Road Tests

Today, we’re looking at the IP54 Light Sky AquaBeam from SHS Global. Originally known as a used gear company, SHS has since expanded their operations into distributing various lines, including the AquaBeam from Light Sky, an IP rated moving head beam projector with a lot of power. There’s still a solid place for arc-based lights in the industry; LEDs still don’t have the raw output needed for certain applications. Extremely short-arc lamps like the one found in the AquaBeam pack a tremendous punch for low wattage, which makes them very attractive for this class of narrow-beam moving heads.

Chauvet Professional showed the world the prototypes for their new stellar line of fixtures, dubbed the Maverick Series, at the Prolight + Sound show in Frankfurt last April. This only whetted my appetite; I have waited a couple of months to get my hands on the first fixture of this series to be released, the Maverick MK2 Wash. Rest assured, the fixture lives up to its hype as a powerful wash light with some tasty effects.

This year at the NAB show in Las Vegas, Blackmagic Design introduced a new product that no one was really expecting, but that hits an interesting spot in the industry. It’s called the Blackmagic Duplicator 4K, and this product just may have tapped into something pretty hip. It is a recording device that allows you to record SD, HD or Ultra HD content in real time on up to 25 SD cards simultaneously. With live events in mind, you can then distribute or sell the SD cards to customers or audience members right when the event is finished.

Avolites has been in the console game for a long time, but their popularity in the States was never as strong as in Europe. The choice of a console is a very personal matter for any LD, and — full disclosure — for many years, I chose to use consoles other than Avolites because I had a perception that they were difficult to use. The Titan operating system, introduced almost concurrently with an updated line of Avo consoles, however, sought to change all that, and today we’re going to look at their latest offering — the Avolites Arena.


In the last year or so, the industry has seen the advent of the small footprint, hybrid light fixture. Unlike the large model fixtures that can take the place of a wash, spot or beam fixture dependent on their light’s output beam, these smaller lights are not the all-in-one hybrids they claim to be. But as far as functions go, it’s plain to see that Harman’s Martin Lighting excels in areas where others took shortcuts and is hands down the best little moving light in its class right now.

I’m staring at a shiny silver/chrome looking piece of love here as I open the case containing a scaled down version of the elektraBar strip light. I easily lift this miniature 11-pound fixture out with one hand and gaze at this architectural model. They make a black one for theatrical use, but this one just looks so stealth. The fixture itself is just under two feet long and about seven inches wide. It has a built-in power supply that is permanently attached to the back.

Despite their name and long association with lighting primarily meant for clubs and smaller venues, ADJ Lighting has released a number of professional touring fixtures recently. Their Vizi line includes lights with feature sets normally seen on larger-format lights, but with attractive price points set to be within reach of houses of worship and other facilities or productions that need to be conscientious with their budget.

There is a saying that big things come in small packages. Measuring in at a whisper over 12 inches long and 4 inches wide, the new HD video switcher from Roland is proof of that. This sophisticated-yet-compact video switcher combines professional compositing features such as keying, graphic inserts, titling and numerous visual effects with the ability to connect to a variety of HDMI sources, smart phones and video cameras…even a 12 channel audio mixer. Safe to say, this switcher can manage a lot.

Enttec is no stranger to the LED and pixel-related product arena — they offer products ranging from their ultra-high-res LED pixel tape and LED pixel bars to control solutions that make it a breeze to set up large-scale LED installations. If you’re unfamiliar with the company, think back to any of the industry trade shows you may have attended the past few years, and you’ll undoubtedly recall the Enttec booth decked out in pixel products with the staff running around in odd-themed outfits. With their LED Mapper (ELM) software offering, Enttec aims to make mapping content and working with large numbers of individual LEDs easy, powerful, and affordable.

Clay Paky is one of the most respected and well-established moving light companies on the planet, and they have a solid line of products going back well into the 1980s. The company seems to have a knack for releasing products that become hits — like the Sharpy, the Mythos and the B-Eye. Today we’re going to look not at the latest LED offering, but at a good old-fashioned large-format arc lamp fixture: the Scenius.