a huge demand for this new technology from an identified market for large screen displays used in high ambient light areas, including theme parks, museums, trade shows and exhibitions. Independent research carried out by SRI has estimated the professional market for large display screens using existing te

UK - The very latest large screen technologies were showcased last week at an event jointly hosted by Shooting Partners, Anna Valley Displays, Massteknik UK and VLPS. The two-day event, held at VLPS Lighting Services' warehouse in Greenford, London, allowed guests the chance to see the latest systems on offer from all four companies, including two new products not previously available in the UK.

Anna Valley Displays, part of the Shooting Partners Group, introduced their Sanyo HD10 - the world's first true 16:9 high definition LCD projector. Currently only available in the UK from Anna Valley Displays, it delivers a 1920 x 1080 native resolution image and with 5,500 Lumen output. Tom Bird, Shooting Partners' head of sales and marketing, says: "We have already had a great response to the HD10 with applications ranging from the viewing of daily rushes to highly realistic back

UK - E/T/C UK supplied stunning large format projections for the launch of a new son et lumière concept, The Future's Bright, staged in the royal town of Caernarfon in Gwynedd, North Wales. Three PIGI 6kW projectors, complete with double rotating scrollers, were used to project giant images onto the walls of Caernarfon castle.

The Future's Bright is the brainchild of Jon Thirsk, a locally-based graphic designer who's keen to stimulate tourism, business and interest in the town. He and other interested parties formed the not-for-profit organization, Y Grael Cyf (The Grail), to stage the initial pilot event. Thirsk approached E/T/C UK's Ross Ashton to help realize the idea on the visual front. The proposed Caernarfon 2004 events aim to stretch Caernarfon's tourist season, in similar fashion to the Blackpool Illuminations, which attracts many millions of visitors. Th

UK - Audace Ltd, manufacturers of the Intelliplate control system for fixed installations of audio-visual equipment has upgraded its flagship SuperHub controller. The first enhancement comes with the advent of a new revision of its firmware - now standing at V2.03. This latest release includes two powerful new features for programmers. A new 'checksum' facility enables both the processing and the generation of checksums on data strings.

In addition, the automation capability of the SuperHub has been enhanced with the advent of a 'relative' time stamp to complement the existing 'absolute' time events that were previously available. Both features are in direct response to requests from established customers. SuperHub's hardware has also been updated, with the release of its issue two main board. The product now utilizes the latest revision of its eight-bit processor, which, accord

UK - Edirol Europe today released a new 4-channel video mixer/live switcher - the LVS-400, offering a professional solution for corporate and worship installations with live events using up to four video sources.

The LVS-400 offers four S-Video/Composite (BNC) inputs, MIDI I/O (V-Link), S-Video output and 2 composite (BNC) outputs - switchable to NTSC or PAL. It offers a basic set of transitions, four picture-in-picture locations as well as black, white and chroma-keying functions. The LVS-400 features two separate frame synchronizers that enable stable, smooth and noiseless video cuts and transitions. The illuminated button pads make it easy to use, even in dark locations. The LVS-400 is also equipped with a preview monitoring section allowing the user to check video source content before switching to it live.

(Lee Baldock)

Israel - Kramer has introduced the VA-256 audio delay which, the company says, is designed to solve one of the biggest problems in the presentation market - matching audio to video with no delay. With today's fixed resolution monitors and projectors based on technologies such as plasma and LCD, there is a lot of scaling going on to match incoming signal resolutions to those of the displays. That processing can slow down the throughput of the video signal and lead to audio and video sync problems.

The Kramer VA-256 audio delay, from the Kramer Tools product line, complements the company's line of ProScale digital scaler/switchers. It provides a user programmable delay ranging from 10 milliseconds to 2.5 seconds in increments of 10 milliseconds. High quality anti-aliasing and output smoothing filters are employed, and the unit digitizes to 24-bit resolution at 48kHz to achieve hig

UK - Blitz Communications, one of the UK's leading providers of AV equipment, has introduced a unique product-independent, 590 cubic metre widescreen demonstration environment at its Elstree headquarters in London.

