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UK - Show Presentation Services Ltd's Barco Dlite 7 LED screens are becoming a regular feature at London's Royal Albert Hall: the company provided over 90sq.m of screen in November. Firstly, the National Television Awards used an impressive 70sq.m as the backdrop to its set, while the Festival of Remembrance used 30sq.m for IMAG purposes.

The brief for the Festival of Remembrance was simple: the LED screen had to produce perfect images for both the viewing public and the BBC cameras. Each year, care has to be taken during the installation of the LED screen as it is positioned right against the Albert Hall's impressive organ, leaving very little room for error as the slightest mistake could be very costly, say SPS.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Trantec's S4000 UHF radio mic system has been specified by a host of regional theatres nationwide to augment their in-house audio capacity. Venues including the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, the Nottingham Playhouse, Rhyl Pavilion and the Wycombe Swan and Town Hall in High Wycombe have all embraced the S4000s potential to offer a compact, robust and cost effective solution for a variety of productions, say Trantec.

Manufactured at Trantec's south London HQ for theatre, live events and conferencing applications, the S4000 is based on its sister product - the award-winning Trantec S5000. The S4000 multi-functional receiver pack boasts Trantec's signatory full frequency agility (844-865Mhz) via 32 switchable channels.

The matching diversity receiver features a bright LCD display that clearly shows chosen frequency, RF level, VU, Mute Level, User ID and Antenna Diversity Selectio

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Portugal - E//T//C UK supplied large format PIGI and video projection for the MTV Europe Music Awards 2005, staged on November 3rd at the Pavilhao Atlantico in Lisbon, Portugal. Significantly, it was the first live outing for E//T//C's new OnlyView control software which was used to soft-edge together 10 Barco R18 projectors to create one spectacular seamless upstage image, 32m wide by 9m high.

The video projection surface was made up of five motorised roller blind style screens that could be arranged in different formats. Each screen was fed by an overlaid front-projecting pair of R18s. The video projection was transmitted in high-definition with various inserts (both recorded and live) to match any required size, position or shape.

OnlyView is a multi-screen software capable of managing multi-projection using any kind of media (video, still images, text, sound etc) and any k

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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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Japan - This year, the CT Germany team again gave its audio-visual media technology services to the Motorshow 2005 in Tokyo, supplying equipment and service for the exhibits of Volkswagen, Saab and Bugatti.

Volkswagen's international press conference was equipped and supported with three camera systems, the corresponding switchers and a character generator as well as a teleprompter from the CT rental park. This year, a combination of MiPIX Roadmodules and high-resolution Barco ILite 6 XP LED modules was integrated into Volkswagen's stand concept. On the right and left side of the 9sq.m, high-resolution 6mm LED screen, a total of 24 individual MiPIX Roadmodules were installed. They were integrated over a width of 25m into the communication screen. The high definition (HD) video and graphic contents onto both LED products with different resolution resulted in a fascinating effect.

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UK - Earlier this year ELP opened a Pinewood base office and stores dedicated to servicing film and drama productions. The company have since provided location lighting and power on a diverse range of productions including Green Green Grass (the BBC's Only Fools and Horses spin-off), Nighty Night with Angus Deayton and surreal comedy The Mighty Boosh.

Six months on, and ELP is now providing specialist rigging services at Pinewood. "We are delighted to be the first supplier based at Pinewood to bring the latest rigging technology to the studios," says MD Ronan Willson. We have just installed a complex hoist and tracking system for a feature being filmed here."

The structure uses two 40m tracks to automate the movement of lighting pods along the studio. A computerised winch system enables four 20kW heads each side to be tracked at vario

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UK - The Red Bull Rail Storm, London's biggest ever urban snowboarding contest hit Trafalgar Square on 20 November, featuring over 1700sq.m of fabric from Sunbaba. Trafalgar Square was transformed into a mini-alpine scene for the event, with a 60ft ski slope, oversized staircase and handrails, and 66 tonnes of real snow, made on-site overnight.

Bliss Events, the company that managed the event for Red Bull, brought in Sunbaba to produce the specially designed branding including two huge Red Bull scaffold wraps, which were digitally printed on their UltraMesh fabric to match Red Bull's corporate colour scheme. The wraps were draped around the two-tiered seating structures where over 8,000 fans sat in freezing temperatures to watch the show.

Another 800sq.m of black Austronet 204FR fabric was used to cover the Star Events Group structure to the side of the ramp stage, where the a

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UK / Korea - Prism Sound has appointed Seoul-based Echo Korea as exclusive distributor for the company's range of audio test and measurement equipment. The company, which was established in 2001, already sells Data Acquisition systems and distributes products for Fluke, Agilent and Tektronix.

Echo Korea's president, Young Hun Jeon, says the market for test and measurement equipment in Korea is growing, thanks to new applications such as broadcast digital equipment, Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) and digital related products.

Prism Sound's compact and cost effective dScope Series III audio test and measurement tool is ideally suited to the needs of these developers because it allows for the high precision generation and analysis of analogue and digital audio and delivers the functionality and precision needed for testing the latest audio technology.

