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DMX-Controlled Digital Moving Lights

DMX-Controlled Digital Moving Lights

An important part in the convergence of lighting and video is the evolution of DMX-controlled lighting projectors. Have you used one, yet? With the increasing use of media servers on productions, many designers not only want to control the video content from a lighting desk, but they also want to have control over how and where that image is being projected. This is where digital lighting fixtures like High End Systems’ DL1 and DL2, as well as the new Robe DigitalSpot 5000DT, step up to the plate.

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Shadow Management

Very frequently, I am touting the highest high-tech lighting products on the market. This month, I would like to fully embrace the lowest low-tech lighting control device I have ever seen. The Hula Skirt is such a simple, yet cool and useful, device that I cannot believe no one has devised one before now.

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How Many Nits in a Stack?

It’s a fair question: Do two doublestacked 5K projectors equal the brightness of one 10K projector?

The issue, it seems, has been a hot topic among projection designers, but lately it has become more prominent since the proliferation of projection, double stacking and edge blending software. Last June, when High End Systems debuted their Collage Generator, which combines up to eight DL.2 digital projectors and creates one large edge-blended image, the question became even more complicated. What is the equivalent brightness of four edgeblended 5K projectors?

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Taking the Frame Blender Off Choppy

Many media servers feature a control channel for Media Play Speed. How does this feature affect your content? Have you ever used it? Well, if you have, you will very quickly know whether or not that media server uses frame interpolation, also called frame blending or video smoothing.

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Distribution Dynamics

A Price-Driven Landscape Shapes the Relationships Btewteen Manufacturer, Distributor, Dealer and User. 

Money changes everything. Declining pricing for mainstream professional lighting products is accelerating a condition that has been part of the distribution channel for decades, one in which the once-distinct lines between manufacturer, distributor, retailer and end user become less clear as each one jockeys for best position. 

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Dessert Anyone?

[In the last two columns, lighting designer Nook Schoenfeld and a posse of LDs including Bob Peterson, John Featherstone and Olivier Ilisca sat down for lunch to discuss how they got into the industry and what makes them successful. What we’ve learned so far is that, of the four designers, none of them were formally educated, but they all recognize the value of a good education. But when it comes to work, nothing can replace experience and handson training. And, if you really want to excel, there’s one more very impor tant ingredient. To find out what that is, read this, the last installment of the three-par t series, “Sushi in Chicago.”-ed.]

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