CMY vs. RGB

[jfitzpat]

Originally Posted by koncept

i was under the impression that instruments like high end's studio spots/washes used a cmy mix but did not use several "color flags" to create the desired color.
led's on the otherhadn could be an rgb mix correct? since in a par64 for example you could put clusters of rgb and use them all at different intensities to create the desired color.

To follow up on Icewolf's comments - look at the Elation PowerSpot thread. In the pictures you will see some quartz substrate disks with triangles of color on them. Each system has its own set of optical issues. For example systems that use varying dichroich saturation have color uniformity issues, designers of paddle and wedge systems have to contend with diffraction and reflection, and so on.

Although it is slightly off topic, I think that lasers used in larger shows have one of the more interesting coloring systems now. It used to be common to pair up two ion lasers, one argon ('green' and 'blue') with one krypton ('red'). Then use, say, three on/off dichroic filters to give 7 or so colors. Now, you see a lot of mixed gas lasers that look white and have a lot more lines in them. Instead of just a few paddles, a lot of companies now use a modulated crystal. It sort of acts like a high speed, controllable difraction grating.

-jjf