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Lighting Network Management Tools

System A

Lighting Network Management Tools

This article originally appeared in the PLSN’s sister publication, Stage Directions (April 2014), continuing a series of technical articles in that magazine including “Ethernet Demystified” (June 2013), “Perplexing Protocols” (Aug. 2013), “Know Your Nodes” (Oct. 2013) and “How Clean Are Your Pipes” (Dec. 2013).

In the past columns (see note above) I’ve written about various hardware options related to your lighting control network. These include nodes, switches, topologies and latencies. If you’ve missed these, be sure to check back in the back editions of Stage Directions (archived on stage-directions.com) for more information on the hardware required to create a modern and reliable network for your console. There is another important factor to consider when designing your system: the software configuration of the network itself. That is the topic I’m addressing below.

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The company, led by founders Frank and Susanne Hartung, does its heavy lifting with about 30 employees.

ChainMaster Hoists a Stein to 20 Years in the Business

Suspended! To the student, police officer or professional athlete, the word means a punishment. In the world of entertainment venues, it describes the magic that German company ChainMaster performs in getting heavy show elements into the air and keeping them there. You’ve seen their work if you’ve been to the Philharmonic Hall in Hamburg, the Louvre, the Stockholm Opera, the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, the Kremlin State Palace, the Eurovision Song Contest, the Qatar National Convention Center, certain concerts by Paul McCartney and Metallica, and perhaps most visible of all, the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.

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Fantasee Lighting’s Cyklops fixtures in the 1970s were individually controlled with a dedicated joystick.

Control Protocols: Where We’ve Been, and Where We’re Headed

When I was in about tenth grade, I lit my first rock show. It was in my high school foyer during the homecoming dance. We didn’t have any kind of portable lighting control in my school. I ended up taking down four Fresnels in the theatre and hanging them on the volley ball net stands that I “borrowed” from the gym. For control, I went to the hardware store and purchased four household rheostat dimmers and made my own 4 channel lighting control board. It was clunky, but it worked, and my first rock show was (in my mind) a smashing success. Not bad for a 15 year old kid in 1989. Oh, how far we have come since then.

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Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Studio Pro

Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Studio Pro

You probably read the title of this piece and then the byline, and asked yourself, “Why would a lighting guy be reviewing a video product?” I might start off by noting that it’s really okay for people to venture into unfamiliar terrain and learn something new. I could strengthen that further by saying lighting guys really should learn more about video, since our consoles are being used, more and more, for video cues. So if you’re also a lighting professional looking to learn more about new video technologies, join me as my venture into the world of video production continues.

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314 SGM P-5 Wash Lights Illuminate Salvatore Ferragamo Fashion Show

MILAN, Italy – The Salvatore Ferragamo Fashion Show during Milan Fashion Week took place recently under no fewer than 314 SGM P-5 wash lights, each of which has 44 RGBW 10W LEDs, creating the perfect flicker-free colour output. “The show needed to have a vast homogeneous illumination”, comments LD G. Paolo Bruzzese. “The P-5 gave us that big bang of light with diffused reflection that we wanted.”

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Elation Professional Platinum Profile 35

Elation Professional Platinum Profile 35

When you design a rig, you typically use fixtures for a given look that you are trying to achieve. Say you trying to wash a stage in a color, or you are looking for something that can project gobos. You choose a fixture based on its abilities. There is a give and take sometimes with a choice of fixtures. You might want the color mixing abilities, but the shuttering of a profile is something you can live with out.

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New CRC Auditorium in South Africa Installs Robe Lighting

PRETORIA, South Africa – The new auditorium at the Christian Revival Church in Pretoria, South Africa is benefitting from an all-Robe moving light rig made up of 24 x Robe ROBIN LEDWash 1200s, 12 x ROBIN Pointes and 18 x LEDForce 18 PARs. The need for the lighting to be adaptable and multi-purpose was paramount to the overall design as CRC features three very different styles of Sunday service to suit the different demographic of their congregation.

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The Uplift system lowering a rigger to the deck

Uplift Fall Protection System (UFPS) from Limpet Technology

A new safety device has been introduced to our business from Scotland recently, and has been making waves on this side of the Atlantic as well. The Uplift Fall Protection System establishes a new, intelligent way technicians as well as other people in the entertainment field will work on gear hanging in the air. Designed by Limpet Technology out of Edinburgh, this unique device leads us into a new age of safety when it comes to technicians, actors and anyone whose feet leave the ground in their work environment. Upstaging Lighting, a leading innovator in touring lighting systems, is proud to be the first American company to buy and utilize the Uplift Fall Prevention System (UFPS).

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Bavarian Academy of Music Upgrades with Elation TVL White Light LED Fixtures

MARKTOBERDORF, Germany – The Richard Wengenmeier Hall at the Bavarian Academy of Music in Marktoberdorf, Germany, recently replaced its outdated tungsten lighting system with a new lighting rig of Elation Professional TVL Series white light LED luminaries. In addition to improved lighting, the new fixtures also save money though decreased energy usage from the fixtures themselves as well as reducing the need for air conditioning to cool the fixtures.

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Stagemaker SR Series Hoists

Stagemaker SR Series Hoists

Lifting stage elements, truss, speakers… our industry requires some serious lifting power it order to make our rigs work.  Stagemaker hoists have a lineage that dates back decades, to when Verlinde of France launched the first inverted electric powered hoist, the Litachain L104, in 1975. Verlinde then launched the Litachain L5 and L10 range in 1990. In 1998, after the venerable French company (est. 1858) was acquired by Konecranes Plc in 1993, the Stagemaker SM series of hoists came to market.

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