Lighting

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The usual A.C. Lighting welcome was extended, with the team excited about the Jands Vista S3. Designed to compete in the Frog 2 / Hog 1000 market, the Vista S3 is a compact piece of kit which provides full functionality of a Vista console, run in conjunction with a PC or Mac. Shipping in the next month. ColorWeb aplenty was also on show, offering a cost-effective modular solution. Each 1sq.m panel has 16 DMX LED colour cells, with panels clipping together.

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Arri was exhibiting the new ArriMax 18/12, "the most powerful HMI light on the planet". By the looks of this monster, it meant business. Combining the variable beam spread of a Fresnel and the light output of a Par, the ArriMax uses a unique reflector concept for beam control which eliminates the need for spread lenses. The unit takes a new 18kW or 12kW lamp

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USA - Color Kinetics Inc says that the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts has awarded the company costs and attorneys' fees in its successful patent litigation against Super Vision International Inc, pending documentation of the costs and fees, which Color Kinetics estimates to be approximately $1.4 million.

According to the Judge's ruling: "I conclude without hesitation that this case is 'exceptional,' and that Super Vision has perpetrated a 'gross injustice' by its egregious abuses of the discovery phase and vexatious litigation strategy. An award of attorneys' fees is appropriate to remedy the 'gross injustice' Color Kinetics has suffered at the hands of Super Vision's vexatious and bad faith litigation."

"We are very pleased with the Court's decision, as the order provides satisfying vindication for Super Vision's behavior over the past four

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French manufacturer Ayrton - represented by the inimitable Italian 'Cockney' Ivano Burato - was exhibiting with its Italian distributor, Evolight. Alongside its established LED luminaires (including the Easycolor2 moving head) the company's central focus was on the stunning DreamPanel, which was first seen at PLASA last year. In the debate about a rival show springing up in Milan, Burato was emphatically in the Rimini camp: no Rimini, no show.

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Ready-Steady-Light. Not a bad name for this event; in fact it does the job rather nicely. Most will correctly assume that this is some sort of lighting race /competition. What might not be immediately apparent is its ground-breaking nature, removing boundaries between professionals and students, and between specialisms within the broad profession that is lighting. This is a competition where the underdog can rise to top dog in three hours. Bring it on . . .

A chance meeting with Jonathan David, secretary of the Society of Light and Lighting, at ARC back in February unwittingly led me down memory lane to Ready-Steady-Light, held at Rose Bruford College, surrounded by the ghosts of college past as an ex-Bruford myself.

Turn a corner and you could step back a decade by mistake, to when RBC was incubating its first fully-fledged lighting design graduates (myself included), the first batc

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LDR, the Italian manufacturer of theatrical luminaires, followspots and accessories, was another company to report a strong show with good international presence. Fabiano Besio expressed himself "completely satisfied" adding that the show had exceeded his expectations.

As to the mootedMilan / Rimini rivalry, Besio was another exhibitor strongly in the Rimini camp.Product-wise, LDR introduced pole-operated versions of its architectural and theatrical fresnel products, the PO versions being complete new units with their own part number. The 230V version of the new Canto MK2 was officially introduced in Europe: there are various new features, including the side-handle, a drop-down lamp holder and new reference markings for the manual dimmer.

Also new was Colour commander - a dedicated remote control for controlling the Xpress colour scroller. A touch panel offers immediate col

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ETC's Bill Gallinghouse reported a busy show, with a lot of visitors from Eastern Europe, and Russia. "This is always a good show for us," he says. It was clear to see the advantages of the new Enhanced Definition Lens Tube, with a comparison to a standard tube projected above the stand. The EDLT provides even crisper projections with greater acuity and higher contrast, making graphics look even better, the beam edge even sharper, and with no loss in field lumens. The EDLT is available in 19°, 26° and 36° field angles with the 50° field angle to follow.

With the tubes now shipping, Gallinghouse says: "When White Light's Bryan Raven saw these at PLASA he said, 'Oh no, you are going to make me spend money!'.

