New Products Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

Those of you thinking the Gio was the only trick up ETC's sleeve for this week may want to take a look at the latest tweets by @Lekogirl and find out what happened at the end of Fred's keynote this morning...
 
The LED Source4?
Yup. Look out, LEDko, Neeva, aLEDin, RevEAL. :)

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yfrog Photo : http://yfrog.com/kg1wsenj Shared by lekogirl

...and as far as anything ETC goes, until they send out a press release that says LED and Source 4 in the same sentence and the cost is under 1k a unit, I'm not going to be paying attention.
Well, satisfying the first two was "easy"; I suspect the "under 1k a unit" will be the difficult part.;)
 
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Because they'll match moving lights better. You'll see more and more full spectrum options every year.
 
Re: New Product(s) to be Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

Fred's keynote this morning in front of an audience of ~300 CUE attendees and ETC employees started with a presentation on the history of the company. Though I had heard him recant the story on a couple of other occasions, today was the first time I have seen him get teary-eyed while talking about the moment he realized he had employees who were relying on his business decisions to keep them employed so that they could continue to feed their families and pay their mortgages. That day was clearly an emotional moment for him in the history of the company, back when ETC had less than one hundred employees (now ETC employs over 700 people across the globe).

The feeling in the room was during the presentation was electric as everyone listened to Fred talk about how the company has evolved over the years. Those who came in after the presentation started lined the walls on either side of the lecture hall. By the time he was done explaining the history of the company, there was no standing room left in the hall; house left and house right were filled with people.

Fred has a sort of social magnetism when he talks about his company -- he speaks as a romantic who has spent his entire life chasing his dreams and catching them, even if sometimes by accident and defying all odds (just ask him how many times he blacked out the Union Theatre with the first console built in his parents' garage or how he blacked out the Land of Mouse with his first parade-float controller). Listening to him speak, it's impossible not to be drawn into his every word as he talks about the serendipitous events that led to Electronic Theatre Controls as we know it today.

At what seemed like the end of the presentation, Fred took a few questions from the audience and then when all Q's had A's, @Lekogirl (from the first few rows of the hall) tossed out the loaded question which was something to the effect of "Clearly tungsten lighting is still very important to theatrical lighting, but are you considering [at all] creating an LED Source Four? Ever?"

Fred, growing quite the smug grin on his face, began to explain how if ETC were ever consider to design an LED Source Four, these were the qualities he would want it to have. Then, as he listed each of the traits, he showed with the LED Source Fours each of the different features as he was listing them off.

It was as if the entire room had been shangaied -- one moment everyone was waiting to get up and leave less anyone have additional questions for Fred about ETC; the next moment we're staring at LED Source Fours that have probably been pointing at Fred and turned on for the entire presentation without any of the CUE attendees knowing it.

What surprised me the most was how crisp and bright the gobo projection was, and how clearly it cut through the other stage lighting. The color-mixing LED Source Four that was pointed at the rear wall looked so crisp that I when I first saw it, I thought it was a 4:3 LCD projector pointed at the upstage wall mimicking the colors of a Selador fixture, but it was really an LED Source Four with the shutters boxed in that was chasing through the different colors.

As Fred described in his own words, this is the the Holy Grail of lighting products. I think everyone in the room today would agree with that statement -- if he hadn't revealed that the fixtures pointed at him weren't incandescents, nobody would've been the wiser: intensity, color quality, beam quality -- nothing was a giveaway that the Source Fours had LED sources instead of tungsten sources.

While the product is not available yet, Fred said more information should be available in the roughly the next 9 months.


Fred Foster by smoke-test, on Flickr


Fred Foster's Keynote by smoke-test, on Flickr


Fred Foster by smoke-test, on Flickr
The backlight in this photo is from an LED Source Four.


"and if we were to do that, we'd want it to have a Kick-Ass Daylight White" by smoke-test, on Flickr
The front light and the gobo are both via LED Source Fours.


Fred Foster lit up with an LED Source Four. by smoke-test, on Flickr
All front light is via two LED Source Fours.
 
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Re: New Product(s) to be Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

It was as if the entire room had been shangaied -- one moment everyone was waiting to get up and leave less anyone have additional questions for Fred about ETC; the next moment we're staring at LED Source Fours that have probably been pointing at Fred and turned on for the entire presentation without any of the CUE attendees knowing it.


So we could call this ETC's
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Yes, I would consider ETC the tech theater Apple.
 
