Lighting

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>Inevitably, PLASA 2003 saw the biggest range yet of LED-based lighting products. Winner of the PLASA award for Design Excellence in the Lighting category, the Element Labs' Versa Tile is a modular, LED-based panel matrix with front diffuser, each panel corresponding to an individual pixel of a computer screen. A relatively small array of Versa Tiles offers a bright, cartoon-like feel, whereas a bigger installation could deliver high resolution imaging. It's currently available in a 5 x 5 pixel unit (50cm x 50cm), but the company's Jeremy Hochman confirmed that both larger and smaller units are in development.

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>Two new power supplies were among the new products for Roscolab - the PSU-400 and PSU-200, each with four XLR outputs plus four returns and termination switch. These offer triple-fan cooling and are already set up for RDM protocol. For users of traditional metal gobos, 150 new designs have been introduced and a new Gobo catalogue has been published. The Rosco Vortex 360 dual gobo rotator is a sleek device which can rotate one or two steel or glass gobos at fixed or variable speed. Duncan Smith said Rosco were enjoying an excellent show.

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>Cirro Lite (Europe) was demonstrating its Lightning Strikes! range of lighting effects. New to the range is the Paparazzi Flash Quad and Longstrike, offering full-power 10-second flash, with focusing beam. In response to demand Cirro Lite has also developed the DMX 4 bank select which allows users to control Kino Flo fixtures by selecting 1, 2, 3, or 4 of the heads to be on or off. The company's fixtures have been specified for use on the forthcoming Olympics in Athens in August next year.

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>Paul Butler from Mushroom Event Services had a busy show long before the doors opened, having been responsible for building the Robe Show Lighting and Studio Due stands, in addition to supplying three other stands, plus the lighting for the DJ competition. Other recent projects have included the Custom House Museum Hotel in Manchester and fitting out the new West 1 Shopping complex in Oxford Street with LED lighting.

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>A unique manufacturing process allows Projected Image UK to produce high-resolution glass gobos in both monochrome and full-colour in a wide range of sizes. It also supplies metal gobos as custom designs and from its new extensive catalogue.

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>Award for Design Excellence

>Element Labs Inc

>Versa Tile

Element Labs' Versa Tile is a glowing light tile controlled by video signal that generates stunning visual effects when used in large arrays. Versa Tile is much like 'electronic wallpaper' and can be used as a modular building block for walls, floors, ceilings - or any surface for that matter. The system is available in 50cm x 50cm panels (consisting of 25 tiles) which can be joined together to create arrays of unlimited size.

Proven LED video display technology allows Versa Tile to produce a broad spectrum of colours to create an endless variety of moods. Complex sequences can be easily generated with the aid of QuickTime, Flash or other media software and displayed using the DVI output on any computer. Compared to traditional videowalls, Versa Tile offers low-cost, a thin profile, a wide viewing angle, low heat,

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>One of the most eye-catching stands belonged to Pulsar Light of Cambridge, making effective use of the ever-expanding Chroma range of LED lighting fixtures. Several additions were debuted, including the ChromaMR16 Heart, ChromaDeck modules for dance floors, ChromaPanel 300 (a smaller version of the ChromaPanel 600), ChromaCube and the ChromaBank Mk2. Also on show were prototypes of the ChromaScan moving head unit. Away from LEDs, Pulsar had its full range of other products on display, including Masterpiece controllers and the new WinLite Windows-based virtual lighting desk software, available free from the company's website.

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>The busy stand of pro audio distributor Fuzion featured product from Crown, Littlite, Nexo, Camco, Australian Monitor and Kelsey Acoustics. Crown's new Xs Series of amplifiers were debuted: these are 2U, switch mode,two-channel lightweight touring amps with on-board microprocessor control protection and excellent run time thermal capability. A fourth model, the Xs4300 is a four-channel version.

Also on stand was the US-based Littlite's LED gooseneck light for consoles. Nothing new in the LED concept, but this new version features red LEDs as well as the regular blue/white, making for a more readable light.

From Nexo, the Geo T downfill, the 2805, augments the already well-received Geo T array PA: the cabinet contains a pair of 8's and gives 5° spread. Though only on show in prototype form, the Camco Tecton series of amplifiers promise features such as high efficiency SMPS, outpu

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>Canadian company Pathway Connectivity was experiencing a busy show. Manufacturers of entertainment lighting interfaces and distribution devices, the company was showing its Pathport system, which allows up to 64 universes of DMX. It enables flexibility for Ethernet installations and for legacy DMX equipment and enables the user to send data signals wherever they're needed.

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>Par Opti's stand always offers a wealth of fibre optic lighting products and design ideas. One of the more unusual items from the company is its Katerpillar system - essentially a flexible self-support solution which creates an interesting twist to fibre optics and is available in three colours - black, white and clear.

