On the cusp of the concert-touring season, projection video finds itself coming to terms with the LED. A quick survey of some projection video systems providers finds that the sector is still robust, but that LEDs are gaining ground with designers and bookkeepers, thanks to their lower cost, increasing flexibility and programmability and how easily they pack and transport.
John Wiseman, CEO and president of XL Touring Video, says he noticed a shift in demand between projection and LEDs start to take place nearly a year ago. “It’s gone from about 50-50 to about 80-20 in favor of LEDs,” he estimates. “They’re easier to use in many ways, and they are being accepted more into a wider range of situations. Projection is gorgeous and it can give you great textures, but it comes with a lot of pain — it has to be the perfect distance from the screen. LEDs are more forgiving. Also, lot of venues, like sheds, don’t have the space to allow for rear projection, and that limits a designer’s options.”
Projection systems, however, have not remained static. New projectors from Barco and others have pushed the horsepower limits of projection up to as much as 35K ANSI lumens while also becoming high-def. That’s also keeping projection a relatively expensive proposition, but one that designers are finding new uses for.
Paul Becher, co-CEO at projection provider Nocturne Productions, says increased brightness is allowing projection video to compete well with LEDs. “They can cut through the stage lighting better these days,” he says, adding that some designers seem to have found a new infatuation with them. “I find we’re shaping the image more lately, with circles and ovals and more edge-blending. No one’s reinventing the wheel but people are looking for what they haven’t seen before, and projection can do that.”
One of the more unique applications for projection that Becher has spotted has been on sponsored tours, like the current Honda Civic tour, featuring four bands headlined by Panic at the Disco, for which Nocturne is providing projection video services. “There’s always a bit of advertising before the show, which lends itself to projection,” he says. “But we’ve recently been integrating incoming texting from the audience into the images. Someone backstage is managing the text messages being sent by the audience and deciding which of them to send to the projector. It’s a great way to engage the audience and get them up for the show. And it’s only something that a projector can do.”
PlanetLive content designer and director Mark Haney is another professional who views projection and LED as distinct from each other, and who sees projection and lighting as increasingly in the same camp. “I’ve done and seen tons of shows, most recently Kenny Chesney, where you have tons of LEDs, low- and high-res, doing main-stage effects and then using projectors for side screens,” he says. “Projectors have caught up to a degree in terms of brightness, but not enough to match LEDs yet, unless you use them in separate sequences. I have to think someday in the future the technology will catch up and allow this combination to become a reality.”
In today’s show environment, he sees projection carving out new effects niches for itself, such as the High End Systems D series digital light with projection applications, and more projection being used in general as brightness increases, weight decreases and prices come down — except for high-definition, which Haney says usually triples the cost. Haney, currently out directing Eric Clapton, adds that projection by itself can be a powerful tool at any video event. “Hooking the projector into a media server and creating huge shapes and colors, or using it like a gobo – I'm just seeing the projector being used as part of the lighting design more and more. Add to that new applications in high definition, better file formats to display media, gear that better handles all these file formats both for display during gigs and in content creation, and you have new linear technologies that are making what used to be the impossible, possible.”
Wiseman agrees. He believes that as projectors get smaller, brighter and more innovative in their deployment (integrated with moving yokes, for instance), they’ll begin to merge with lighting itself. “And that’s due to the influence of LEDs,” he says. “So it’s all intertwined.” And, amplifies Becher at Nocturne, “It’s going to require that the lighting, projection and video crews have more cross-learning between them. It’s all going to require a much higher level of technical proficiency.”