Re: New Product(s) to be Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

So we could call this ETC's
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Yes, I would consider ETC the tech theater Apple.

Because of the "keynoteification" of the world thanks to Apple, many companies that would just send out a press release now spend money on these type of things. It builds itself its own anticipation.

This looks to be a very, very, early product. We don't even have a name yet or a picture of the thing. It looks like they still want to do some serious R&D on it as well. ETC is not about to give up on its dimmer business unless this thing is good enough to replace a sensor dimmer AND a S4. ETC makes a good amount of money on dimmer racks which is something that is going to become a relic if the move to LEDs fully happens. At least they are not in the same position as Crown and only have one pro product, but its still the same issue.
 
Re: New Product(s) to be Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

Because of the "keynoteification" of the world thanks to Apple, many companies that would just send out a press release now spend money on these type of things. It builds itself its own anticipation.

This looks to be a very, very, early product. We don't even have a name yet or a picture of the thing. It looks like they still want to do some serious R&D on it as well. ETC is not about to give up on its dimmer business unless this thing is good enough to replace a sensor dimmer AND a S4. ETC makes a good amount of money on dimmer racks which is something that is going to become a relic if the move to LEDs fully happens. At least they are not in the same position as Crown and only have one pro product, but its still the same issue.

Wrong. Film at 11.

ST
 
Re: New Product(s) to be Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

This looks to be a very, very, early product. We don't even have a name yet or a picture of the thing. It looks like they still want to do some serious R&D on it as well. ETC is not about to give up on its dimmer business unless this thing is good enough to replace a sensor dimmer AND a S4. ETC makes a good amount of money on dimmer racks which is something that is going to become a relic if the move to LEDs fully happens. At least they are not in the same position as Crown and only have one pro product, but its still the same issue.

We have a picture, and it looks like a regular S4 (from a distance). But with out the need to dissipate heat, I'm sure it'll look just a tad different. ;)

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg616/scaled.php?tn=0&server=616&filename=zbnsrd.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640zbnsrd.jpg
Photo
 
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Re: New Product(s) to be Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

Because of the "keynoteification" of the world thanks to Apple, many companies that would just send out a press release now spend money on these type of things. It builds itself its own anticipation. ...
Micro$oft "PowerPoint-ification" was happening before Apple Keynote, and of course 35mm slides way before that. Thank goodness companies are willing to spend money "on these type of things," as I've never been paid to light a press release.:cool:
 
Re: New Product(s) to be Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

Would that be 11 Eastern or Pacific?
 
Re: New Product(s) to be Unveiled at CUE: ETC GIO, LED S4

They demoed 2 products, an S4 LED with I think X7 Lustre+ engine and another that was white. It appears to be a body replacement that uses all the existing lenses. Fred Foster claimed it was 9 months from release but the prototype looked pretty finished to me. Very even field, no obvious colour aberation across the field. You can't see from the image but the gobo being projected was a textured glass gobo and it was very crisp.Seeing 2 cords daisy-chained out of the end cap was a bit of a giveaway for me, but they certainly surprised most of us.

If I were to speculate, and why not, I would think the target MAP will be closer to a conventional S4 with a Seachanger. If so, it will still be a while before they replace my conventionals but given the colour mixing I could sell off all my scrollers and 1/2 my conventionals to offset the purchase price. They make a lot of sense for new installs, schools and houses of worship.

We live in interesting times...
 
I've been trying to talk ETC into investigating Ethernet over power line and ACN in the fixtures. It would be great to be able to supply power and networking in one connection rather than having to inventory and run multiple cables to each fixture. It might happen but it would be on their schedule and only if they can support it.
 
Might it be possible that in addition to DMX, the S4 LED could use Net3 over a daisy chain?

Me thinks this might be more complicated than one would think. While each S4 LED could potentially listen for different DMX addresses broadcast over that protocol, the configuration of the IP addresses would be one sticky widget. Each device on a network should really have its own IP. If they were set up with a software that would allow remote configuration, it would work, but the additional effort involved in tracking this information (you would need to know conflicts with over devices such as the router, clients, etc. even if the software could track it) may not be worth it. Additionally, that is one more port to increase the size of the fixture, and one that isn't particularly known for the hardiness of its terminations. It would also mean that each unit would require an ethernet switch built into it to pass the data into the processing hardware and out to the daisy chained unit.

Finally, it would make the fixture more expensive and complicated to manufacture.
 

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