Thanks Bobby! For those who don’t know, Bobby Harrell is THE man when it comes training on a
Strand system.
In the intrest of fairness and educating us all, could someone from
ETC comment on how
Ion and Jr. handle these topics of real world terminology, abstract control model, and
instrument swapping.
Also it would be great to hear from both
ETC and
Strand how you feel about my descriptions of the environment of your product (i.e. Serious "
Theatre Desk" feel/familiar Windows-y software feel).
Hi everyone. Well, I'll speak to the
Eos family of products and Sarah will weigh in on behalf of the Congo
line. Regarding swapping out of fixtures, yes, that works very well. If the color data is stored in HS (which is the default mode when using the Color or
Gel picker - and when working in native space the data can be easily converted to HS with the Color Format control), the HS values translate to any mixing color
system. Similarly with pan/tilt, if the ranges of the original
fixture are different from the new
fixture, the data is converted appropriately for the applicable ranges of the substitute. Linear data and "framed data" such as
scroller, color and
gobo wheels are no problem. One area that we are looking to improve in the near term is the handling of device modes - right now those are translated as
DMX values but will be stored as modes shortly.
As to if I'd characterize the
Eos family as "serious
theatre desks" ---- well, I surely do hope so!!! We've spent a lot of energy on that!
There are a number of approaches to use when designing desks - they aren't better or worse necessarily, just different. We've spent a lot of time making
Eos,
Ion and
Element lighting control consoles that happen to be computer based, but whose user interface is not driven by that fact. We have found through our own experience and that of our end users that the more functions that are accessible directly from the facepanel, the faster these actions can be performed. That has lead us away from using tools that might be considered more "industry standard computer tools" in favor of direct facepanel controls.
But if I could just venture a suggestion here - one which has been floated by many others on this thread? All desks have their strengths and potential areas for improvement - or simply approaches that you may not particularly care for. There are many things that drive people to prefer one
desk over another. Often, the choice toward a
desk is driven completely by economics.
But - that issue aside - I've rarely seen anyone pick a
desk because of just one particular feature. Some features may be more important than others, but they rarely devolve to just one. What is important (well, I think anyway) is what your total experience on the product is like. What types of shows do you do, what sort of programming time do you have, what is the experience
level of your staff, what desks have you been comfortable with in the past? All of these things add up to make you feel more at home on one
platform over another. Almost all modern desks can do very similar things .... in different ways. There is no "one size fits all" control
console. That's one of the reasons we have two completely different product lines that
address similar market spaces.
And you are asking all of the right questions, by asking here for opinions, looking at what sorts of standards are evolving in your geographic location and so forth. All manufacturers now support product forums. That is a really good place to go to see what the experience is for people who already own the product(s). But I'll ask you (and I'm sure Bobby and Sarah would as well) to remember that people generally only post problems on forums, not what they actually like!
But they are great places to get the unvarnished truth!
I know this is difficult in some markets, but in addition to what you are already doing, the most surefire way to make a choice is to get a
desk into your own space for evaluation. You should try to have someone with you who knows the
platform. It's generally not preferred to make a decision only from a demo --- any competent demo person can highlight the strengths of their product but sidestep other areas. If you do have to go the demo route, try to have questions ready about common issues you have in programming to see how the
desk you are looking at might
address those. I love it when people come to a demo with their list of "how would I do this" questions - especially when its
clear that they've really given their needs serious thought. It gives the demo focus and often leads into much deeper discussions.
At the end of the day, our job as manufacturers isn't to sell you on a
desk.... it is to get you a product that you will be happy with. Therefore, the more you know, the happier you'll be with what is a very big decision to make!
Hope that helps! If you have any particular questions - philosophical, programming or otherwise, feel free to ask them here or you can also
drop me an email.
Best of luck!
Anne Valentino
Eos Product
Line Manager
ETC