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Worldwide - ETC (Electronic Theatre Controls Inc) has redesigned its company web site, which goes live today. With improved features and more information than ETC's former site, the new etcconnect.com will also be easier to navigate and will include regionalised access, say the company. Convenient categories for entertainment lighting, architectural lighting - or both - will make it a rich resource for experienced lighting professionals as well as beginners who will find more direct data on ETC products and a wealth of solutions for all levels of lighting projects.

Product pages will include user-friendly hot links to downloads, tutorials and other important documentation about ETC's acclaimed line of lighting equipment, including the award-winning Source Four family of luminaires; Sensor+ and Unison dimming systems; ETC and IES SineWave technology, compact Smart Solutions light

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Coemar's stunning stand was probably the largest at SIB, and certainly the most eye-catching. The company has been working to strengthen its brand image, and featured a number of new products at SIB. These included, for the 'archi-entertainment' market, Panorama Led, PCB Led and Panorama Power MK2 fixtures; for TV/rental applications, the iSpot S, iSpot Extreme, iWash Halo, ParLite Led, Power Stick, SuperCyc MK2 and MiniCyc EB; and for disco/club/install and projects, the PCB Led, ParLite Led, RigaLed, Led illumination system and MiniCyc MB. The iWash Halo, iSpot S, PCB Led, Parlite Led and Led illumination system are also aimed at theatre.

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Slovakia - Lighting designer Martin Kubanka used 70 Robe moving lights and a wide selection of conventional and studio fixtures for the final of the 2006 Slovakian Miss Universe qualifier. All lighting was supplied by the country's top lighting rental company, Q-99.

The show was staged at the National Tennis Centre in Bratislava in front of a live audience of 4,000, and broadcast live on Saturday night by Joj (pronounced 'yoy') - Slovakia's largest private TV channel. It attracted an audience of up to four million (80% of the country's population) making it one of the highest profile media events on the Slovakian TV calendar.

Kubanka has designed the show's lighting for the last eight years, and Q-99 has provided lighting and sound for the same duration. Each year the visuals have evolved in complexity and in terms of technology, and Kubanka explains that it's a collaborative

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UK - Three innovative products, 11 stand-out projects and a UK lighting designer were the outstanding winners at the Lighting Design Awards at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London, on 30 March.

PLASA and the PLASA Show played a key role in the evening, sponsoring the new Entertainment Lighting Award, designed to give lighting designers recognition for their creative work. Following a rigorous judging process, the Award went to the Old Man of Storr in Trotternish on the Isle of Skye, which became the centrepiece for an extraordinary night-time event as an average of 200 people nightly took the midnight walk to the spectacular rock pinnacle. The Storr forest, cliffs and corrie provided the backdrop for a subtle and imaginative light and sound installation by Dave Bryant.

Peterborough Cathedral, which dates to 1118, won the Heritage Lighting Award for a scheme,

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Belgium - Barco, a pioneer in creative LED technology, is delighted to announce the first permanent LED installation on a building façade. The Uniqa building in Vienna, Austria stands at an impressive 20 floors and has been fitted with 45,000 LED blocks covering a staggering 7000sqm. The LED blocks, attached to profiles in between the window panes, bring the building to life and make it one of the most striking towers in Vienna.

Designed by lighting designers Licht Kunst Licht, the installation is a fantastic example of how LED can be used creatively to transform buildings and identify them as distinctive landmarks. Licht Kunst Licht understand lighting design as an integral part of architecture by emphasizing its effect on spatial quality as opposed to stressing the formal lighting fixture design. At night the tailor made content for Uniqa brings the building to life and ensur

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Thailand - Visualization specialist Barco is delighted that its products were selected for the MTV Asia Awards in Thailand on 6 May 2006. The Siam Paragon in Bangkok was illuminated not only with international and Asian stars celebrating the fifth spectacular MTV Asia Awards 2006, but also a host of Barco's leading creativity products were on set to provide the visual displays.

The highly creative set design was built around two OLite 510 LED displays totaling 30sq.m of modular LED blocks. Set back from the OLite were a total of 8,000 MiPIX blocks which gave the set depth. Two SLM R12+ projectors provided the 4,600 capacity crowd with a front seat view of what was happening on stage, as well the MTV short animation film that played at intervals throughout the show.

