Ever get the feeling people can read your mind, only to find out there's an intricately connected web of people keeping tabs on you and your interests? That's
ETC.
I can only assume it was Steve who set it up, but it could have been Sarah, Dave, or any of our many other
ETC lurkers. Today Spencer Lyons showed up to give a training session on the Congo Jr. for some of our students and to my surprise, arrived with a
Selador Vivid. Apparently someone saw my post last night, took the
fixture to Spencer, and had him bring it out today to show off.
I tried to take photos, but they did not turn out(not that I expected them to, and even if they had, they do little justice). I did however hold a quick shootout that anyone can set up on their own to get an idea for the brightness. I used L119 as my benchmark in a 575w S4
PAR with a NSP
lens, and used the same color as is programmed on the Congo
palette for L119 on the 11" Vivid
fixture. The output at a distance of ~20-25' onto our projection
screen was almost exactly identical. If I only saw the pools of light and was told to guess which one was
incandescent and which was
LED, I would've had to have flipped a coin to choose one or over the other because they were so close to one another. The 231W of
LED's compared against the 575W of
tungsten incandescent could have had me at a total loss for words.
The fixtures are so new that it sounded like this one had been hidden in the depths of their HQ in a super secret room. They have not even decided on an
MSRP yet, but Spencer did speculate next week possibly they will have something arranged.
As for the speculation for the
LED ellipsoidal, Spencer had seen that blog as well, and noted that the laws of physics may yet prevent that from happening for quite some while, as
LED's can not be packed into such a small area and be any kind of
point source. That said, he didn't sound as if there were actually plans in the works yet for anything of that nature, although I'm sure it's been talked about in meetings. Until then, they have the perfect product for a
PAR that never needs new lamps or gels. I think the only reason they haven't announced the development of an
LED PAR yet is because they are working absolutely as hard as they can to get these
borderlight fixtures released, but I wouldn't be too surprised for them to be announced in the not-too-distant future.
The only
serious roadblock that I see is that the
Selador fixtures were not inherently cheap to begin with, so even if
ETC develops
LED PAR's, it'd be hard to say how they would priced, and I doubt it would be anywhere near comparable to the S4
PAR. Just the 11" X-7 sold retailed for $1460. Granted though, Spencer did mention that the two inventors were having issues starting their business originally. His example was if you purchased fixtures from them, you may have to pay part of it up front so they could afford the materials to actually create the product. I don't know how long ago that still held relevant, but I wonder if
ETC being involved will help to bring that price down at all.
Between acquiring
Selador, preparing to
release another
console, and having just released the
Unison Paradigm,
ETC seems to be as productive as ever, especially given the economy. Tom Carlson told me a few days ago that
ETC has, as of now, been rather unafflicted by the economic downturn, but they are prepared for the worst. I don't know exactly what they've done to ensure that, but I trust that they'll continue to thrive.
EDIT:
I forgot to mention that the
fixture he brought us was lovingly marked as being of the Vivid series by what looked like it could have been a silver
Sharpie. That tells me that before they actually ship anything, there are still a number of things that have to happen yet, but it sounds like they're coming along quickly.