Details
USA - AVnu Alliance, the industry consortium that certifies Audio Video Bridging (AVB) products for interoperability, has announced the first AVnu-certified AVB series of switches from Extreme Networks. The Extreme Networks Summit X440 Series of stackable switches has passed all testing for certification and will now bear the AVnu-certified Logo.

"We are thrilled to announce the first AVnu-certified family of switches from Extreme Networks. This is just the first of many AVnu-certified products to come, but an important start. We are proud of Extreme Networks' dedication to furthering the momentum of AVB," said AVnu Alliance President, Rick Kreifeldt. "The Alliance chose to do more than simply connect products together and check that they can connect and stream. Ins

Details
UK - Lighting and show designer Will Potts is utilising the versatility and internal speed of Philips VL3000 Spot luminaires to execute his energetic lighting design for electronic music duo Disclosure.

Potts specified the VL3000s, which were provided by leading supplier PRG, to skillfully bring to life the band's signature icon, the instantly recognisable line drawing of a face, as part of his design. For the preliminary stages of the project, Potts employed the VL3000's powerful beam to project custom artwork through a series of gauze screens, transporting 2D images into a 3D space.

"VL3000s were always my first choice for this show," says Potts. "The clarity of image projection combined with good brightness, wide zoom capabilities and its global availability made it a no brainer to use. I also really enjoy being able to use three rotating gobo wheels loaded w

Details
Singapore - Solid State Logic has added DMT in Hong Kong and Beijing and Stage Craft International in Manila, Philippines to its commercial distribution partners for the SSL Live console. The company also announces that distribution for Singapore will be processed through the SSL Singapore office.

"DMT has been an exclusive distributor for SSL in the greater China and Hong Kong territory for nearly 20 years now," says Chris Fish, technical director of DMT. "By catering to the professional broadcast, music and post production markets, we have forged a very close working relationship with SSL and have worked hard to expand our operation to serve the live and installation markets. The SSL Live represents an exciting new opportunity for us in this field and perfectly complements our existing high-end live companies. After the recent SSL Live distributor training event

featured content

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

Details
USA - CEDIA (the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) has announced a new modularised format for its EST (electronic systems technician) training courses to provide new and experienced installers with a more manageable training schedule which doesn't require too much time off site.

This restructure sees the EST1 Boot Camp and EST2 Technical School courses split down into more specific modules, each lasting one day and ending with an examination. As a result, the length of the units are reduced, meaning that installers can focus on a particular topic of interest and complete it in one day, eliminating any disruption to project work.

"Our education programme has been going from strength to strength over the last year as we have introduced a range of new courses" says Matt Dodd, education director of CEDIA Region 1. "However, we know that it can be

Details
South Africa - In the charming town of Prince Albert, The Showroom, a new theatre, opened her doors on the 22 November 2013. The 150-seater incorporates Philips Selecon Profiles and Fresnels, Philips Strand 200 Plus control and dimmers, Le Maitre Hazers and Longman F1 LED PARcans.

The project was the initiative of resident filmmaker, Johnny Breedt and his business partner, Charon Landman. Significantly, Breedt had worked on the movie adaption Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, and of course the movie's release, the death of South Africa's beloved Nelson Mandela and the opening of The Showroom, all coincided within days of each other.

It's not every day someone decides to establish a new theatre, and as far as locations are concerned, there could not be one more breathtaking or remote.

Johnny Breedt describes the series of events that led him to finally own his own the

Details
UK - West Midlands-based video production and rental specialists Central Presentations Ltd. (CPL) supplied projection for two sets of curved screens plus control on the massive Maxxis Tyres stand at the 2014 Autosport International exhibition at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre (NEC).

CPL - who are also based locally - were working for stand building and managing company Yo Yo Display which sets up this stand in different formats worldwide. Maxxis was launching its latest generation of VS01 performance tyres at the exhibition and showcasing the various cars, motorbikes, drift and off-road vehicles it sponsors.

It was the first time that CPL has worked for the company, and everything was co-ordinated through CPL's project manager, Jimmy Smith.

Most of the stand elements were curved - a concept following and accentuated the natural contours of tyres.

The first area of

Details
Germany - Even if you're a fan of Lord of the Rings and enjoy nothing more than wading into a thousand pages of densely written text filled with complex words you've yet to comprehend; yes even if; you'll still be pleased to know that the trilogy about to be launched by d&b audiotechnik at ProLight+Sound on 12 March is no fairy tale. Written with ease of comprehension in mind, the tale is no less enchanting; in a nutshell, assess, ascribe and amplify.

The well heralded launch of the d&b D80 amplifier could be fashioned the focal point; products are after all, central to the company's role as a manufacturer. Yet this is no singular event. Last year's extensive redevelopment of the acoustic simulation software ArrayCalc V7, was the precursor to a workflow trilogy that lays at the heart of the thesis. The third element, the one that sits between ArrayCalc and D80 is the d&b

Details
South Africa - Kilowatt AV - a leading creative and technical support supplier to the event and advertising industries - and Sight and Sound - an audio visual, lighting, staging and video rental specialist - have joined forces to establish Kilowatt Investments Holdings. The move will establish the group as one of the top five technical event support companies in the country.

