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The December 2017 Digital Edition

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December 2017

Carrie Cavins joins ETC as Architectural Field Project Coordinator

[caption id="attachment_281672" align="alignnone" width="701"]ETC announces Carrie Cavins joins company as FPC[/caption]

MIDDLETON, WI – ETC bolstered its growing architectural lighting division with the addition of Carrie Cavins as an Architectural Field Project Coordinator. Cavins will provide support, advice, and education for ETC’s architectural line of products to their extensive network of reps, dealers, and specifiers. While technically part of the ETC Hollywood office, Cavins will mainly work from her home office in Houston.

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ESTA Announces Transition to the Next Generation of Staff Leadership

NYC – ESTA is very pleased to announce that it has named Erin Grabe to succeed Executive Director Lori Rubinstein in what is expected to be a year-long transition. Erin is currently ESTA’s Assistant Technical Standards Manager and part of the transition involves replacing her in that role. Erin is uniquely positioned to step into the role of Executive Director. She has been working in technical production in live events since the age of 15, including nine years working for Grand Stage Company as a sales associate, purchasing agent, and project manager.

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Fig. 1A

3D Pixel Mapping on a 2D Screen

As pixel mapping is becoming more and more commonplace in the lighting world, and LEDs are being incorporated into 3D configurations to create scenic objects like chandeliers and cubes, the challenge of programming them increases. Instead of looking at the pixels in a 2D flat “plan” view, now we’re beginning to think about looking at pixels from all sides and angles.

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Nook Schoenfeld, Editor, PLSN

Noticeable Improvements

I love when people raise the bar, and a lot of that was done this year. It has become quite evident that discharge bulbs are quickly going the way of fossil fuels. Only the old folks will still think there’s money to be made in these things. Heck, one look at the LED Engin series of light sources that Osram has shows us how committed manufacturers have become.

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Blackmagic Design ATEM Television Studio Pro HD Switcher

Blackmagic Design ATEM Television Studio Pro HD Switcher

Video switchers are not sexy. At least the smaller frames. Let’s face it, in terms of sheer eye candy, small event video switchers take a back seat to their audio and lighting cousins.

It’s a general rule that the larger the console, the more bells and whistles and consequently more blinky lights and buttons. The smaller fare is basic because they tend to be more utility than glam. There’s only so much you can fit in a frame anyway.

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PLSN's 2017 LDI Show Report

PLSN’s 2017 LDI Show Report

The LDI exhibition returned to the Las Vegas Convention Center Nov. 17-19, and with more than 350 exhibitors using the event for some of their most significant product launches of the year, there was plenty of innovation for the 16,000-plus attendees to check out.

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Martin MAC Encore Performance

Martin MAC Encore Performance

I recently got a chance to test the Martin MAC Encore Performance fixtures from Harman, which are available in two versions — the WRM, or “warm” version, and CLD, or “cold” version. (As of last month’s LDI, Martin added the MAC Encore Wash, also in warm and cool versions, but here, I’ll just focus on the two versions of the MAC Encore Performance.) After playing with the Performance, I concluded that it is perfect for working with cameras.

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2017 PLSN Gold Star Product Awards

2017 PLSN Gold Star Product Awards

Over the course of 2017, the staff at PLSN checks out every new product that has to do with the live event industry and beyond. Besides the wide variety of lighting categories we have these days for fixtures, there are great innovations in everything from touring video systems to clamps and gadgets that aid us in our pursuit of the perfect tools for our shows.

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Paging All Playbacks

Paging All Playbacks

Automated lighting consoles have many great programming and playback features that provide many useful functions. One of the more clever functions has to do with expanding playback capabilities. Instead of being limited by the number of physical buttons and faders on a console, most make use of pages (or banks) to increase the playbacks immensely. The page functionality can be used for much more, such as organizing songs or scenes, adjusting playback styles, expanding capabilities and more. It is important for lighting programmers to understand the paging functionality of their console.

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