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>Adda Super Cases was celebrating its 25th anniversary at the PLASA Show this year, and enjoying a very busy show. Monica Saunders commented particularly on the very high level of interest from the Far East.

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>The new RVE Dimkit dimming system was launched by ESP (UK). Available in six models, this is a flexible dimming system that you build yourself to suit your own specifications. The system is easily updated by the user. Also new from ESP's sister company Mobil Tech was the AlpTek 6.5m stand, which takes up to 250kg in weight. A further new product from the International range was the StandTek 3000.

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>Power Gems' innovative HP575 ballast brings hot restrike capability to discharge lamps. In 1999 the company began to investigate if it would be possible to drive a 575W at high frequency and, furthermore, to be able to hot re-strike the lamp. They had to overcome the problem of acoustic resonance, then build a cold strike prototype to examine the system's performance, before finally designing a new type of ignitor to achieve the hot re-strike, because with a lamp drive frequency in excess of 300kHz, conventional ignitors simply burn out.

The result is a patented 575W ballast with integrated hot re-strike ignitor (a cold strike version is also available) with fewer parts and generating less heat than conventional systems. It does not ordinarily require fan cooling, is light-weight and cheaper to manufacture than its conventional counterparts. Furthermore, tests at Philips in Belgium ha

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>Coef's latest introduction is the MP700, a new version of its zoom and wash automated lamps with attention given to the studio environment by the implementation of noise control: it's a play-off between light output and fan noise from cooling, but they seem to have got their sums right with just a loss of 5% on light output to gain an 80% noise reduction.

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>The iColor Tile FX is, as the name suggests, an effects ceiling tile for installation use. Made by Color Kinetics Inc (CKI), and basically an array of 432 tri-colour LED pixels in a standard 600sq.mm tile, the colour modelling potential of this unit is immense. Controllable by DMX, and with pre-programmed effects, the tile has very high-resolution colour mixing control thanks to CKI's own Chromasic control chip. The Acrylic cover can be personalized (etched with logos, artwork or graphics) and, once sealed, is IP66 rated. CKI's iColor Flex is single 'pixels' of LED nodes on a daisy chain power/data cable. More than a sophisticated Christmas tree light set, the Flex allows all 50 nodes on a string to be individually controlled and coloured. During the course of the show, it was announced that Altman Lighting Inc will license Color Kinetics' patented Chromacore technology for a new line o

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UK - Las Vegas's newest addition to it's thriving club scene is Ice. The 17,000sq.ft club boasts six 'Micro Environments', five full-service bars and 4,000sq.ft. of cushioned Brazilian walnut dance space.

Los Angeles-based SJ Lighting was commissioned to design and install the lighting, which included 10 Coemar I-Spots and 10 Coemar I-Washes. The centrepiece of the club is a 20ft circle truss with 8ft horizontal legs and a 40ft wide, 50ft long and 30ft high, self-climbing black ground-supported truss. In addition to the Coemars, eight Atomic strobes and 35 assorted conventional fixtures are also used in the rig, along with 300ft of linear RGB LED lighting by LED Effects and 70 times square fixtures covering the architectural lighting needs of the club.

Lighting designer Steve Lieberman chose an MA Lighting grandMA light to control the clubs lighting. "For the kind of work

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USA - Orlando-based Super Vision International Inc, a world leader in LED, fibre optic lighting and sign products, announced today that it had filed suit against Ocean Bank of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

The suit alleges that the Bank aided and abetted the efforts of Marsam Trading Corporation, Optic Tech International and the Wu Family of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Miami to avoid the enforcement of a court ordered injunction and the collection of a $41.2 million judgment awarded to Super Vision in September of 2002 by an Orange County, Florida jury in case number CI99-9392: the story was reported on this website on 1 October 2002. The Wu Family and their numerous associated corporations in the US and China were found liable on more than a dozen counts in the lawsuit, including Theft of Trade Secrets, Fraud, Violations of Florida's RICO Act, Negligent Destruction of Evidence and Civil

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UK - This week's PLASA Show saw the official launch of Artistic Licence's latest product, the Colour-Tramp, which received a 'Highly Commended' during the Show's product awards ceremony, echoing the very positive feedback the products received from visitors during the show. The PLASA Show was a huge success for Artistic Licence, with the number of visitors to the stand breaking all previous records.

