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International - With just one week to go until Showlight 2005 (22-24 May, Munich, Germany), more details of the event's papers programme are available: A paper by technical broadcast specialist Chris Bretnall will address HD and how it's affecting television production. As digital replaces analogue as the broadcasting standard, such rapid advances are being made in technology that it's easy to feel left behind. 'High definition' (HD) is a current buzzword, but how many of us know exactly what it entails? What new equipment needs to be bought? What new techniques need to be learned?

The technology at the heart of HD broadcasting is the HD camera. Closely complementing Chris's paper will be a presentation, by television Director of Photography Sue Gibson and representatives from man

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UK - Sony Entertainment Television Asia recently staged its Boogie Woogie International Finals at the Sheraton Skyline Hotel at Heathrow. Hawthorn's main challenge was to create a suspended stage across the Sheraton's 11m wide swimming pool. Martin Hawthorn, managing director said: "Its not often we tell our crew to pack their swimming trunks, but on this event it was a must, as the stage was rigged from the swimming pool!"As well as the stage, Hawthorn also provided full lighting and sound for the live studio audience as well as for the TV broadcast.

The lighting had to take account of the daylight from the glass roof at the beginning of the event, and then accommodate the fading light as the event progressed. Hawthorn's sound engineer Jon Curnew had the unenviable task of balancing sound against the pool acoustics. Jon commented: "The combination of the high roo

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UK - Size and scale are no advantage when it comes to overall financial success, according to a new study by Sound Equipment industry analysts Plimsoll Publishing. It seems the industry's smaller players are putting their larger counterparts to shame when it comes to overall financial performance. The study has looked at the industry's largest 40 companies and compared their financial performance with that of 238 smaller UK Sound Equipment competitors.

There is no doubting the dominance of these 40 'major players' - they currently control almost 94% of the market. Yet look beyond their size at their individual financial performance and their image appears somewhat staid.

Of the Top 40 companies profiled; 12 failed to increase sales beyond that of the industry average, dispelling the myth that they are capturing ever more market share. 14 made less profit than the average indus

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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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UK - Original supergroup Cream's four-night appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2005 following a 36-year absence from the spotlights is already being hailed as the musical event of the year, if not the decade. Such classic rock and roll musicianship demanded sound equipment of a similar pedigree, which is why both front of house engineer Chris (Privet) Hedge and monitor engineer Chris Wibberley chose Midas XL4 consoles for the sonic excellence and reliability such a concert demanded. The PA system was supplied by Concert Sound, which has counted Eric Clapton amongst one of its loyal clients for over 20 years.

"We just wanted to go for the best sounding board we could, and to me that is an XL4," says Privet. "This is a classic, straightforward blues-rock gig and it's all completely organic, there are no scenes or midi; Sound quality is the only criterion.

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UK - Creative sound design and installation specialists CP Sound has completed its latest installation - at 'Blush', the newest venue to open in central Cheltenham. The club is part owned by Glendola Leisure and part by operator/manager Stuart Hunt. The space - previously a club - has been completely gutted, re-fitted and installed with new sound proofing, aligning the building as a stylish downtown 'chameleon' venue.The key to running this specific type of operation is its ability to have the facilities to react quickly to the diverse demands of a dynamic and mixed clientele, all of whom may want slightly varying elements out of the same space. CP Sound's Colin Pattenden is well experienced in chameleon installations, and has an extremely good ear for the acoustic properties that the different ambiences within it might require. Colin comments "The disco needed to be powerful

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Canada - Adamson Systems Engineering has appointed independent rep firm Joe Desmond & Associates, based outside of San Francisco, to be its authorized sales representative for Nevada and California. Joe Desmond, CEO and founder of JDA, is a native Bostonian who has been in the pro audio and musical instrument industries for over 25 years.

"Adamson fits perfectly into the direction that we want to take our newly-established firm and we consider it an honor to be associated with them," said Desmond. "I was blown away at a demo we recently did in Reno for the Jazz Festival with Star Sound. Not only did the system sound better than anything I've ever heard, but the ease of hanging the boxes was unbelievable. With no heavy lifting by anyone, sixteen boxes were hung in less than thirty minutes; and this was the first time the guys from Star Sound had hung an Y10 system!

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UK - Presentation specialists PSL has devised a portfolio of low-entry packages to enable event producers to take advantage of a tailored staging solution. PSL's scalable audio visual options incorporate projection, mics, speakers and lighting. Each can be customised to individual requirements (including client branding) and come with full technical support.

Remarked PSL managing director, Gary Davis: "These have been created as a flexible and cost-effective alternative to custom design and build, or off-the-shelf display and set systems. Whatever the presentation needs, these packages provide outstanding value - including everything required to stage an event at a fixed price."

