Road Tests

DTS perhaps might not be familiar to many Americans, but the Italian company has been around since the 1980s when they started making domestic and commercial lighting and working with fiber optics. Today, they make a range of LED and arc-source fixtures for entertainment and architectural applications. The company’s WONDER.D enters the scene with a few tricks up its proverbial sleeve, including some unique and very interesting zoom effects.

Since 1983, TMB has supplied some of our industry’s hottest products — ProPlex Data Distribution equipment and cabling, ProPower power distros, and others. A year and a half ago, they introduced their Solaris LED line of fixtures, including the new Solaris LED Linear battens, which come in four different configurations for not only direct viewing, but also as a cyclorama wash role or as a high-powered performer wash.

Ever since the creative minds behind Philips Vari-Lite fired up the VL*1 in 1981, the company has been at the forefront of automated lighting design and creation. Coming on the heels of the VL4000 Spot, the VL4000 BeamWash enters the market as a very high-output wash and beam effect, with a few tricks up its proverbial sleeve. Physically, the unit bears a resemblance to the VL3500 Wash, with a very large clear lens. The lamp source is a 1200-watt Philips FastFit lamp overdriven to 1,400 watts by default, and outputs a native color temperature of 6000 Kelvin. Changing the lamp is very easy, just two screws on the back, and all parts remain captive during installation.

I walk into the Morpheus Lights shop in Las Vegas, and the first thing I see are these black balls. Row upon row of little rolling balls emitting light in synchronous harmony. That alone was a pretty big “wow” factor upon first sight. But then I round the corner, and there are bigger balls with multiple light beams emitted in every angle. Rotating continuously in every angle. I am experiencing flashbacks to the 1970’s and the days of disco. I instantly realize that Ayrton, the leading innovator in new LED product manufacturing, has once again come up with some revolutionary products.

PRG Nocturne recently announced that they were building ten new HD Video Flypacks to better serve their touring music clients. I recently got a walk through a typical flypack arrangement, which have already been out on some of the biggest current tours including U2, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Paul McCartney, The Eagles, Maroon 5, and others. The PRG Nocturne Karrera S-Series SD/HD/3G capable Video Flypacks really are next generation solutions. These HD flypacks employ equipment from Grass Valley, Ross Video and Fujinon; all long-time partners with PRG Nocturne.

This week, I’ve got my hands on a hard-edge moving light discharge fixture from PR Lighting. This company is by far the market leader in China for professional lighting solutions for architectural, entertainment and promotional uses for 30 years. Mega Systems out of San Antonio, TX distributes their line of fixtures in the U.S.

Martin Professional has been a leading manufacturer of moving lights for many years, and their MAC series of lights has been incredibly successful. With the MAC Quantum Profile, the company moves into previously unexplored territory, combining the fast-growing area of LED technology with their optics and color systems, and the result is the company’s latest LED profile light.

The problem with new technology and gear is that you usually only get to put your hands on it the day before a gig, or worse, actually on the gig. I’ll admit — under duress is usually the best way to learn a piece of gear, but not exactly the most stress-free activity in the world. So I was delighted to be able to get my hands on the Barco HDX W20 Flex actually in a shop and not under any time gun or a client breathing down my neck.

MA Lighting has somehow hidden the secret that they have been working on a new console pretty much since they debuted the grandMA Series 2 line five years ago. I was amazed, not only by their ability to keep it a secret all this time, but also by how easy this console is to operate. But let’s cut to the chase and give you the facts.

With the popularity of LEDs on the rise and the increasing need for better tools to program them, the boundaries of existing software solutions is constantly being tested. Take, for instance, the world of pixel mapping. Once upon a time, pixel mapping more or less was confined to a 2D flat plane on which an image would be displayed. That has changed in the last several years. With products like Pixel Tubes (Eurolite) and LT 100/200 3D Graphic Tubes (SGM) being used to create three-dimensional structures of pixels, traditional 2D pixel mapping software quickly falls short of the task.

Let it be known that a manufacturer has finally built a hard edge moving light with an LED source that’s brighter than the 1200W discharge fixtures now on the market. Barco-owned High End Systems has proven that their SolaSpot Pro 1500 fixture has the horsepower to outshine most of the top selling fixtures others offer while only using a 400-watt white LED light source.

Last fall at LDI, I was privileged to walk past the Lightwave International booth and see their new fixture, the Phenom, a moving-head RGB laser that combines the best parts of a moving head fixture with the power and visuals of a laser, offering LDs a brand new, previously-unseen effect for their toolkit.