LONDON – The Royal National Theatre and the English National Opera have both added new SHoW DMX wireless DMX systems to their permanent lighting inventories. The English National opera had an inventory of City Theatrical WDS Wireless Data System Transmitters, Receivers, Personal Dimmers and 15A single channel dimmers. The Personal dimmers are used in smaller pieces where a full sized Receiver and Dimmer wouldn't fit. The equipment is moved from show to show in the rep season at the ENO.
In their upgrade, the ENO purchased a new SHoW DMX Transmitter and Receiver and also upgraded their existing Receivers and Personal Dimmers to SHoW DMX. "It was a very cost effective way for us to upgrade our current system to the latest in wireless dimming technology," said the ENO's senior lighting technician Gary James.
The National Theatre had a larger WDS inventory and an additional challenge to face with their upgrade. Their existing inventory of WDS was causing interference with a newly installed WiFi/VoIP telephone system. A series of tests were performed and SHoW DMX was able to provide negligible interference even in its most powerful settings.
The National Theatre replaced all four of its transmitters, seven of its receivers and upgraded all 14 of their personal dimmers to SHoW DMX. The lighting staff now have the added ability of using RDM to monitor the signal strength of the receivers remotely via the built in web server in the transmitter.
"Implementing SHoW DMX across all three theatres has allowed us to co-exist with the new building wide Wi-Fi and telephone system," said John McGarrigle of the Royal National Theatre. "Additionally it has given us a phenomenal increase in flexibility over the old WDS system, in terms of our ability to better manage the limited radio spectrum available at the NT, with the added functionality of a fully RDM compliant system."
CTI's SHoW DMX system synchronizes the hopping pattern of the radio with the incoming DMX packet to improve levels of data fidelity. SHoW DMX features also include adjustable output power, limited bandwidth mode and limited burst mode that allow it to coexist with other radio signals in the busy 2.4GHz band. SHoW DMX also is RDM compliant and compatible with Art-Net.
For more information, please visit www.citytheatrical.com .
