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Moo TV

Miranda Lambert tour photo by Ben Dickmann courtesy MooTV

Moo TV

When Scott Scovill joined up with a U2 tour years ago, he had no idea that his relationships and industry acumen would lead to the creation of one of the industry’s most respected video supply houses. Naming the company as a play on the title of U2’s later “Zoo TV” tour, he’d go on to create a company whose name in our industry commands instant recognition — Moo TV.

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Hog 4 Plots View

Hog4 Plots, Pixel Mapping and the Media Picker

Let me start by saying that, as some of you may know, I was the console training manager for High End Systems for many years — up to and through the launch of the Hog 3 platform. Because of that, it’s safe to say I’ve taught hundreds of classes on the Hog OS. And that makes it especially ironic that, in 2015, I’d be finding myself in a Hog4 training class again, but this time as a student. In the class, I had the opportunity to work with several new features, but the ones in particular I’d like to focus on here are Plots and the integration of the Media Picker.

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TourPro Crystal Display 3+ distributed by SHS Global (front view)

TourPro Crystal Display 3+

 New Panels Distributed by SHS Global

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that video walls, let alone “LED” video walls, were a complete luxury reserved only for those with big-enough wallets. I remember (not fondly, mind you) setting up huge rear-projection cube-based cabinets that took up an entire truck for what amounted to a 10-by-14-foot surface. We’d manually tweak the pincushion graph settings (red, green and blue) on each cube until a barely passable picture would emerge on a not-so-bright rear surface that was four feet deep and weighed thousands of pounds. There was one particular time when….oh crap! It was only a dream! Whew….let me wipe the sweat off and get a hold of myself.

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Front and back views of the Ascender 48-4K switcher from Analog Way.

Analog Way Ascender 48-4K

One of the big challenges for the AV switching market is to find the right combo of just how much to put in a switcher and what to leave out. There are plenty of single-space, MIMO-type boxes out there, but invariably you’ll end up having to use a bunch of adapters and powered mini-converters to get the job done.

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Martin VDO Sceptron Family. The video strip fixtures are available in a range of lengths and resolutions with easy-to-add diffuser options.

Martin VDO Sceptron Family

I am checking out Martin’s latest video product, the VDO Sceptron 10. The fixture is a single strip of LEDs built into a 1-meter sturdy aluminum frame. The VDO in the name stands for video, as in the RGB LEDs used in the fixture are the same type used in LED video tiles. The #10 dictates the pixel pitch of this particular fixture (as in 10mm).

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Elation Platinum FLX

Elation Platinum FLX

Today the industry is producing large numbers of LED based fixtures, but I’m proud to present a new fixture in a trending new fixture class. Elation Professional has recently released its newest member of the Platinum Series, the Platinum FLX.

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Chauvet Professional Strike 4

Chauvet Professional Strike 4

The Strike 4 swings into the fall season as a breath of fresh air in the world of blinders. Easily taking the place of a typical Mole Fey type fixture, this fixture does all those old models could — but so much more. And it’s sexy.

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Clay Paky Igloo

Clay Paky Igloo

The Igloo dome is a protective device designed to protect the smaller series of light fixtures from Clay Paky (as well as other manufacturers) against the elements. Physically resembling its name, this device can offer a full IP54 protection from the wet weather, sweltering sun as well as dust and wind.

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Clay Paky Stormy Strobe

Clay Paky Stormy Strobes

I’m checking out the two new Strobes released by Clay Paky this year — the all-white LED Stormy and the full color LED version called the Stormy CC. The biggest thrill I get is that Clay Paky is emulating the old classic strobe chassis but utilizing the latest in LED technology. There is a huge concave reflector behind the light source, just as you would expect from a typical Xenon bulb strobe.

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Kilowatt: The Making of an Electrician

The Making of an Electrician

It begins with an experiment by a friend’s older brother growing crystals on lumps of coal in an aquarium with a fluorescent fixture on top. To enhance the colored crystals, he put pieces of colored cellophane around the bulb above the crystals.

I was fascinated. And six years old.

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Indianapolis State Fair, Aug. 13, 2011. Getty Images photo courtesy Take1 Insurance.

The High Cost of NOT Having Insurance

Take1 Insurance’s Scott Carroll talks about why liability insurance is critical for those in the live event business.

The collapse of the temporary structure erected for the Indiana State Fair on Aug. 13, 2011 was the rigging and staging industry’s own 9/11. It has become the point on the timeline that divides, irreversibly, that professional community into sharply different eras of before and after. The tragedy, during an outdoor concert by the country band Sugarland in which a wind gust from an approaching severe thunderstorm hit the stage structure, causing it to collapse, killed seven people and injured 58 others.

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