Fifteenth century Italy had its Renaissance men, but we have our Renaissance machines — software and hardware in a variety of areas that will redefine the entertainment lighting industry as we know it. This year’s PLASA differed from last year’s in that there seemed to be much more change and more innovative new products. And unlike years past, there was more than LEDs and media servers.
Some of the highlights of the show included new automated lights from PRG, Martin, Robe, SGM, High End Systems and a number of other manufacturers. What’s that you say? That’s nothing new? Ah, but they are new in many ways. This year’s crop of automated lights are innovative in the way they are engineered, the way they render color and even the light sources they use.
At least one manufacturer is experimenting with a new plasma source that’s the size of a Tic Tac with an efficacy of about 60 lumens per watt and a CRI of up to 94. Although it’s still in prototype form, Robe showed a moving head fixture using the Luxim LIFI Entertainment 30 Series lamp and RF power supply and it had an incredibly uniform field and surprisingly high output for such a small source. This may not be the be-all and end-all for green stage lighting, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
Other noteworthy moving lights debuting at the show include the PRG Bad Boy, Martin’s new MAC III, High End Systems StudioPix and SGM’s Giotto 1500, among many others. The Bad Boy is aptly named — it’s bright, it has great optics, great color and it’s very fast. The newly designed optical train projects gobos with impressive clarity, even at its widest 56° zoom. The color system uses four color wheels, each with seven colors in a series of stepped color gradients with increases in saturation. The resulting colors range from pastel to incredible.
The Martin MAC III is a third generation MAC fixture and it uses the new Osram 1500-watt single-ended short arc lamp with a FastFit base. It features several engineering innovations like pressure die-cast and ceramic-coated magnesium parts that are lightweight yet very strong, absolute value encoders with their own internal zero reference, “semi-hot” re-strike within 120 seconds of dousing and a new gyro-like lamp adjustment. It has a separate dimmer and shutter, a new all glass animation wheel, and the 5:1 zoom that can go from 11° to 55° in under a second.
SGM’s new Giotto 1500 is a modular fixture that can be changed from a spot to wash or to a digital light. The digital module consists of a 0.7” XGA (1024×768) DLP chip and two color wheels and it enables the projection of animated gobos. The lamp source is a Philips MSR Gold 1500 FastFit or a 1200-watt MSR.
Even some of the LED fixtures demonstrated innovation that we have not seen in a while. On the High End /Barco stand, the new StudioPix, the LED fixtures with a circular array of 61 3-watt LEDs. In brief, they are a smaller, more affordable version of the ShowPix. Vari-Lite was showing a new LED light engine by appointment in a private area of the exhibition hall. It, too, is in prototype form, but it represents a big step forward in terms of getting to an LED solution for stage lighting. The LED light engine had 800 watts of RBGW LEDs packaged in a moving yoke fixture. The output lens had hexagonal cells that helped to homogenize the field, producing a beautifully uniform and surprisingly bright output. It seemed to have a high CRI and very good efficiency in the range of almost 17 lumens per watt. Though the prototype had a fixed field angle, the finished product is supposed to range from 15° to 44°. Delivery is expected to be in early 2009. There were also some LED moving yoke fixtures, like the JB Lighting VaryLED A7 Zoom and the Mushroom Lighting Technology Moving LED Zoom, with clever beam shaping features.
The presence of new digital luminaires on the Robe stand and their intention to show them at LDI was proof positive that they have worked out a licensing agreement with PRG. That will allow Robe to start selling their line of digital lighting products in the U.S., which is good news for the industry because it will make the digital luminaire market more competitive and perhaps more affordable. Robe is ready with their new DigitalSpot 7000 DT and DigitalSpot 3000 DT.
But automated lighting and LEDs didn’t define the show; it was dominated by innovation across the board, which is a good indicator of what’s going on the in the industry. And what’s going on in the industry is that RDM is finally seeing the light of day. Robe, Martin and High End Systems all showed new products with RDM capability that can talk back to the controller and provide information and remote operability from their menu displays. This could be the first true implementation of RDM in automated lighting fixtures. The word is that other manufacturers are working on their own implementations of RDM. If that’s true, then we’re witnessing a true Renaissance in the industry.
PLASA 08 drew a record crowd of more than 13,000 visitors to Earls Court in London for four days in early September, an 11 percent gain in attendance.
