LONDON — XL Video supplied 119 panels of Pixled F-30 LED screen – totalling 114 square meters of surface area, plus crew for DJ David Guetta’s recent U.K. tour, his first carrying a full technical production.
Ben Brett, Guetta’s show/visuals designer, specified the F-30 and developed control software, Pilot, to run the screen visuals. For this tour, in addition to the screen content, Pilot was running a back wall of 60 LED moving lights positioned upstage of the rear section of F-30 screen.
The back screen was made from 105 panels of F-30. In front of the DJ booth, there was a smaller screen made up of 14 panels. With visuals flowing across both surfaces simultaneously, it gave the shows a 3D digital effect.
Pilot was running on a MacBook Pro that was connected directly to the Pixled F-30 processors via DVI fiber. Offering near zero latency, virtually no image loss and uninterrupted by any scan conversions or other devices, the data signal gives a pure pixel-by-pixel reproduction of the unrendered content.
“This is a new and innovative approach to running visuals with a real edge,” said Tim Riley, XL Video’s project manager. “It’s a very exciting to work with Ben and his team at Pilot (also the company name) and see them in action as the show unfolds, and the audience who start feeding off the sounds, visuals and all the positive energies flying around the room”.
Because Guetta’s set is never the same, the visuals are all generated on-the-fly. Some are sound-triggered as certain textual elements of the show need to appear on-screen at specific times.
Brett chose the Pixled F-30 surface for the tour because of its transparency – so lighting could be blasted through for additional dynamics – and also because of the neon-like color reproduction of the pixels, together with its depth and texture as a scenic element when combined with their content.
The Pixled F-30 was designed to be portable, easy to rig and rugged enough to withstand life on the road. XL Video has massive stocks of all the surfaces offered by this very versatile brand.
Matt Doughtly, who worked for XL along with screen technician Gareth Manicom, operated the Pilot-controlled system on tour.
Recently, Jonathan (Leggy) Armstrong joined the Guetta visuals team as lighting designer. Neg Earth provided lighting gear; Alan Green was the production manager; and Adlib provided sound.
For more information, please visit www.xlvideo.tv.