The six separate alternatives - which range from simple wall-flats to more striking and multi-textured set designs - can be mixed and matched to suit client requirements and venue limitations

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UK - Bandit Lites UK supplied all lighting equipment to LD Nick Jevons and his company Electric Fly Productions for the main stage at Radio One's One Big Weekend event in Hetherington Park, Sunderland.

Electric Fly has supplied innovative and exciting visuals for all the One Big Weekend events, of which this was the sixth. "I always use Bandit" Jevons states, "I would not go anywhere else. The kit and the service is excellent". General manager of Bandit Mark Powell handled the show.

Jevons traditionally uses the One Big Weekend occasion to introduce new and exciting visual tools and ideas - particularly video orientated ones - into the lighting design mix, and the Sunderland event was no exception. He clearly sees the creative potential of integrating video effects as lighting features, and many of the LED fixtures now on the market are proving a gre

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USA - Robe Show Lighting moving lights were specified by lighting designer and programmer John Westermann at the recent Home Depot Drive 2 Zero Safety Meeting event, staged at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. It's north-west Atlanta's only full-service hotel, featuring over 60,000 sqft of meeting space.

Dillon Production Services, Inc, an Atlanta, based rental house run by Matt Dillon and Westermann supplied lighting equipment. Dillon Production Services has been designing light shows for The Home Depot and Coca Cola for over ten years.

The fixtures utilized for this event were eight Robe 1200E AT Spots flown downstage and mid-stage; and four Robe 1200AT E Washes, two flown mid-stage, with two mounted upstage on the ground upstage. These 12 fixtures were used to produce the main effects and colour washing lighting.

Other fixtures on the rig included

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Denmark - Bosch has supplied the public address and emergency sound system for the new opera house in the Danish capital Copenhagen which was opened in January 2005. Installation was handled by Pro-Partner ApS Denmark. The decorative interior of the Opera House features lots of wood, glass and marble, which meant that the sound system had to be unobtrusive and yet very efficient. Bosch's Praesideo system was chosen to fulfil the dual functions of public address and emergency evacuation as the flexible system architecture permits any type of equipment to be located wherever required in a building.

The Opera House has around 1000 rooms with a total surface area of 41,000sqm, divided into some 280 extensive acoustic zones with 1,200 loudspeakers in all. The feed to the speakers comes from 79 Praesideo power amplifiers, which are in turn controlled by two network controllers. These

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UK - Dartington College of Arts was founded in 1961 near Totnes, Devon and is now well established as a University sector College for Higher Education, specializing in the performing arts.

As part of a major refurbishment a new studio complex 'Lower Close Studios' has been constructed to cater for the College's expanding and diverse courses, including contemporary classical/art music, jazz, pop, world and folk music, as well as courses in theatre, choreography, fine art, performance art, arts and cultural management and writing, engaging the students through practical work and research by developing interests and abilities in preparation for a professional career.

Rob Waite, live sound technician comments: "We have regular concerts, visiting artists, residencies, and more than thirty professional instrumental music tutors who come to teach, perform, and play music. The ne

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UK - Britain's leading jazz star Courtney Pine is equipping himself, and every musician on his stage, with Electro-Voice microphones. Courtney has chosen for his soprano and tenor saxophones the new RE920TX condenser, just launched by EV and designed especially for horns. According to him and his sound engineer Steve Reece, the mic not only sounds great but is giving him unprecedented freedom on stage.

Pine and his five-piece band are currently touring to promote the new Devotion album, but this world tour has been going since 1981, according to Pine, who is as much road warrior as jazz warrior.

"Jazz musicians are even more critical than classical musicians about which microphones we use," explains Pine. "We may be capturing a live moment but we've got ears like bats!" Reece agrees, admitting that he had one or two nervous moments when he first put

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UK - Adlib Audio's Andy Dockerty is passionate about many things in life. One of them is stimulating young people to take an early interest in the art and science of production and technical 'backstage' elements at a practical and professional level. "Schools very much target 'the performer' in their courses," he says. "But for every performer, there's probably six or eight backstage and technical staff engaged in making their performance happen."

Dockerty is still frustrated by drama and music departments' lack of priority regarding the technical skills needed to support a production. He's adamant that it's unfair that young people without the acting, dancing or singing skills still rarely have the opportunities available to explore the performance environment. Adlib is determined to do its bit in the local community (Merseyside and beyond) to ensure that th

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UK - Lighting designer/director Martin Kubanka specified over 50 Robe Show Lighting moving fixtures in his design for the final of the Slovakian Miss Universe qualifier. The show, directed by top Czech Republic-based Ji?i Adamek, was broadcast live on Slovakia's largest private television channel, Joj TV (pronounced 'Yoy') in front of a live audience of 4,000 at the National Tennis Centre in Bratislava.