Paul Hutton, managing director of Blitz Communications, said that the widescreen environment, complete with three Barco RLM G5 DLP projectors and a seamless 10m screen, has been designed and fitted in response to client demand over the last few years. "Blitz has recognized that event organizers and production companies have seen a decrease in the production value of events over the last few years, and we see widescreen seamless vistas as a way of bringing back creative production standards and as a USP in providing presentations."

"Blitz is not aligning itself to one particular widescreen product and as a result the facility has been designed to disp

USA - Electrosonic was responsible for the audio-visual systems integration design and installation at the new Ford Rouge Factory Tour. For the first time in over 20 years, the Ford Rouge Factory Tour is re-opening in 2004 with an all-new state-of-the-art presentation venue offering two multi-screen theatres, numerous touch-screen interpretive displays, and an 80ft high observation deck overlooking the world's largest "living roof" (made out of a carpet of plants that are used to collect water and help insulate the building) on the Dearborn Truck Plant. Ford Motor Company is partnering with 'America's greatest history attraction', The Henry Ford museum, which will operate the new visitor centre and plant tour. The experience is being created and produced for Ford by BRC Imagination Arts under the creative and content direction of The Henry Ford.

Although the opening o

USA - Industry veterans Gary Mass and Nick Freed have teamed up with Gear-Source president Marcel Fairbairn to form a new venture - Rental-Source - modeled in part after Fairbairn's successful web-based business, Gear Source. Rental-Source will serve today's production needs with a 'single source' method of locating production equipment of all types.

With backgrounds in manufacturing and production, managing partners Gary Mass and Nick Freed will head efforts to solve the many man-hours spent sourcing equipment for production purposes. Working in tune with an extensive worldwide vendor base and an easy-to-use web design for locating the most cost-effective, and logistically suitable rental equipment, Rental-Source promises to ease the ever-growing process of completing a production.

"Over the past 10 years or so, we've noticed an incredible incline in the need for product

USA - Event production company massAV has appointed Stephen Santomenna as director of production. In his new position he will lead massAV's growth in large event staging, live events and production. Santomenna has over 20 years' experience in the industry, having worked on Broadway and staged events on five continents. Prior to massAV, Santomenna served as an executive producer and director of technical services for Preston Productions, facilitating the management of events for EMC, API, IBM and PTC-User. His background also includes various positions with Image Engineering, Trinity Repertory Company and as a contract designer, technician and project manager.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - Broadcast and integration specialists, Feltech Electronics, have devised an ingenious rear projection solution in two newly-fitted studios for ITN, based around custom-designed mirror rigs from Paradigm Audio Visual. Feltech has a long association with ITN: project manager Luke Marler-Hausen, installed a big screen display for the ITV Evening News schedules several years ago, while Feltech MD Peter Fell is also a former ITN man.

Thus the station felt comfortable in asking the Hertfordshire-based resource to devise and project manage a rear-projected display wall solution for their newly revamped ITV News main studios at their London HQ. While on site, the company was also tasked with providing a similar infrastructure for the London Tonight studio.

"We realised that the limited space behind the four large displays also had to incorporate walkways for fire exits,&quo

USA - Digital Projection International (DPI), an Emmy Award-winning manufacturer of high-performance projection systems, announced 17 of its Lightning 28sx projectors were used during the 76th Annual Academy Awards ceremony on 29 February 2004 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, CA. For seven consecutive years the show producers have relied on the 3-chip DLP projectors by DPI.

Hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and broadcasted in High- Definition on ABC, the 2004 Oscar program featured DPI's Lightning 28sx displays projecting video images onto a variety of projection surfaces throughout the venue. For the first time in the show's history, DPI's projectors also displayed the High-Definition signal for the viewing audience on the 'Best Picture Screen' inside the Kodak Theatre.

