RC4 Wireless will feature its RC4Magic DMXpix at LDI booth 2211 during the exhibition in Las Vegas Oct. 23-25, 2015. The show marks the North American debut for the product, which was one of eight products honored this year with a PLASA Award for Innovation.
More details from RC4 (www.theatrewireless.com):
“Throughout our history, RC4 has worked closely with Disney, Cirque du Soleil, and many others, to meet the ever changing needs of the most creative live entertainment artists of our time,” states James David Smith, president and chief product designer for the company. Like LED tape before it, intelligent pixel products have become the new product taking the industry by storm, and pixel control is something RC4 has been asked for many times.
“While developing our tiny, portable pixel driver, I encountered the very real challenges in dealing with long lengths of pixel tape: enormous numbers of DMX channels needed, unsightly variations in color, and numerous different and emerging data formats,” continues Smith. “I have addressed all three in ways that are easy to use and future-friendly as new advances appear in this evolving field. It is truly an honor to see these efforts recognized with our latest PLASA Award for Innovation.”
Patent-pending RC4 Custom Pixel Profiles conserve channels by letting designers create their own effect “key frames” using any desired length of pixels, group multiple LEDs into larger “virtual pixels” if desired, and then tailor how the key frame propagates down the pixel chain without needing additional DMX channels to do so. The matchbox-sized RC4Magic DMXpix does all of this for two separate strings up to 500 pixels long — the equivalent of 3000 DMX channels — controlled with anywhere from 9 to 510 channels within a single DMX universe, rendering the same eye-catching effects and visuals that previously demanded complex consoles, media servers, and vastly more wiring.
Patent-pending RC4 ColorMatch allows lighting designers and console operators to visually adjust white-balance for individual strings, then save the corrective offsets in the pixel driver itself. This allows multiple pixel strings of different types to be controlled with the same DMX channels and render nearly identical color for the most pleasing appearance possible.
And the icing on the cake: the RC4 CodeLoader, introduced with RC4Magic Series 3 in 2014 — and winner of a PLASA Award for Innovation in that year — makes it easy to add drivers for new string types as they appear, as well as update and add features. “As is the case for all RC4 Series 3 Harmonized Design devices,” explains Smith, “The DMXpix is a stable, powerful hardware platform with an estimated production life of 5 to 7 years. We are now focused on introducing new features over that time, ensuring every customer and user will get their money’s worth for years to come.”
PLASA London judges were wowed for the second year in a row, stating that, “Sometimes things are taken at face value because that’s ‘just the way it is’. This product, though, will make life much easier for many technicians as it solves the whole logistical problem in managing pixel control in long strings of LEDs. Regardless of the manufacturer of the LED string, this device will allow a significant reduction in channel count while still enabling individual LED control in all manner of applications, from architectural lighting to costumes.”
