Working with both media servers and lighting consoles has shed some light on some things that should probably be considered by designers on both the lighting and video side of the fence. One of these is on intensity levels and perceived brightness of a piece of content playing on a projection screen or LED. That perceived brightness can be impacted by the intensity levels of lighting on the stage around it. When programming both the media server and lighting for a show, it’s important to balance the two and adjust lighting to complement a video look instead of competing with it. If an image appears washed out on a display surface, I try to avoid using the contrast channel on my console to correct it if at all possible. But we don’t always have that luxury, so making adjustments to brightness and contrast from the console is sometimes necessary. Just keep in mind that while you are making the clip appear brighter, you are in fact distorting levels within the image.
—Vickie Claiborne, from “Video Digerati,” PLSN, April 2016