The most intriguing projection element was a 24-foot tall trapezoid-shaped screen

UK - XL Video has supplied equipment to Marcy Kahan's stage adaptation of When Harry Met Sally at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London's West End. The popular 1980s hit movie starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal made famous by its in-restaurant orgasm scene, repeats the controversy on the stage with gusto!

No less earth moving is the video content for the play, devised and designed by cinematographer Jon Driscoll. XL has worked with Driscoll on a number of other West End projects including Madonna's Up For Grabs the Madness musical Our House, and most recently; Jerry Springer The Opera.

Featuring both front projections using Barco SLM G5's and rear projection using NEC XT5000's. The latter is located behind the set and features wide-angle lenses throwing a single, wide screen image onto a 7 x 3m upstage surface. The 3m deep set frames the rear proje

UK - TV lighting directors Mark Kenyon and Will Charles are pioneering the use of digital media servers in their TV design work. The pair have recently invested in two High End Systems Catalyst systems from Projected Image Digital, which they have put into use on the BBC's National Lottery Jet Set programme.

The Catalyst stores video clips, graphics and animations on its hard drive, which can then be called up and manipulated as easily as a moving light, via any DMX lighting desk. Fusing the technology and ideologies of lighting and video is creating an exciting and flexible presentation medium: up to this point, lighting and projection have been treated as separate departments in television - now, lighting and video cues can be changed simultaneously and instantly from the lighting desk.

Kenyon, Charles and their Catalyst systems are in action on the current series of the BBC

USA - "Dark, quiet and dramatic" could be the tag line to Sting's 2004 Sacred Love tour. Another description might be "theatrical", although this is extremely high-techtheatricality. Three enormous video screens dominate the stage, complemented by moving trusses and drapery for days. Part of his much larger world tour, which shifts to arenas in the summer, this current leg is touring theatres around the US.

Lighting

Lighting designer Stan Crocker went for a highly flexible mix of powerful fixtures and short moving trusses. "I gave up lighting instruments to get the ChainMaster Vario-Lift motors in the budget," recalls Crocker, "and I don't regret it!" His rig consists of four Coemar SuperCycs, 33 Martin MAC 2000 Profiles, 32 MAC 2000 Wash fixtures and 11 MAC 300s - all run from a Martin Maxxyz console, programmed and operated by l

UK - Age-Sex-Location is a comical but philosophical work by Marcus Markou and Richard Redman, about how emerging technology allows us to explore the age-old issues of identity, fear, dreams and the illusion of reality.

Premiering at Hammersmith Riverside, Age-Sex-Location is aimed at a young audience who might not necessarily be attracted to conventional theatre productions. Writer Marcus Markou decided he always wanted projection to be a fundamental element of the production; it seemed an obvious theatrical mechanism for a story set in cyberspace.

Video and lighting designer, Sven Ortel and video co-designer Dick Straker (both of Mesmer Productions) came onboard via director Pip Pickering, and all worked closely with Markou to define the design of the performance space. Straker and Ortel asked XL Video to supply the video kit, with hardware co-ordination handled by XL proje

UK - Continuity was the key to this year's BRITs, with the familiar and experienced production teams brought in once again by producer Mick Kluczynski of MJK Productions to create what was perhaps the slickest BRITs show to date. Presented by Cat Deeley, the show included performances from Black Eyed Peas, The Darkness (who stole the show with three awards) and 50 Cent, as well as a duet of the Cure's 'Lovecats' from newcomer Katie Melua and jazz sex-thimble Jamie Cullum.

Sound

The hugely experienced Derrick Zieba was brought in again by MJK to design and co-ordinate the sound system. Also returning to the fray, Britannia Row Productions provided the sound and co-designed the system with Zieba, this year fielding an EV X-line speaker system. Zieba has been an enthusiastic user of Yamaha mixing desks for many years and was one of the first designers to make the transiti

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