AutomatedLighting

September 07, 2018

The SolaFrame 750 extend the SolaFrame line in the direction of a smaller, more affordable unit that is very close in performance to the SolaFrame Theatre. At 63 lb, it’s almost half the weight and roughly 75% of the size at 26.2" tall with head pointing straight up, 17.5" wide, and 18.6" deep. The base is 16.7" wide by 12.6" deep. The output is about 75% of that of the Theatre version, and at a retail price of $8,250, it’s also about 75% of the cost.

January 01, 2020

I think it was Dale Polansky, Candace Brightman’s lighting console programmer on The Grateful Dead’s shows, who told me that the group played a show during a rain shower, and even though water was pouring out of the moving lights, they worked fine. Then there’s the story that Phil Ealy told about the Guns N’ Roses lighting rig that fell off a pier in Atlantic City and into the ocean. After using a blow-dryer to dry out the strobe lights, they came back to life. I suspect that, in both cases, the lights probably suffered from corrosion and, eventually, premature failure—not to mention the electrical hazards involved. Water and lighting ordinary don’t mix, but that’s changing, thanks to a new generation of high-IP-rated moving lights. Elation’s Proteus Hybrid, for example, has an IP rating of 65, for outdoor use.

April 15, 2018

MIDI has been around since 1983 and MIDI Show Control since 1991. They’re ancient by technology standards. They work just fine, but they are slow and have limited abilities. OSC, on the other hand, takes a more modern
approach. As a result, it has much greater capabilities. It’s much faster, it offers much more granular control, it’s
very powerful, it can be very simple to use, and there are lots of very inexpensive apps that allow you to take
advantage of it.

January 01, 2020

Neutrik's powerCON TRUE1 connector is taking over the entertainment lighting and audio industry. Most new products use the power connector now because of its capacity to make or break under load. But Neutrik recently sent out a safety notice asking you to check your cable connectors and chassis for clear signs of wear and tear. "Through improper use and the excessive use of force, the encoding lugs and guide slots in the connector system can become so severely worn or damaged that it is possible to insert the cable connector the wrong way...A cable connector inserted the wrong way could, in some circumstances, lead to contact between live wires and the grounding contact in the plug socket. To determine that the cable connector is inserted correctly, follow the use instructions and listen for the “click” when performing the twist-lock."

November 08, 2018

Mechanical parts make noise. Or do they? High End Systems' new SolaFrame Theatre is designed to be quiet enough for the theatre.

May 16, 2017

ESTA standards take advantage of decades of technological innovation in groups like the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which develops the protocol standards that are the foundation of the Internet. Now, that foundation is in the process of a long overdue upgrade. Yes, that’s right, the Internet is upgrading from Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) to Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). Please, try to contain your excitement. Why is this taking place? Because 4 billion wasn’t enough.

April 01, 2017

Choosing the right console can be an agonising decision, and it’s one that you have to live with for a long time. You’ll spend hours and hours sitting behind it, pressing its buttons, dialing its encoders, setting its faders, and staring at its displays, and if you make a poor choice, those hours can feel torturous. The good news is that there are lots of really good consoles from which to choose. The bad news is that there are a lot of really good consoles from which to choose, which can make the decision that much more difficult. But it helps to narrow your choices if you have a preference for a particular operating system and you already have experience with it. It helps even more if the console you’re considering is made by a company known for its control systems, and they have a console that fits your needs and budget. ETC might be that company, and their new Gio@5 console could be that console. 

February 15, 2017

The last time I used Luminair, the lighting control app that runs on iOS devices, was not too long after the iPad first came out in 2010. Back then, you could run Luminair on the iPad but it wasn’t really optimised for it because, when it was first released, it was designed for the iPhone or iPod. Since then, I’ve watched it grow in popularity and I see it being used in motion picture production, architectural lighting and other applications. So I thought it was time to check it out again.

The latest version, Luminair 3, is touted by the developer as the “biggest upgrade in its history”. It has a new user interface, which, to the best of my recollection, is easier to use and more sophisticated than it was several years ago. It still requires the use of a third-party node or a dongle, but the options on the market for these have greatly increased.