As for Steve B's comment about the cost benefit, you are missing one huge
point. The quality of the color saturation is unreal. You just can't make colors like these using
gel.QUOTE]
I think my sarcasm was too heavy. I'm of the opinion that even with a 4+ times cost factor, they (
LED's) might still effective in the long run, ESPECIALLY given the added bonus of unlimited color mixing.
Some thought though:
1) "You just can't make colors like these using
gel"
That might actually be an issue, especially in my situation with a
road house where I need to be able to match to a designers chosen
swatch book gel. I suspect that if brightness and saturation were of sufficient quality, most designers would be perfectly happy, even if the blue isn't exactly L119.
I know this issue is what drove the
ETC decision to not do
CMY mixing on the S4 Revolution (They supposedly are going to offer the CXI
scroller). I believe that a few years experience with VL1000's as well as most arc fixtures with
CMY and CYM has allowed many designers to be able to visualize what dichroics can provide, thus they are happy to move away from
gel's. I suspect the same will happen with
LED's
2) Unlimited color mixing is not, by itself cost effective if labor is cheap and you don't do a huge amount of changing of the colors in the
cyc lights. As in, it's not really a selling
point to a facility General Manager as would be the savings in electricity.
3) Heat is a major issue with longevity of
LED's and my limited experience with medium screw
base LED replacements for incandescents was very poor.
LED's are expensive and I for one, would be waiting a few years for generation D of any
LED striplight. I'd like to see them out at the shops for a few years.
No real problem in my case as I ain't got $75,000
Steve B.