Colour-Tramp is an evolution of the original Lamp-Tramp control system that toured with such names as The Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge and Pink Floyd's Division Bell tours. It's a lighting control centre for two and three-dimensional colour changing arrays, ideal for architectural applications such as building exteriors and illuminated plazas. Among other applications, it should also find favour in television, where the sophisticated triggering options will vastly simplify game show

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UK - Ian Kirby, who set up Coemar UK just 18 months ago as the exclusive UK distributor for Coemar lighting and Antari special effects, announced during last week's PLASA Show the formation of a new sister company, Lighting Effects Distribution (LED). Operating alongside Coemar UK, LED recognizes the growing importance of LED-based products in the marketplace. The company will thus set out to provide a one-stop sales centre which will meet the growing demand - across a range of vertical markets.

Kirby told us: "Due to their long lamp-life and low running cost, the demand for LEDs is growing horizontally, and creating vertical market segments. We are already finding that whenever customers want to see a Coemar demonstration, they also want to see our LED products. However, because LED is still in the early stages of development, customers are envisaging applications but are

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Germany - Bavaria-based company Transtechnik Lichtsysteme has won the contract to equip two studios for the NDR (North German broadcasting company). The completion of the second phase of construction at the Production and Broadcasting Centre marks the end of a long-term plan for the NDR's TV production site in Hamburg-Lokstedt.

The first phase of the operation was completed in 1994 and comprised a 700sq.m production studio, a broadcasting operations centre and the main switching room. This is now to be extended to include two additional TV studios. The project is set to be completed in spring 2005 and will replace the previous studios, located in the oldest part of the complex and dating from 1953.

DAS, a daily evening news magazine, and the Landesfunkhaus Hamburg in Lokstedt are currently using these studios. The new studios are to be equipped with the latest in lighting tech

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Germany - More than 50,000 revellers descended on the Hunsrück mountains in Germany last month for one of the country's biggest and most popular outdoor Raves. The annual Nature One festival (now in its ninth year) is held over a weekend every August at a former US Army Missile site.

Lighting designer Martin Khun, who has created lighting designs for the event since 1997, was looking for something 'a bit special' to ensure this year's event surpassed previous occasions. He wanted to create something no one had ever seen before which is why the focus of his design involved extensive use of the G-LEC Curtain. Martin first came across the Curtain, which is made from LEDs in transparent tubes, at the ProLight and Sound show in Frankfurt and presented the idea to Nature One's producers who jumped at the chance to experiment with something new. "Having worked on Nature One for t

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USA - Lighting designer Jason Robinson recently employed Bandit Lites to help an American icon turn 100. The headlining acts were kept under a heavy veil of secrecy prior to the party but were eventually revealed as the Doobie Brothers, Tim McGraw and guest appearances by Kid Rock and Elton John. Robinson said: "Bandit Lites and their crew performed extremely well. Their attention to detail and preparation made all the difference to the show's needs."

Celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the leading American motorcycle company, whose roar is known on every highway and byway of the land, is not a task for the fainthearted. The lighting rig featured custom trussing in the shape of the Harley Davidson logo, along with six triangular trusses located behind the logo. Trussing also ran down the length of stage right and stage left, and two half-moon trusses were located

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USA - Robe America has opened a new warehouse in LA, and announced the start of a nationwide road-show to raise the profile of the powerful new Robe Spot 1200 fixture. The new 20,000sq.ft premises in LA has been designed specifically to enhance the efficiency of Robe America's operational and administrative structure, and to enable Robe America to offer the highest possible standards of customer service. It's equipped with up-to-the-minute IT and computerized stock systems.

Robe America's HQ will act as a hub for the distribution of Robe's products across the North American continent. The first container of Robe Show Lighting stock from the Czech Republic, worth $1 million, has just arrived. A series of 'open days' is planned for just after the 2003 LDI show in November.

The Robe America team, headed by Ron Ramirez as national sales manager, has been strengthened in the last

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UK - Pearce Hire provided the power, lighting and PA equipment to help ensure the 26th Peterborough Beer Festival was a record-breaking success. The 2003 event attracted 43,000 aficionados of real ale over the six event days, resulting in the beer festival being officially crowned as the largest in the UK.

Pearce Hire has been working at the beer festival for over 10 years. The site, managed for Pearce Hire by Steve Kane, centred around three 75m long marquees with bars running the complete length of two, serving more than 350 different real ales, ciders and bottled beers. A third marquee featured live music from different bands each evening.

Pearce Hire supplied a synchronized pair of 200kva generators to produce enough power for the festival and distributed it to all areas of the site, including the stage lighting and PA, trade stands, the two bars, toilets and catering fac

  1. Show Designer from Light Stream Controls
  2. Brian Croft celebrates lifetime achievements
  3. Intelligent DJ Scan 250 from American DJ
  4. Wybron launches colour mixing Nexera family
  5. VXCO Lighting Systems attract interest at PLASA 2003
  6. CT Germany debuts Element Labs' Versa 'Lightguide'
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