"Currently, Au

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Denmark - On 22 October, over 80 million viewers tuned in for a show broadcast from the Forum events centre in Copenhagen called Congratulations! - a gala celebrating 50 years of the Eurovision Song Contest. Nordic Rental was commissioned to handle the sound, opting for line array systems from Electro-Voice.

Lasting over two and a half hours, Congratulations! looked back over the first half century of the contest, to which acts like ABBA, Cliff Richard, Johnny Logan and Nicole - all former winners - owed much of their success, and viewers were invited to phone in their choice for the best song in the Eurovision's 50 year history from a shortlist of 14, not all of which actually won the competition the year they were entered. The winner by a large margin was ABBA's Waterloo, written Benny Andersson (who admitted to having voted personally for the second place

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UK - Motorhead return for their 30th anniversary tour of Europe and the UK, which kicked off in the UK at the end of October and runs for eight weeks until Christmas. As they have done for the last 27 years, Audiolease is supplying PA, and has invested in a brand-new Midas Heritage 3000 for the shows, purchased from Marquee Audio.

Like Motorhead, Audiolease's Steve Sunderland can look back to the '70s when it all started. "I've always liked Midas, and, as a general rule, over the years we've always stuck to it. Everybody knows where they are with Midas, quite literally, as the ergonomics are so well-known by today's engineers. The general consensus is that they're the best-sounding desks ever made."

The new Heritage 3000 console is being used by front-of-house engineer Dave Hillsden. There is another Midas desk on monitors, where engineer Ian Dobbie is using an XL3.

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UK - Soundcraft found themselves up in court this month - and all for trying to help the BBC's Children in Need fundraiser. It came about when Michelle Brinkley from Hertfordshire Coroner's Office sent out a call for help and told Soundcraft that the local Coroner's unit were putting together a band - fittingly calling itself the Deathwatch Beetles - and needed auxiliary sound equipment.

Soundcraft quickly came to the rescue, supplying one of the company's popular GigRac 600 fully-featured 8-channel amp mixers, and six AKG D880 mics. Soundcraft supported the band through their rehearsals - which took place inside the Hatfield Coroner's Court - before the main fund-raising event, organised by Hertfordshire Police Officers at nearby Stanborough School.

Spurred on by a mention on Terry Wogan's radio show (which resulted in a Good Luck card from Mark Knopfler), and led by semi-pro

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Portugal - Automation specialists Kinesys, working for main rigging contractors Blackout, stole the show at the MTV Europe Music Awards on 3 November 2005, live and direct from the Pavilhao Atlantico in Lisbon.

Madonna wowed the crowd with the first live televised performance of her new single 'Hung Up', emerging from a 2m mirrorball wearing purple leather boots and matching leotard. The mirror ball was flown out on a Liftket high-speed motor controlled by Kinesys' Vector system, enabling it to travel the 17m very smoothly in seconds.

It was just one of a number of automation 'gags' run by operator Toby Rouse for the event. Other artists making use of Kinesys equipment included Gorillaz, Shakira and host Borat. Kinesys also arranged the movement cues for two upstage lifting video walls that were used as stage entrances and exits.

Gorillaz incorporated two Pepper's Ghost effe

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Australia - In Victoria, Drama is rapidly becoming one of the fastest growing subjects on the High School curriculum, particularly among VCE (year 11 and 12) students. Caulfield Grammar School recently addressed this trend by investing in two new, identical new Performing Arts Centres - one at its Caulfield Campus and one at its Wheelers Hill campus.

Architects John Gribble Pty Ltd designed a functional space with the assistance of theatre consultants Entertech and electrical engineers Adrian Newman & Associates. With 16 years' experience in the industry, Lightmoves was contracted to provide lighting and audio visual infrastructure throughout both venues. Before work commenced on site, Lightmoves created shop drawings showing cable routes and types for the electrical contractors. This included cables for DMX (consisting of three sets of two universes of input, and 20 DMX outlet

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Switzerland - From 23 July to 6 September this year, Heidi, the Musical premiered against the idyllic backdrop of Lake Walensee, Switzerland. Audio design was handled by sound designer Thomas Strebel, Switzerland's 'Mr. Musical'. As his main rig for the gig, Thomas selected the HK Audio's COHEDRA Compact sound reinforcement system, a system with which he had already grown familiar on several prior occasions.

Christian Kraska from Swiss HK Audio distributor, SDS Music Factory, lent his support to Swiss sound company Hyposound during the planning stage with the CAPS software as well as during installation of the system. In the process, there were several hurdles to overcome, as the very wide stage was located directly on the banks of Lake Walensee. Temperature fluctuations, high humidity, rain and wind had to be taken into consideration throughout the planning stages. As it

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UK - ProdyTel has announced a reduction of 35% off its S-Cluster system, which has recently been successful in securing a series of major orders, say the company. The systems are to be installed throughout the German Railway network after a pilot project was conducted by tramway operator SSB in Stuttgart earlier this year. ProdyTel say: "SSB were so impressed that they are due to update their complete audio communication system to S-Cluster technology in 2006."