Graham Eales, managing director of Zero 88 (left) and Martin Searanck, managing director of LightFactory announced Zero 88’s appointment as exclusive global distribution partner for LightFactory PC-based lighting control software. Cooper Controls, parent company of Zero 88, will now provide marketing, distribution, service and support worldwide. Stage Research will continue to be a distributor in North America and A.C.T Lighting, the North American distributor for Zero 88, will also distribute the product. Zero 88 also introduced two new lighting con-soles, the Orb and the Jester TL. The Orb is designed for control of LEDs, moving lights and media servers with four DMX512 universes. Jester TL is a theatrical version of Zero 88’s Jester consoles, with control of up to 120 dimmer channels from a numeric keypad using standard industry syntax. It features a cue stack, submaster playback (via DMX-in), a monitor port, USB storage and control of up to 30 moving lights using palettes, effects engines and a fixture library.
Green Hippo was previewing their forthcoming Hippotizer V3.1 to be released in the fourth quarter of this year. It features UberPan for multi-screen/server configuration from one ‘virtual screen’ area. This software release contains over 100 new features and improvements. Also being shown was the HippoCritter, a new entry-level Hippotizer with a small form-factor and seamless integration with HippoNet control protocol. The new HippoPortamus is a laptop-based Hippotizer with portability for those wishing to take their show with them. It provides all the Hippotizer fea-tures. Hippotizer Stage and Hippotizer HD are also now shipping in Green Hippo’s new road-ready enclosure.
Strand introduced two new consoles at the show, the Palette II (update to the Palette family of consoles) and the new Palette VL consoles, which are mid-sized desks for control of conventional and automated lights. Also on the Strand stand was the Vision.net range of architectural lighting controls with new photo cells and occupancy sensors added to the range as part of Strand Europe’s Green Theatre initiative. Robert Bell is shown here with the new Palette II, which he programmed on the new musical Tale of Two Cities on Broadway (lighting design by Richard Pilbrow). The display shows the Virtual Magic Sheet, which inte-grates with the Palette II.
Robe is preparing to launch its Robe Digital campaign in North America after signing a licensing agreement with PRG, allowing them to sell their line of digi-tal luminaires in the U.S. The new DigitalSpot 7000 DT is a combination 6500 ANSI lumen digital projector and RGBW LED modules with a contrast ratio of 2000:1, two LED modules with 48 Luxeon Rebel RGBW LEDs, DVI input and SDI input/output. The new DigitalSpot 3000 DT is a combination 2700 ANSI lumen projector with a REDWash LED module. It has a contrast ratio of 2000:1 and it uses a 200-watt lamp.
PRG brought out three new products, including the V676™ Console; the Bad Boy™ large venue luminaire; and the Mbox EXtreme™ v3 media server. The Bad Boy Luminaire outputs 48,000 lumens with a very wide ranging zoom (8:1 from 7° to 56°) and its servo motors provide speedy movements between colors and gobos as well as fast pan and tilt for a large fixture. The PRG V676 console features eight touchscreen monitors, including five monitors built into the low-profile face panel, Super Palettes with a graphical interface for color, template, preset, macro, snapshot and timing selection.
Greg Jesse of Zzyzx, Inc. with the latest version of ESP Vision visualization software. The beta version of ESP Vision V2.3 was used in Beijing during the opening ceremonies of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, driving 10,000 LEDs and more than 800 lights. Among the new features will be dockable windows.
Apollo Design Technology previewed their new Smart Color Pro gel scroller with 24 color frames, push button menu with LED display, 25 percent less power consumption, universal mounting and 17 percent less weight. Also on display were the EZ Iris DMX, a remote iris accessory that fits in the gate of a conventional ERS fixture, three new models of Smart Power Supplies, Gel Miser with IR filtering and built-in fan, and Gelwrap color for fluorescent tubes.
Clay Paky’s new Alpha Beam creates a parallel light beam with the look of an ACL. The 1500-watt fixture features a patent-pending focus system for variable field width, 14 gobos (six rotating and eight fixed), two rotating prisms, CMY + color wheel, rotating beam shaper, dimmer, iris, strobe and three linear frost effects on dedicated channels. The Alpha Beam 300 was shown at LDI 2007 but got its official launch at PLASA 08. It has eight fixed gobos (four gobo images plus four beam an-gle reduction gobos, a patented frost effect with “soft mode” and “hard edge” mode, CMY color mixing and color wheel and an electronic ballast.
Compulite’s latest software for the Vector consoles displays thumbnails of media from the Arkaos and Hippotizer V3 media servers. Streaming media from the Hippo to Vector consoles is coming in version 3.2 of the Hippo. New features in the Vector include drag and drop with groups, palettes, etc, edit-ing time values from the cue sheet, pixel mapping to LED matrices using animated GIF files, new workspaces (similar to Excel spreadsheet), DMX512 input to play back cues, 26 MIDI notes for remote control and a new EPort which converts VC to DMX or ArtNet to DMX. Also new this year is USB backup on the DLite console.
