The worlds of lighting and video (and consoles and media servers) are colliding. As media servers continue to develop features geared toward working with LED fixtures, lighting consoles are beginning to add in tools that address the unique challenges that programmers encounter while programming both lighting and video. Examples of this convergence include CITP, which lets thumbnails of video content can be displayed directly on the desktop of the console. Another example is Autopatch, facilitating communication between console and server, and other built in media controls offered on several of today’s lighting consoles, such as the grandMA2’s Bitmap Effects Editor; ChamSys MagicQ’s Pixel Mapper, Hog4’s Pixel Map Layer and ETC EOS’ Virtual Media Server.
—Vickie Claiborne, from Video Digerati, PLSN, Aug. 2016