One of the very first S-Cluster installations was the Metro system in Athens, which was completed just in time for the Olympic Games. The S-Cluster encoders and output boxes are now streaming train times, background music and security alerts to stations via a fibre optic network. S-Cluster system can also stream audio using Mpeg 4s and aptX over a standard IP Network (TCP-IP).

"This is great news", c

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Canary Islands - The Synco Europe Network audio rental franchise has a new member, with the announcement that RS Sonocom SL of Grand Canaria has become the first Synco Network member in the Canary Islands. Sonocom, based near the resort of Maspalomas, provides professional audio, video and lighting sales, installations and rental. The company, run by brothers (all electronics graduates) Eduardo, Paulo and Oliver Armas, has been in business for 15 years and operates throughout the Canary Islands.

Under the agreement Sonocom has already taken delivery of 24 cabinets of Synco W8LC line array cabinets by Martin Audio, along with a complete Synco standard set of processors, flying and rigging hardware, flightcases, cabling and wheel boards. The Synco Network is also providing comprehensive training to Soncom's technicians and sound engineers.

The deal was inspired by a fast growing

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The Netherlands - Bosch Security Systems has announces a number of additions to its DCN Digital Congress System, making it "the most complete and versatile system of its kind available on the market today" according to the company. Key improvements include a chairman 'free-seating' facility, high-speed optical cable connection, graphical display of all language character types, and microphones which are "immune to interference from mobile cell phones" - a new technology for which Bosch says it has filed a patent.

DCN Next Generation has been designed and developed in close consultation with congress delegates, interpreters and operators. As a result, the system is suitable for a wide range of applications ranging from straightforward discussion groups to multi-lingual congresses with thousands of delegates. The system allows delegates to choose the floor lang

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UK - Vieta's DO-5 full-range loudspeakers have been chosen for installation in a unique visitor attraction, the newly-renovated Castle Jail in Lincoln Castle, which is the only surviving Victorian institution of its kind in Europe. Vieta earned its extended stay in prison at the hands of FT-AV, an established AV company based in Harrogate in north Yorkshire, which was asked to design and specify a complete audio system for the Jail prior to its opening as a site of historic interest for tourists, 127 years after the last inmate left the prison.

Castle Jail required an interactive audio-visual system, utilizing multiple projection, audio sources, all within definable as well as combinable zones, to be purpose-designed and built together with a specially programmed computer system for overall control. FT-AV's owner and MD Rick Lawson maintains that "the real challenge was the

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Belgium - EML Productions has used its new Apex IX 48 Intelli-X speaker management systems for a major live event featuring Jean-Michel Jarre, staged in Antwerp to mark the opening of the new Eurocam Media Center. The Eurocam Media Center will form an important cluster of companies involved with High Definition Television (HDTV). Housing several media companies, together with eight television and movie studios on site, the Center will be one of the most important infrastructures for television and movie recording in the Benelux.

At its official inauguration, attended by Belgium's prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, a huge live event was staged in the main television studio owned by Alfacam. Live HDTV feeds were set up all over the world for musical performances by Belgian rock group Novastar and percussion artist Meloritmo. The highlight of the TV show, which was broadcast live on H

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Germany - For the presentation of its latest collection, Swedish fashion company H&M staged a lavish fashion show in New York featuring artists including Kanye West, John Legend and Miri Ben-Ari and an elaborate moving set consisting of three rings of trusses, each a different size, manoeuvred by 19 VarioLifts from ChainMaster. The equipment was supplied by Stone Pro Rigging supported by ChainMaster's North American distribution partner Show Distribution. During the show, the operator at his PC was able to control the movements of the set with millimetre precision as well as continuously monitoring the loads of the VarioLifts. What was particularly important was that the movements (including starts and stops) be performed smoothly without jerking the trussing structure around or producing vibrations.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - The Liverpool Culture Company's lively event to switch on the City's Festive lights was powered by new green generators sourced from locally-based Pyramid Electrics. Event manager Eddy Grant wanted to trial the 100% naturally powered new Bio-Fuel generators, with a view to using them on all their forthcoming events.

Liverpool City Council's Executive Member for Culture, Councillor Warren Bradley, took the opportunity to launch the 'Love Liverpool' recycling campaign to the live audience of 15,000 who packed the plateau in front of the newly refurbished St George's Hall.

Regular LCC supplier, Manchester-based Audile, provided sound and lighting for the show. The lighting brief included the architectural illumination of the front of the Hall, which was achieved by using 12 High End PC beams to shoot up the columns, and eight Studio Due City Colors to wash the wall behind.

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Italy - RockPolitik, written and directed by Adriano Celentano and broadcast on the RAI channel recently. The ICEF television studios in Brugherio (MI) which hosted the transmission, were transformed into an enormous arena, filled with numerous three-dimensional stage settings made of fibreglass: the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan skyline, a Chinatown Pagoda and the remains of ancient temples were placed side-by-side, suggesting and East-meets-West theme.

In lighting this striking set, a number of very important choices had to be made, according to director of photography Franco Ferrari. The first choice was to construct the scenery in black and white, and relying on the lighting system for colour. The second choice, linked to the first, was to use the backdrops as a 'chromatic union' for the various scenic elements. The backdrop is installed all along the arena's perimeter, and

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