All Barco products were supplied and installed by Tedtronic Pte Ltd of Singapore, one of Barco's la

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Denmark - The Mania SCX series is Martin's response to the market demand for more powerful, compact and feature packed scanners. The latest in the series is the Mania SCX700, a far-reaching and blinding moving mirror effect driven by 150 watts of discharge power. The SCX700 also features crisp rotating gobos, a broad selection of colors and a fast strobe effect making it ideal for the all-night club dance floor.

This extraordinary discharge scanner effect houses the highest quality optical system for maximum light output and true high-definition image quality. It combines with a long life 150W discharge lamp (6000 hours, included) to kick out an impressively powerful array of graphics and color. And for easy serviceability, the lamp in the SCX700 is a breeze to replace.

The SCX700 features separate colour and gobo wheels for a multitude of brilliant effects. Included are seven

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UK - Lighting designer Dave Bryant (DB) won a 2006 Lighting Design Award for his stunning site specific work, The Storr - Unfolding Landscape. The coveted Awards are sponsored by architectural publication Lighting magazine, and The Storr was the first winner of their new Entertainment category.

The project - for Scottish environmental arts organization nva Arts - involved the design of an eco-friendly lighting installation for eight weeks of live promenade performance highlighting the breathtaking darkness of The Storr Footpath on the beautiful Isle of Skye (link to full story on Avo website).

DB says: "I was surprised to be nominated let alone to win the Award! It's fantastic that such an unusual project should receive such an accolade."

The project led to Avolites developing a new rechargeable battery powered dimmer which then went into production a

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USA - Worldwide-automated lighting manufacturer High End Systems Inc. is today releasing an Apple Mac version of software to operate the Content Management Application (CMA) for the DL2 Digital Lighting fixture. Until now, the CMA was only operable on a PC. The software allows lighting professionals to seamlessly manage the content and configuration of their DL2 fixtures not only from a PC running Windows, but now also a Mac.

The Mac CMA is designed for OS 10.4.6 or later and supports G4-, G5- and Intel-based Macs.

HES DL2 product manager Scott Blair says: "We recognized the large and loyal existing Catalyst user base - many of whom started with us on the Catalyst years ago. We wanted to show our support for them by offering this software to allow them to use their existing show content on DL2."

The free software is now available for download on High End Systems' D

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UK - ETC is delighted to announce that it has won the order to supply Sensor+ dimmers with CEM+ processors plus Matrix Mk II SineWave dimmer racks for installation in the Royal Festival Hall, which is currently undergoing redevelopment. The dimmers will be installed by Northern Light during the refurbishment on the South Bank.

Mark White, regional manager for ETC UK and Ireland says: "I am very pleased to note that with the installation at the RFH, ETC equipment will be dimming and switching most of the theatre installations on the South Bank. Adding the existing installations - Unicorn Theatre, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Royal National Theatre - this new installation will bring our total number of Sensor dimming channels in central London to just over 16,000 and the total of Matrix SineWave channels to just under 2,000."

White added: "I'm pleased to say that we a

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UK - When production manager and lighting designer Steve Nolan was asked to provide both production and lighting services for the live touring show of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds he soon realized he had his work cut out. Wearing two hats on the same show meant he needed a flexible and reliable lighting supplier and a very capable associate LD and programmer. He ultimately found both in PRG Europe.

Nolan explains: "I wouldn't normally take both roles on the same show. However having become involved I realized that production designer Jonathan Park and composer Jeff Wayne had very strong ideas of how they wanted the show to look and I felt another creative could muddy the waters. Although I am first and foremost a lighting designer, due to the complexity of the staging and my responsibilities as production manager, I needed an associate LD/programmer who I could trust to t

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UK - Harvard Engineering is the world's first and only ballast manufacturer to gainENEC approval for HID ballasts. Over 20 different markets are covered by the European Norms Electrical Certification which has consolidated a variety of European standards within the one approvals system.

ENEC is considered by member countries as the valid approvals mark for their own national market. John McDonnell, managing director at Harvard says: "This is an extremely significant approval within the lighting industry. Our HID range is the first set of HID ballasts in the world to have gained ENEC approval.

"The approval confirms the ability of our in-house design team and our UK based production line to design and manufacture high quality and high performing products."

