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From Video to Pixel Map: Another Use for that Video Input on your Media Server

Fig. 1: With 38 universes of pixel tape being controlled, organization was key.

From Video to Pixel Map: Another Use for that Video Input on your Media Server

With the rise in popularity of LED products on the market, it’s practically a given that at some point you will find yourself working with pixel mapping. This can be very easy, especially when the content you intend to use is loaded onto the media server that’s doing the pixel mapping. But what do you do when a client has a content playback device that does not output Art-Net or DMX, does not have a pixel mapping interface, and only outputs a video signal? If you have a media server with a video input card, then you’re in luck! You can use that for another creative purpose beyond simply displaying output from a camera. How? By converting a video signal to DMX values for pixel mapping.

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The author's perch. (He's hidden, behind the spotlight.)

“Dear Mr. LD:” A Spotlight Operator Pens an Open Memo to Lighting Designers

Memorandum
To: All Lighting Designers
From: Your local spotlight operator
Re: Calling the spotlights at a large arena show

Hi, I’m your local spotlight operator. You might not know my name, but I’d like to request that you please don’t use profane language if things don’t go exactly as planned during your performance. We try our best, honest. We want to make your act shine. So I’d like to take a minute to explain a few things from our side of the intercom line if you got a sec.

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Brad Schiller

Spinning in Circles

The automated lighting industry has seen a new trend in lighting products over the last few years. We now have many creative LED products that are making use of continuous rotation of pan and tilt. This type of movement opens up some exciting new possibilities and designers are placing the fixtures all over their plots. The technology to endlessly rotate fixtures is not new, and in fact was used quite some time ago with standard discharge fixtures. However, the concept never really took off until it was applied to an LED panel. Now programmers and designers have many different tools that take advantage of continuously rotating pan and tilt.

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Illustration by Andy Au

I’d Rather Have Cash

Checking e-mails: a few days after another successful corporate awards show. Okay, maybe there were a few minor goofs, but I’ve always been taught to just forget about those and move on. Don’t worry about stuff you can’t do anything about, right?

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Clouseau Tour in Europe Lit by Painting with Light

Clouseau Tour in Europe Lit by Painting with Light

HEUVELLAND, Belgium – Clouseau, the maverick pop / rock band from Belgium, hit the road this summer with a new album Clouseau Danst (Clouseau Dances); a new sonic dynamic with the addition of a four-piece horn section; plus a vibrant new set and lighting design from leading European creative design practice, Painting with Light. Coruna Lights is providing Chauvet Professional fixtures for the tour, including Chauvet’s Rogue R2 Wash and RH1 Hybrid Spot fixtures.

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Funny or Die Junction visited the Scoot Inn in Austin during SXSW 2016

‘Funny or Die’ Staged During SXSW in Austin, TX with PixelFLEX FLEXCurve 8mm LED Wall

AUSTIN, TX – LD and event designer Sohail E. Najafi used FLEXCurve 8mm curved LED video panels from PixelFLEX to transform Austin’s Scoot Inn for Cleft Clips, which was setting the stage for Funny or Die, the Emmy-winning comedy video website and film/TV production company founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy. The Funny or Die Junction event took place during SXSW in mid-March.

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Tim Brooksbank, CEO, Calibre

Calibre Adds Streaming to Scalers and Switchers

LAS VEGAS – At InfoComm 16, Calibre is launching a streaming video input option for the company’s 7th-generation HQView600 series presentation scaler-switchers, LEDView700 series LED scaler-switchers and HQUltra700 series live events scaler-switchers. Pictured here is Tim Brooksbank, CEO.

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Kansas City-Area Church Lit with Chroma-Q Inspire LED House Lights

Kansas City-Area Church Lit with Chroma-Q Inspire LED House Lights

LIBERTY, MO — Pleasant Valley Church has installed 120 Chroma-Q Inspire color-mixing LED house lights. Stark Raving Solutions worked with Chroma-Q distributor A.C. Lighting on an LED house light “shoot out” before replacing the church’s existing 500W incandescent house lights. The goal was to provide an immersive worship environment for its congregation and to dramatically reduce the venue’s ongoing operating costs.

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Stampede logo

Education, Innovation, at Stampede’s Infocomm 2016 Drone Pavilion

LAS VEGAS — Underscoring the growing number of ways for ProAV resellers to profit by incorporating unmanned aerial vehicles into their immediate business development programs, Stampede hosted  eight subject-specific seminars at InfoComm 2016 at Booth #N-168, beginning Wednesday, June 8th and running through Friday, June 10th.  The seminars were co-hosted by Unmanned Vehicle University.

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The lighting setup for the Deftones on their return to the stage in the U.K. and Europe. Entec is supplying the gear.

Entec Adds Light to The Deftones on Their Return to Europe

LONDON – The Deftones, whose tour last fall was disrupted by the Paris attacks, arrived at Wembley’s SSE Arena at the beginning of June to play a large scale one-off show. The London show kicked off a series of European festival dates including Germany’s Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park, Greenfield in Switzerland, Download in the UK and France, and Iceland’s Secret Solstice, with lighting support from Entec throughout the run. Entec’s full production lighting for the Wembley show included Ayrton Magicblade-R LED battens, Clay Paky Sharpy moving beams, Martin MAC Aura XB compact LED wash lights and MAC Viper Performance and Profile models, a large array of Atomic 3000 Strobes with colors and copious amounts of generic light sources.

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