MELBOURNE, Australia – For The Logies, an annual Australian TV industry awards program, LD Rohan Thornton and fellow crew members used an LSC Clarity lighting and control system along with nine media servers from both Green Hippo and Pandoras Box to control a key visual element – 33 video screens in the Melbourne Crown Towers' Palladium Ballroom. Named after John Logie Baird, the Scottish engineer credited as the inventor of television, the 2010 event was broadcast live via GTV9, part of the Nine Network of Australia.
Already familiar with Clarity's ability to control media servers, Thornton specified a control system based around a VX20 wing, a VX10 wing and Clarity software outputting four universes for control of all media servers on the show.
Lynden Gare from GTV9 ran Clarity for the event – and was apprehensive at first about using a new lighting console for the first time on such an important event. But GTV9's long relationship with LSC helped give Gare the confidence to go for it.
"We required SMPTE timecode input on all of our consoles for synchronization in the musical items – a feature that wasn't available in Clarity when I first saw it," Gare noted. "However, Nick Denville from Open Clear and Richie Mickan from LSC understood this requirement and a few days later they delivered a solid MIDI timecode module within the software and also assisted us with the necessary hardware.
"With my previous experience of other PC based systems, I had early fears of battling with what could have been an awkward PC based control system, under the rapid nature of programming for a broadcast such as the Logies. These fears were quashed within my first few hours spent operating Clarity. It certainly didn't feel like using a PC. It is quite obvious that an operator's workflow has really been thought through when building this software package. As an example, when operating media servers, CITP thumbnail capabilities really sped up the process. The experience on the Logies proved that this is a serious control option for GTV."
For more information, please visit www.lsclighting.com.
