Hi,
Thanks for the replies already. I walked away from this computer and there were replies when I returned.
Questions for you:
What kind of shows do you do? I work in education. in our space annually there are about: 6
stage plays/6concerts/40 meetings with multi media/and a few variety shows.
How many lights do you have? 250 old school source 4's
etc (192 -- l86 dimmers) ; 14 HES trackspots; 12 HES studio colors; about 30 leds right now will become a little under 100 leds as we develop. some f/x machines;
Until I saw Bluelight I had not considered A/V part of lighting, but now I do. 3 video projectors - many different laptops arrive with media on them and a question "can you display my presentation?' or "I need to
play this behind my dance."
Do you have moving lights? see above.
What is your
current board and why aren't you happy with it?
Rosco Horizon (one
universe) - out of channels and out of useful product life.
What is your budget? Ah, here's the deal. I am developing right now because I have a donor. I could go as far as a full-on
ETC board -- if I wanted to push all the resources that way, but I don't see the
point. That is a lot of fixtures,
etc.., to give up. I have student operators who love computers. The Horizon computer control solution has worked great. They assume they can work it when they see it. When they see a board, they assume they can not work it.
Where are you located? (so we can help you find someone to bring a board to your space to demo) San Francisco CA area.
Have you tried the demo? (of Bluelight)
Not yet. I got a quick reply from innovative, but I did not see the demo download site yet. Right now I am on a
Mac (in the video lab). I will have to have a chunk of "PC time" to enjoy such a thing as that demo. I need to be physically
in one place - the lighting booth. My PC laptop took a fall.
As far as Bluelight are there any special concerns with the computer used? Can I expect a somewhat
current PC (over 1.4 Mhz) running XP professional to work? Or, should I look at that very closely?
Also on my mind are HogPC (the 4
universe box), and
Martin Light Jockey - any comments? other products?
As an aside: (this may be meaningless) but because I have many students I need a way for them to easily understand the
stage layout.
Right now, I set up 15 areas on
stage.
I can set my
screen width so I have 15 columns so (old style
channel layout)
1-15. Front key lights
16-30 Front (medium) fill lights
31-45 warm top fill lights
46-60 cool top fill lights
61-75 back lights
The result is that every
channel in a vertical column: 1,16,31,46, and 61 control light that roughly goes to the same place on the
stage. Therefore, if a performer is standing in area 4, we can
nail them with many choices rather quickly.
After that (ch76 - 512) are where you find specials, wigglies leds,
etc. So any new operator moves from simple to more complex as they progress upward in the number of control channels they work.
etc.
Thanks for any help,
John