Jands Vista... like Hidden Treasure

[nmccoart5]

Okay,
So most of us have used a plethora of lighting consoles and we all have the one we LOVE and the ONES we hate. I was on the crew for a show and our LD chose the Jands Vista I3 as our console. Not being very familiar with the console at first i was hesitant about it, however the LD swore by it. I have used MA, Hog, ETC, and so on, and had personally found MA to be fantastic..... until i used Vista! I never thought controlling 48 ML's would be this easy! It has such an easy interface and programming using a time-line is fantastic!! the built in effects worked for most of the stuff we needed and even making our own was simple. Grouping fixtures... has never been easier, controlling led fixtures, a cake walk, and conventional fixtures worked just as well..... i was just memorized. However, the one short fall i noticed about the board was the built in library seemed a little limited, but a quick personality download can fix that easily. Overall a fantastic board that i would definitely use again, but hey, i know there are better consoles (the godliness called MA2 ) however this board blew my expectations out of the water.

Has anyone else had a chance to play with or use this board? I am interested to hear what others think!

[theatre4jc]

I use the S3 in one of my venues and just love it. I've talked to some of the JV people and they have told me they are about to do limited beta testing on a new very updated version of the software. Didn't say what kind of changes, but that major changes are coming. One of the things I love about the Jands Vista is they actually listen to customers and make changes accordingly.

I also do video editing so for me this type of console is ideal. At this point in time I will only purchase the Vista and recommend it for anyone else.

[Grog12]

What theatre4jc mentions about how he video edits is a major part of this board. People with that expierence love this board. I design half my performances on it and the vista and I just don't sync up.
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[kiilljoy]

I work a lot for a theatre here in town and they recently changed from an old Horizon system running on computers to the computer version of Vista. I had hoped that they were going to go with a board instead of another computer version, and there have been problems with dimmers randomly going on and off during performances and no one has been able to trace the problem. A self-powered USB hub seemed to help, but didn't solve the problem completely. I'm aware of another theater in town that also uses the system, and seems to not have any problems with it. The thing is, the horizon system never gave us that particular problem.

Anyway, having done one show with the system, I felt like I was fighting the system at first, but I think once I really know the system, it will be very fast to program. Much faster in fact, than I had really thought possible.

[theatre4jc]

Originally Posted by kiilljoy

I had hoped that they were going to go with a board instead of another computer version, and there have been problems with dimmers randomly going on and off during performances and no one has been able to trace the problem. A self-powered USB hub seemed to help, but didn't solve the problem completely.

Is your dimmer system an ETC system? If you are running through ETCNET it does not work properly with Vista. I'm not sure what it is exactly but you need a converter to go from ArtNet to ETCNET. That might solve your issue.

[kiilljoy]

The theater actually has two spaces. They switched to the computer Vista upstairs in the main space first. The dimmers are a mix of a old system from the early 80s and 2 12 packs. One of the 12 packs is a Strand CD80 and the other is a brand that is escaping me at the moment but it's not ETC. The whole lighting system up there is really outdated, somewhat underpowered, and falling apart. The dimmers are slowly failing, and most of the instruments are old altmans, and most of those which have arcing damage in the socket. Huge part of the problem is they have no one on staff dedicated to maintaining and fixing it. I did what I could while I was there, and I left it safer, more reliable and more usable than what it was, but I had other things I had to do too.

Downstairs is a newer system, done within the last ten or fifteen years. It also is not ETC but a mix of NSI and Entertainment Technology. It also has a set of 18 Elation LED PARS. I think there have been fewer flashing issues of the type I've been describing, but it has happened, and it only affected the instruments on Dimmers and not the LEDs.

Sorry to the OP for hijacking the thread.

[theatre4jc]

The Vista sends out it's DMX signal at the fastest rate possible. I wonder if that could possibly cause an issue with your dimmers. Like the DMX rate is refreshing to quickly or something. Just a thought.

[kiilljoy]

What can done about that?