According to Group CEO, Dillon Jearey, the collaboration increases the companies' market share across the small and larger events markets. "Up to now Kilowatt AV's primary focus has been concept and production support of premium events. This move forms part of our ongoing quest to distinguish ourselves from our competitors as it allows us to expand our offering to include day-to-day technical elements for smaller events."

Jearey maintains that the partnership is strengthened by both companies' so

Details
UK - Belfast-based AV presentation system specialists, Niavac, have upgraded their rental inventory by investing in AKG's CS3 conference system. According to MD, James Conlon, this 'plug and play' solution is already proving extremely popular with their customers, particularly in the educational and healthcare segments, which form part of their core business.

Although Niavac - who have been in operation for over 50 years - have run AKG previously in their hire fleet, they canvassed the market to look for the most suitable options before readopting the brand.

"We were recommended to AKG by a third party," stated Conlon, "but we also looked at the offerings of the other market leaders. I did a complete trawl and then contacted distributors Sound Technology Ltd, placing an order for a 30 station system."

The old AKG system, he said, had served the company we

Details
Australia - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the Broadway musical that was nominated for 11 Tony Awards, is wowing audiences throughout Australia and garnering rave reviews wherever it plays.

The lighting design is by Nicholas Rayment with Kyle Bockmann programming his lighting with a brand new Eos Titanium, ETC's flagship lighting control console.

Ti features large-format, articulating multi-touch displays with substantial programming surface. It also offers a dedicated multi-touch encoder display, 20 user-definable buttons, a backlit keyboard, motorized faders, multiple USB and video ports.

Kyle is no stranger to the ETC range of lighting consoles and he described stepping up to the Eos Ti as awesome.

"I really like the direct selects as you can now have 5 x 20, as opposed to 5 x 10, and just having that extra layer makes programming on the TI much more efficient,&qu

Details
UK - London-based lighting and visuals rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment supplied lighting and projection to the recent UK tour by US rockers A Day To Remember, with a lighting design created by Steve Stemac.

It was the first time that Stemac had worked with Colour Sound whose project manager Fletch comments, "We really enjoyed this tour. the design was refreshingly different and a lot of fun and Steve and his team were a joy to work with."

The tour included the presentation of the band's renowned 'House Party' show at London's Alexandra Palace.

The focus of attention is a large scenic house onstage - a concept originated by the band's lead singer Jeremy McKinnon and developed by him and Stemac in 2013. The show opens with a video intro onto a drape completely covering the stage, which is jettisoned by electric kabuki to reveal the house, the band and a hug

Details
Israel - Noted front-of-house engineer Andy Meyer (Justin Timberlake, Guns N' Roses, Janet Jackson, Mötley Crüe, Rage Against the Machine) is part of the ongoing trend of live engineers turning to WavesLive tools. Meyer chose Waves plugins for Timberlake and Jay-Z'sLegends of the Summer stadium tour, which travelled across the U.S., Canada, and the UK.

"I first started working with Waves plugins in 2007, near the end of Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds tour," states Meyer. "Moving forward, I have created an arsenal of very useful tools that I simply cannot do without. On the Legends of the Summer tour, the big challenge was managing 128 inputs and all the dynamics that come with it."

To achieve this, Andy ran Waves plugins using the integrated MultiRack SoundGrid and two Waves SoundGrid Server One units (for processing redundancy) wi

Details
Canada - When the second season of Big Brother Canada returns on 5 March, the setup behind the scenes must be ready for a perfect technical performance. The much more elaborate production setup for this season led Insight Production Company (Insight), entrusted with the shooting of the show, to go with Lawo technology to handle their audio production needs.

The setup for this second season includes two Lawo mc²56 digital audio mixing consoles with fibre-connected stage boxes which allowed for completion of the technical installation in one day. The consoles, fibre cabling and analogue breakouts were provided by Broadcast Systems & Equipment Inc. (BSI) and Lawo North America as a rental package, with configuration, training and setup support provided by Lawo North America's Engineering Manager Doug Smith.

Crucial reasons driving Insight's decision to go with Lawo were b

Details
Czech Republic - The 2013 Sportovec Roku (Athlete of The Year) Awards were staged at the TOP Hotel in Prague, broadcast live on Czech national TV channel CT1 and enjoyed by an audience of 400 guests and VIPs who amassed to honour the very best of Czech athletes present, past and future.

Freelance lighting designer Pavel Jelinek - one of the country's top television LDs - was asked to light the show - for which he specified Robe moving lights, including 18 x Robin Pointes together with four Robin LEDWash 1200 and four Robin LEDWash 600s.

The stage was limited for space, and the time in which to get everything rigged, focused and ready was tight, so this defined some elements of the lighting design. Jelinek wanted high quality lightweight fixtures that were bright and above all fast and easy for the crew to rig.

In addition to the awards presentations, the show featured live p

Details
Sweden - Wireless Solution Sweden AB's award-winning W-DMX is celebrating a major milestone - 10 years on the market.