On the A.C. Lighting stand was Jands’ new Vista I3, a mid-range lighting desk the same features as the full-size T4/T2 consoles but in a smaller, more economical package. Also on the stand was the complete range of Chroma-Q™ products, including the new Color Span™ configurable LED fixture for in-door or outdoor applications. The system allows you to choose IP rating, body length, body color, LED colors and optics.
Coolux was celebrating their recent Primetime Emmy Engineering Award, which they received August 23. Their new Pandoras Box software release 4.1 features the Pandoras Box Warp Engine, the processing of video material with field- and frame blending and new de-interlacing options. The PB Warper allows a quick start into the creation of complex objects to adjust the output of Pandora’s Box to curved and non-planar screens. Frame blending allows a continuously adjustable playback speed variation of videos in real time. And all Pandoras Box products now include the de-interlacing options top field, bottom field and field blending.
SGM’s new Giotto 1500 is a modular automated fixture that can be changed from a spot to wash or, with the addition of the new digital module, to a digital light. The digital module consists of a 0.7” XGA (1024×768) DLP chip and two color wheels and it gives it the ability to project animated gobos in black and white with a color overlay. The lamp source is a Philips MSR Gold 1500 FastFit or a 1200-watt MSR.
Lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe discusses the new MAC III on the Martin stand. The MAC III has been designed and engineered from the bottom up, using the new Osram 1500-watt single-ended short arc lamp with a FastFit base. Among its many features are a separate dimmer and shutter so it can perform a com-plete blackout while strobing and a new all glass animation wheel. The 5:1 zoom can go from 11° to 55° in under a second. Also new on the Martin stand was the MAC 2000 Wash XB™, an “extra bright” version of the MAC 2000 Wash™, EvenLED™, a modular LED system with uniform field projection, new hazers in the Jem and Magnum lines, several new products and product updates in Martin’s controller range, the Exterior 1200 Image Projector™ and new indoor and outdoor LED lu-minaires.
Barco/High End Systems debuted the new StudioPix, a hybrid wide-angle moving LED wash light with programmable graphic imaging. It’s the second product in High End Systems’ new line of Pixelation Luminaires. Based on ShowPix LED technology, StudioPix can project a color wash and display low-res graphic images and effects. Also on the stand was the DML-1200 digital moving luminaire. The dual-mode DML-1200 features a zoom range from 11° to 40° beam angle, instant switching between video and lighting modes, CMY changer and an optional on-board media player. The DL.3 Digital Light fixture with integrated Axon media server — also on the stand — features 110/220V power mode, a Collage Generator to create seamless images from multiple DL.3 units, a HAD sensor camera and an infrared illumination system.
The new Philips MSR Gold 1500 FastFit lamp debuted on the Philips stand and in the SGM Giotto 1500 fixtures. The FastFit lamp has an arc gap of 5.5 mm, an effi-ciency of 82 lumens per watt, a color temperature of 6000K and a CRI of 80. It is dimmable to 800 watts. Since the initial launch of the Philips FastFit system two and a half years ago, 16 manufacturers have used them in a total of 20 fixtures.
On the PRG stand was Vari-Lite, Pathway Connectivity and Wybron. They are the European distributors for those product lines.
Swisson introduced the new XSD-I48 Sine Wave Dimmer installation racks. The first installation was recently commissioned at the New Vic Theatre in Staf-fordshire, UK. Shown here is Swisson’s Simon Beck.
The news on the Pulsar stand was that several product lines have been upgraded with tri-color LEDs, increasing the LED density by a factor of three and elimi-nating multi-colored shadows. Among the upgraded products are the ChromaLink TC, ChromaPoint TC, ChromaStrip 2/25/X1 TC, ChromaFlood 50 TC, Chro-maGround 50 TC, ChromaGround MR16 (available with RGB or tri-color LEDs) and ChromaBatten TC. Shown here is Pulsar’s head of sales and marketing Andy Graves.
On the DTS stand, the XR1200 Wash fixture debuted as a new moving head projector with a Philips MSR Gold 1200W discharge lamp, outputting 27,000 lux at five meters. Features include a motorized zoom from 20° to 45°, rotating indexable beam shaper (0° to 180°), two frost filters, two color conversion filters (3.200°K and 5.600°K), CMY plus a color wheel with six dichroic filters plus open and the choice of an electromagnetic or electronic ballast. Other new products on the stand included the XR700 Spot and Wash, XR4 Wash, XM 250 Spot and the Pharus Followspot.
A very busy Avolites stand was home base for Brad White of Avolites America. The show served as a launching pad for Avo’s new Titan operating system for the Pearl and Diamond 4 series consoles and a new digital media server, The Addict Server, which was developed by Dave Green, Mark Calvert and Ralph Lam-bert of Pixel Addicts Ltd.
Lex Products exhibited at PLASA for the first time. They recently introduced a new data multicable with four Cat 5e Ethernet lines in a single cable. It has a thermoplastic-elastomer jacket and Neutrik Ethercon connectors.
PixelRange launched the new PixelMax at PLASA. Sixteen of the six-cell LED wash lights highlighted their stand designed by lighting designer Vince Foster. Other new products on the stand included the high resolution PixelMax Pro and a compact 36 by 6 pixels half-length PixelArt. PixelMax Pro is a combined wash and pixellation luminaire, featuring 288 RGBA Luxeon Rebel LEDs with the same housing as the PixelMax Wash but with 18 in-dividually controlled cells in a 3×6 matrix. Also introduced was a new software upgrade for PixelArt that allows it to be used standalone without other set-up utilities or a media server to generate content
Vari-Lite was showing prototypes of the soon-to-be released versions of the VL500 and VL1000 with 400-watt ceramic metal halide lamps. The units will carry on-board power supplies and offer 10,000 hours of lamp life. They are expected to start shipping in the second quarter of 2009. Also on the stand was the new VL3500 Wash FX fixture with four indexable rotating gobos and a new ground glass and coated output lens. The new fixture is a hybrid wash/projector and outputs 60,000 lumens.
PR Lighting introduced the V-LED display screen and opened up two new rental companies in Europe. One of the companies bought a supply of XL-1200 Spots for a local television station. Their French distributor bought a large supply of the new XL-250s.
ETC introduced their new Unison architectural lighting control system, and its centerpiece is the Paradigm. The Paradigm’s library of lighting products (conven-tionals, moving lights, LEDs and more) with touchscreen control helps create dynamic effects while networking devices from different manufacturers — both wired and wireless — to inter-operate over the same control system.
Columbus McKinnon introduced the Prostar with double DC brake system.
The new ArchiBar 150 from Studio Due is a linear batten with 16 modules of 5-watt RGBW LEDs. It has an IP rating of 67 and a built-in power supply. Nine channels of DMX512 are required for control.
Lars Wernlund of Capture Sweden demonstrates the new Capture Polar featuring real-time shadows, volumetric beams, more realistic color mixing and HDR mapping, which prevents whiteouts and improves contrast.
The TMB Lounge.
On the Royal Shakespeare Company stand was a new device conceived and developed by the RSC’s head of lighting, Vince Herbert. The RSC Lightlock is a stabilizing device which allows moving or motorized luminaires to be rigged on flown structures. It prevents the light from shaking when it stops. They are currently looking for a manufacturer and distributor.
G-LEC’s new Chimera system comprises LEDs mounted on printed circuit boards designed to be cut to fit without cutting the power to the LEDs. They are available in two sizes; the standard board can be cut to accommodate small to medium shapes or apertures, while the smaller version can be cut to fill smaller gaps.
In addition to the TarmLED 4×4 and TarmLED Tile large-area LED-video-displays, TarmLED showed its Linear Stripe 25/50 with higher spatial resolution and cost-effectiveness. It allows for the construction of organic shapes, such as waves or cylinders. Modules are equipped with 3-in-1 SMD LEDs spaced at 25-mm or 50-mm intervals, yielding a brightness of either 6,000 nits (25-mm-pitch) or 1,500 nits (50-mm-pitch), respectively. Angular viewing fields are 120° x 120° for either version.
Lighthouse showed their new R4-B and R6-B LED panels, as well as two new creative display products, the Tile and Mesh. R4-B is a 4mm pixel pitch, black-faced panel and R6-B is a 6mm pixel pitch, black-faced panel. Lighthouse’s new 3-in-1 black-faced Surface-Mount Device (SMD) LED provides a contrast ratio of 3300:1 and 3800:1 respectively, 2000 nits of brightness, a horizontal viewing angle of 140 (+70/-70), vertical viewing angle of 90 (+40/-50) and a single king pin for faster rigging. Tile is a new lighting fixture that bridges lighting and video production, allowing abstract designs, blocks of color and large fixed or animated illustrations to be displayed. They feature 12mm pixel pitch and 8×8 pixels per Intelligent Module (IM) with 5,000 nits of brightness, a contrast ratio of 2000:1 and a viewing angle of 140 degrees. Mesh is designed for large-scale creative installations which will be viewed from a distance and where transparency is essential. Manufactured in epoxy-coated plastic, it is lightweight with integral rigging. It features 18mm pixel pitch and a 16×16 pixel matrix per IM with 2000 nits of brightness and 28.15 trillion colors.