It is one of Slovakia's largest annual media events, and attracted a phenomenal domestic audience of four million people - 80 per cent of the country's population for its Thursday night prime time slot. The 12 finalists were chosen from over 1500 initial applicants.

Lighting and sound production was supplied by Slovakia's number one rental house, Q-99, co-ordinated by Marek Adamik. Kubanka is the country's highest profile TV lighting designer/director and works on some of the t

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Among Le Maitre's extensive range of atmospherics was the powerful Stadium Hazer, which boasts a patented delivery system designed for easy maintenance, and programmed to self-clean on start up and shut-down. The company also showed the new Speedfogger Active, which features Rapid Change Technology (RCT) to allow the easy change of a plugged block by the user. Also on show, the Freezefog Pro is a new low smoke machine, designed to be used in conjunction with a Freezefog-enabled unit such as the G300 to produce a powerful dry ice effect.

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LA Audio launched two diverse new products - Can-D and the PC90. Can-D is a headphone delay unit and amplifier for any live application. With delay times of up to 678ms, users can be 226m from the stage and still enjoy the sound of 'time-coherent cans', say the company, adding that a substantial headphone amplifier provides levels up to and including 'painfully loud'.

The PC90 absolute phase checking system incorporates a separate emitter and receiver module, which can be used with its internal speaker and microphone or can connect via XLR to test phase accuracy throughout any audio system. The PC90's broadband pulse can detect phase inversion regardless of time delay or distance, say LA Audio.

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Audio-Technica gave the European debut of its 2000 Series UHF true diversity wireless mic system, which they say offers high end technology at an accessible price. Easy set-up and automatic frequency scanning facilities combine with up to 10-channel frequency-agile operation, for high quality, interference-free performance. A-T also introduced the AT892 MicroSet headworn mic, an omnidirectional condenser mic with a capsule of just 2.5mm diameter, and a comfortable under-ear design.

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UK - Internet-based recording and production studio, Tracks By Email.com, has installed a 40-channel Allen & Heath GL4000 multi-purpose console in its Lincolnshire facility. The company provides remote recording resources for musicians and songwriters who either do not have access, or the budget, to hire studios or sessions musicians. Clients submit partial tracks online with composition instructions, and Tracks By Email.com adds the missing elements - such as a live strings arrangement, drum track, or backing vocals - providing the results over the web.

The GL4000 is the front end of the studio's audio set up, connected to a Nuendo media production software suite via 4 RME ADI-8 audio converters. The desk manages all recording, and can sometimes be used for up to five different projects a day.

"We selected the GL4000 for the studio because we had previously used a GL2200

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Prolyte showed the C-ONE series of hoists. Available in three types, ranging from 250 to 1000kg, the C-ONE hoists offer the same standard features as the regular Prolyft Performance range, but with the addition of special BGV-C1 compliant options such as double brake system, dual limit switches, electronic under- and overload protection, including slack chain detection and a design factor of 10:1. A complete range of BGV-C1 compliant controllers is also available. Prolyte was also promoting the KYLo (Know Your Load) load calculator programme - a free service which can be downloaded from the company's website. Finally from Prolyte was a new hybrid coupler, the CCS6-610, a patented system designed for the 30 and 40 series truss.

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Harman Pro Audio Group demonstrated the world's first application of HiQnet communications and Control protocol for pro audio which connects all product categories in the signal chain. Mark Terry, president of Harman Pro, says HiQnet represents the culmination of years of strategic acquisitions, management and product organization and joint technology development efforts involving all nine Harman Pro Group companies. HiQnet can use any networking mode individually or collectively including serial, Ethernet and USB connections. The first products to implement the protocol are the AKG Acoustics' WMS4000 wireless microphone system, BSS Soundweb London, Crown International's I-Tech and CTs Series compatible PIP cards, dbx Zone Pro range and DriveRack 4800, JBL Professional's VerTec DP series with DrivePack technology and Studer's Vista 8 digital console.

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UK - Kelsey Acoustics has played a key support role in the design of a new series of Abbey Road audiophile cables recently launched by Moving Air (MA). Kelsey was closely involved throughout the development process bringing design expertise to bear on MA's drive for ground-breaking technology to produce cables to satisfy the most stringent critical listening requirements.

At Moving Air's launch event, which took place recently at Abbey Road's Studio 2 facility, Kelsey conducted 'live demonstrations', with listening tests in the control room, explaining the technology involved to the trade and press guests.

Abbey Road, with its reputation for technical excellence, was quoted as saying that in a studio environment, this cable enhanced the musical detail and improved the stereo image. Kelsey's parent company, Fuzion plc, rocked the party by providing a live stage rig that compris

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