We've used Emphasis for 4 years, with decent results and zero crashes, other then the need to re-boot on occasion - as you would with any
console. We actually leave ours up and running 24/7 with no problems, and except for the first week of use, no calls to tech. support. Our
system is part of a Net2
system.
It's an add-on server/computer that takes control of any
Express/Expression II-III/Insight II-III
console, connecting to the
console via
Cat5 and turning the
console into a Facepanel "slave" of the main Emphasis
processor.
The heart of the Emphasis
system is/was a link to embeded
WYSIWYG on the server, that changes the control interface, in that it allows direct control of fixtures via the
WYSIWYG display, which can either be a single
monitor in 2d, or dual
monitor in 3d, as well as whatever monitors the facepanel uses. Emphasis added
channel capacity up to 4,000, as well as functions such as Move Before Bright, Subroutines on Submasters, and tons more.
In practice, it's a theatrical cuing
console that works well when the time is spent creating a
plot in
WYG then using
WYG as the control interface. It is a poor live playback interface.
IMO, there was poor execution of the interface where the
console leaves off, and Emphasis /
WYG takes over, thus (as on the
Express) some functions are not available in Emphasis/
WYG (
gobo spin direction and rate of a Studio Spot, as example) but need to be controlled in the ML section of
Express, via the Trackpad, which was just plain dumb, as were a whole lot of other annoying things you discover over time.
A novel idea at the time, that wasn't followed
thru by
ETC. The license agreement with Cast - makers of
WYSIWYG expired a few years back, thus
WYSIWYG moved on to version 22, while Emphasis remained at 17. One way that becomes an issue is when you need to add a new
fixture whose photometric are updated in newer
WYG versions and you have to do all sorts of songs and dances to get stuff backwards to V17 and into Emphasis - if it's doable at all - such as adding a
Martin 700
wash, as example. Emphasis does not allow you to create new fixtures, as example, and the
ETC Personality Editor cannot be used with Emphasis. All sorts of little odd things like that became annoying.
That said, it was a very cost effective
purchase for us, that added capabilities we did not have and bridged us to an
Ion, which is on the agenda.
As to Tim's comments about Net2 and nodes, sounds like a poor design on the
system he was working. In practice, the Net2
system is terrific and easy to use. We DID, however, keep 2
DMX dry lines from
console to backstage for folks who don't want to run
thru Net2. In practice the only time I use them is for a simple
one-off that needs a single
DMX from
point A to B. Anything else I run
thru nodes. I have never had issues with the Net2
system and Sensor+ dimmers, and have never had
DMX runs as backups to the racks.