Harvard Engineering makes a wide range of electronic ballasts recognised as being at the cutting edge of t

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Belgium / Greece - Belgian manufacturer Amelia NV, known worldwide for its ShowLED starcloth product, has provided a massive backdrop for this year's Eurovision Song Contest, which takes place this weekend at the Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens, Greece.

The starry sky in Athens is made up of 45 cloths of 3m by 12m, creating a total of around 1,600sq.m of LED starcloth, containing some 10,000 LEDs, connected by 12.5km of electrical wire.

This is the latest event to boost ShowLED's growing international reputation. Recent additions to the company's growing international distributor network include Gerriets (Germany & Austria), Azur Scénic (France) and Peroni (Italy). Other recent projects include Night of the Proms and some 1,000sq.m of starcloths for several TV shows at Dubai Television.

A full report on the Eurovision production will appear in the July-August iss

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UK - Dialight Lumidrives' L2Optics brand has launched the new OPT series of lenses, specially designed for use with the world's leading high power LEDS.

The new L2Optics OPT lenses are compatible with a wide range of leading high power LEDS including Luxeon K2, Osram Golden Dragon, Cree XLamp 7090 and the Nichia Jupiter. Each lense comes supplied with a quick and easy 'peel and place' assembly system, together with a highly efficient base module-typically 85%.

An interchangeable sub lens system provides multiple beam angle options covering spot diffuser, wide angle and oval, as required. Optics are produced to PMMA grade.

Gordon Routledge, Dialight Lumidrives' managing director, says; "L2Optics' new range of OPT Optics meets the growing need for high performance optics at competitive prices."

(Chris Henry)

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USA - Imagility, a holding company that invests in illumination, imaging and related technology, today announced it has acquired the assets of Ribbonlift, a designer and manufacturer of advanced lift systems known for their exceptional portability, reliability and ease of use.

Ribbonlift's patented lift equipment is used to position cameras, lights, projectors, communication devices and more for motion picture shoots, live events, construction, industrial, military and other applications. Based in Owatonna, Minnesota, its clients include Walt Disney Imagineering, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Defense.

Founded in 1998, all employees of Ribbonlift are expected to remain with the new company in Owatonna - a wholly owned subsidiary of Imagility - while certain corporate functions such as finance and strategic

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Denmark - The companion washlight to the MAC 700 Profile is ready to hit the market. The MAC 700 Wash is the latest luminaire in Martin's line of award-winning MAC moving heads. It carries on the MAC tradition by offering much of the same technology, modularity and design as the MAC 700 Profile.

The 700 Wash is a powerful 700-watt Fresnel luminaire with a remarkable light output. It features a full CMY colour mixing system and variable CTC plus eight position colour wheel. Other useful features include a wide range variable zoom, continuous and indexable beam shaper, and extremely smooth and fast dimmer shutter system. It also boasts the same service friendly modular design and silent cooling as the MAC 700 Profile.

The MAC 700 Wash houses a superior and highly efficient optical system powered by a 700 watt short-arc discharge lamp. The durable short-arc HTI 700 D4/75 lamp is

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UK - LD Nick Jevons of Electric Fly Productions chose an Avolites Diamond 4 console as the primary control desk for the main stage at Radio One's Big Weekend in Dundee.

Headlining artists included Razorlight, The Streets, The Editors, Muse, Snow Patrol, Mylo, Pink, Keane and the Sugababes. For the first time, the event was recorded for broadcast on the digital channel, BBC 3.

The high profile two day event - Radio One's biggest Weekend to date - was the first time that Jevons has used a Diamond 4 - although he is experienced on other Avo consoles. "I always like pushing the technical boundaries for these shows," he enthused. "I needed a powerful desk and it was an absolutely ideal opportunity to use a D4," he says.

A week beforehand, he went into Avolites' training room for the day in London and did a crash course on the console - which he f

  1. HES Debuts Studio Command 1200
  2. Jens Freihoefer joins e:cue GmbH
  3. A trio of Northern appointments
  4. 'Huge success' for Lightpower Open Days
  5. Strand Lighting announces new consoles
  6. Pharos extends dealer network
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