Perhaps the quick approach of finals week is clouding this college student's comprehension, but there doesn't seem to be a 16-bit direct control
channel mode listed
in the quick guide, in fact, the only 16-bit
parameter available in any of the modes is Hue. (same goes for the Desire series.) The
Ovation E-930VW on the other
hand offers two modes with 16-bit direct color control of its 6 colors.
Quite frankly, after looking at that guide, it's a little shocking that
ETC does not list a direct control mode for 16-bit color control. So my response was incorrect from a mathematical standpoint, though it would hold true for the Ovation, minus one
LED color. Personally, I have not used the Luster 2 very often as I find the Ovation to be a better-suited
fixture for most of my needs and a better value, so I don't have a ton of experience looking through the different control modes. I was even more shocked to find 41 different control
profile in the default GrandMA2 library. While many of these seem to be duplicate profiles with fan control enabled or disabled, or adding or subtracting
strobe channels, Its still an absurd amount of
fixture modes. It appears that
ETC actually had 8
fixture modes, all of them fairly dumbed down assuming that the operator is incapable of mixing 7 colors. HSI and HSIC offer a 16-bit Hue while the 8-bit saturation and
intensity effectively control the same parameters, so control of color output and
intensity is still, in the realm of thousands if not billions of more shades that can be distinguished in any
practical application.
So even though
ETC does not give its users direct control of 16-bit color attributes, like Chauvet and almost any of the other competitors offer, the statement that
DMX does not offer fine enough control, is demonstratively untrue, and shows a complete misunderstanding of the
DMX standard, lack of knowledge and application of the standard, or simple incompetence of running a
DMX controller. So much as I would not even be bothered to read any of their studies findings.
On a side note, the lack of user control of Luster 2s Is good to know about and disappointing. I consider this a
mark against
ETC when compared to the Ovations. I won't buy a
fixture from a manufacturer that intentionally hobbles its features because they assume they are smarter than the user and don't believe a user can utilize them correctly. It probably works great with
ETC desks, since they are closely integrated, but I sometimes I think that manufacturers are wearing blinders and do not realize the extreme
level of control that other platforms offer, or even what their direct competitors are offering. It's surprising how often a product rep tells me "and we have this cool new thing", and I'm like, "yeah we have been doing that for like 5-6 years now with this other thing."