Board upgrade

[Stoldal]

As I said in a different thread I am working with a high school that is building a theatre. I am thinking ahead to the future. Right now the plan for the theatre is 300 I series leviton dimmers, 20 color kinetic LED panels(3channels each), 4 Cyberlight CX(20 channels).

In the future the plan is to get around 6-10 moving heads lights, like MAC 500. I will not know what we will get until the time comes.

Will the Leviton Innovator 600 control board work, or will it be a pain controling all of those fixtures with that control board.

Should i talk to try and get them to buy a different board, and if yes, what board?

Thanks!

[soundlight]

You might be happier if you can talk them in to getting an ETC Ion, which has been exhaustively discussed in multiple other threads. Another option would be a Compulite D-Lite, which you'd probably pick up really quickly since you've used a Vector Lite. One of the nice things about the D-Lite is the small flip-up touch screen for fixture parameters. The Innovator is a great board, and I've used it quite a few times, but it doesn't have the ML-specific cueing functions that you'd get out of an Ion or D-Lite system. The Ion is probably gonna become one of the industry standards pretty quickly (along with EOS, which uses the same software), so you can argue that point, too.

[Stoldal]

Ya, I really like the Vector Orange board, but with the price tag around 15k , i think that may be out of the question. The board has not been purchased. I am going to talk to them( aka school admins.) about changing the board. I am just wondering about the price range. In conparison to the Innovator how much more is the Ion going to cost. Note that i was never told the cost of the Innovator. I may have to contact the companys to get the prices, but any help is great

[soundlight]

Ion is probably going to end up being a worthwhile 2 to 4 K over the price of an Innovator.

[Stoldal]

One problem I see is the theatre is using ColorNET.

[tgates]

Originally Posted by Mstoldal

As I said in a different thread I am working with a high school that is building a theatre. I am thinking ahead to the future. Right now the plan for the theatre is 300 I series leviton dimmers, 20 color kinetic LED panels(3channels each), 4 Cyberlight CX(20 channels).
In the future the plan is to get around 6-10 moving heads lights, like MAC 500. I will not know what we will get until the time comes.
Will the Leviton Innovator 600 control board work, or will it be a pain controling all of those fixtures with that control board.
Should i talk to try and get them to buy a different board, and if yes, what board?
Thanks!

I know this is slightly off topic, but, if you are going to get new movers down t road, I think color mixing is a Good Thing to hold out for for a theater. Personally, I think it's one of the most important features of a good moving light in anything but a dance sort of setting.

[soundlight]

Originally Posted by Mstoldal

One problem I see is the theatre is using ColorNET.

Ouch - that's a tough one to overcome. The theatre should have Art-Net, not ColorNET if they want to be an up-to-date installation. But chances are that someone bid on the system, and what you're getting is what you're getting. That's what sucks about bids. If the bid requested a moving light console, well, the Innovator has a set of encoders and can control moving lights, so I guess it falls in to that category. Is ColorNET a protocol that uses ethernet cable and RJ-45 connections? Because if so, transfer over to ETCnet3 instead of ColorNET would be easy, or you could put in ArtNet, which would be a great addition to a new space.

[Stoldal]

here link is the PDF of what as of now we are getting in the threatre. I think it does use CAT 5 cable.

The board uses ColorNET protocol, but the other part of the systems says it uses Luma-Net III protocol.

[soundlight]

So basically, if the system's been bid on and spec'd, there's not much you can do. The whole system was designed around ColorNET, and all of the houselight stations are Leviton/Colortran stuff. It's gonna be very tough if not impossible to get this egregious error of specification fixed. It seems counter-intuitive to spec High End and Color Kinetics gear but end up with a Colortran boards. Sure, colortran boards were good back in the day, but the Innovator has had the same design for the past 4 or 5 years at least, if not more. They should've specd a console that was forward-thinking. Oh well, maybe they'll realize this when you get the moving heads next time 'round.

[Stoldal]

Ya it has been bid on a nd spec'd. It is a school, and the school admins where the ones that chose what company we would go with. Ya that is why i started this thread. I just dont see the Innovator working will with 15 + moving heads/scanners. I just dont want to have a out of date system before we have even built the theatre. I am not trying to rant. we are getting a theatre we will make do with what we have.