Wireless Solution Sweden was founded in 2003 and the first W-DMX product to market was debuted in March 2004 at the SIB Show in Rimini. Later that same year, Wireless Solution won the Innovation Award at PLASA. The success story continued at LDI in Las Vegas where Wireless Solution won the LDI Award as the first manufacturer to launch an IP65 Solution for Wireless DMX.

In 2005, W-DMX got Honourable Mention for the W-DMX Outdoor Solution at Lightfair in Las Vegas. In 2007, Wireless Solution was awarded a "Venture Cup" as most interesting company for venture capital, but as a part of the growing success story, the company continued on their own legs and chose not to bring in external money. In 2008, Wireless Solution was in a management buyout by its Co

Details
Denmark - Fran Healey, the lead singer of UK band Travis, and Marti Pellow, the lead singer of Wet Wet Wet, are the latest in the growing list of vocalists to switch to DPA's d:facto Vocal Microphone. In both cases the artists made the change on the recommendation of their live sound engineer, Tom Wiggans.

"I have no problem recommending DPA's new d:facto microphone because I'm so impressed with the results it has delivered for Fran and Marti - and for Dougie Payne, Travis' bass player, who is also using one for his backing vocals," Wiggans says. "Before I tried d:facto, I had tried quite a few new vocal microphones that made big promises, but always ended up going back to the microphone that people have been using for over 40 years.

"However, the d:facto's clarity and ability to capture the true sound source without extraneous background noise has made a r

Details
Canada - CAST of Toronto has launched The CAST Forum at http://forum.cast-soft.com. The forum is open to everyone and aims to serve both CAST product users as well as the entire entertainment & event production community, it is not just about CAST products. Forum members can post projects, ask questions, get technical support from the Community or just browse to see what others are doing.

The Forum is meant to bring members together regarding everything from design and programming for lighting, multimedia, audio, to new technologies, to working in other countries, to sharing tricks of the trade, and leveraging each other's knowledge and experiences.

CAST president Gil Densham explains, "We want the forum to focus on the important issues; the collaboration of creativity + artistry + technology, from the design process to execution to wildly successful projects. This is not

Details
USA - The Super Bowl Halftime Show always glitters, and Bruno Mars' and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' performance at Super Bowl XLVIII was no exception. This year a grandMA2 light took command of the media. Lighting designer Bob Barnhart opted to have "a more rock 'n roll vibe in the rig than the stylised, choreographed shows that we've seen in the past. Bruno wanted this to be more of a live rock show."

Barnhart was challenged to capture that rock 'n roll sensibility as well as prepare for winter weather conditions that might envelop the open-air MetLife stadium in New Jersey. "It was a question of what we could design that could survive severe weather," he says. "Another factor was the limitations of rigging positions in the building and how we could symmetrically lay out the rig. We had to cover as much of the full stadium with the stage pushed back agai

Details
UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will showcase a selection of the latest lighting, rigging and video solutions alongside their in-house Express custom cable, custom gel, & lamp services, and other popular consumables available for next day delivery - at BVE London 2014, Excel (hall/stand D20).

The stand will feature some of the many marques which AC-ET is the exclusive UK reseller for - including Chroma-Q, Mole-Richardson, Spotlight and James Thomas Engineering lighting solutions, Jands lighting and media control, Green Hippo media servers, LedGo LED video screens and floors, and Columbus McKinnon chain hoists. Other leading authorised brands showcased on the stand include Philips Selecon lighting, Manfrotto and Avenger stands and grip, Litec and Prolyte trussing, Petzl PPE equipment, and Crosby, Tractel and A.C. Rigging hardware accessories.

See in action new Chro

Details
Germany - At Prolight+Sound 2014, Fohhn Audio will unveil the latest addition to its Focus Series range of steerable line array systems. Focus Venue is a new high performance series, aimed at large venue installation and live sound applications. Offering unparalleled reach, dynamic range, sound pressure levels and beam steering precision, the new series is designed to complement the range of loudspeaker models currently available in the manufacturer's Linea Focus and Focus Modular series.

Focus Venue offers a robust but elegant set of high, low-mid and low frequency active loudspeakers. These can be combined for greater coverage when used in challenging acoustic venues and performance situations. Featuring high powered drivers and speaker chassis for extended coverage, the new loudspeakers will offer all the standard elements of Fohhn beam steering technology, including real-tim

Details
UK - LCA - Lights, Camera, Action - a one stop shop offering a range of film, television and broadcast lighting equipment, accessories & consumables, will be showcasing the latest technology solutions from their extensive portfolio of exclusive and other leading brands, at BVE London 2014, Excel (hall/stand A06).

As the exclusive supplier in Europe for the Cineo Lighting product range, LCA will showcase for the first time at BVE London the new Matchstix - a series of small, versatile remote phosphor light sources developed in conjunction with Litegear. Matchstix are optimised for flawless, flicker-free control with a Litegear Litedimmer.

From K5600, an LCA UK exclusive - the stand will showcase the Alpha 1600 and Joker 1600W HMI fixtures. Both models come complete with high speed 1,000Hz, flicker free ballast.

As the exclusive UK distributor for Filmgear, LCA will demonstrat

Page 3119 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .