LDI Report

gafftaper

Senior Team
Senior Team
Fight Leukemia
Hey everyone, I just got back from LDI and thought I would share my thoughts on what impressed me the most.

My favorite new item: Apollo's "Right Arm". $1200. Right Arm turns ANYTHING under 50 pounds into a moving head unit. Ellipsoidal, Par, Fresnel, Video Camera, Projector... as long as it has a fairly standard clamping mechanism the right arm can do it. There are several similar devices out there but none that make it this simple and universal. Look for it in about 4 months.

ETC's EOS is very cool. There was a line the entire show to get an EOS demo. I was really impressed at how on one hand it feels very much like your favorite old ETC board but it looks like something from MA or Hog. It's $35k however they plan a small version sometime next summer, similar to Congo Jr. The small version has a targeted cost of around $15k. While the small version will loose a touch screen and some sliders the software will be the same.

High End's DL2 projectors are amazing. Their booth had the coolest light show going on with a bank of DL2's working together. A moving head video projector... very cool.

LED lighting was interesting. Martin now has an LED light. It comes in 18" and 24" models that can be connected end to end to form a strip light or stacked side to side to make huge cell's. They've got a lot of output, the sales guy said they really stressed the pastels in their creation. Each 3 or 4 inch cell has a single white LED, plus two green, two amber, two red, and two blue. The wattage of these LED's vary from 1 to 3 watts. It's got a serious punch in the white department but I wasn't really impressed with the colors... although it was poorly displayed with dozens of MAC's doing tricks all around you making it hard to really see the LED's. Although they are one of the big players, I was not impressed with Color Kinetics. Their booth was focused on architectural applications, with only one 2 foot strip light on display. It was very hard to get a feel for it's theatrical use and left me feeling like they are very under powered. Although they now make LED Pars, Altman had the same problem as Color Kinetics, featuring their architectural lighting and making it hard to get a feel for their theatrical versions. My favorite LED lighting instrument was Selador. Those suckers pack a huge punch. They had a 12 foot or so section of strips shining up a 10 foot drop and it looked amazing... but they also were doing a great job of lighting the ceiling 50 or 60 feet up. Selador uses 7 colors of LED's and it creates both a very true white and some amazingly deeply saturated colors.

Ocean Optic's Seachanger rocks. These are the people that make the dichroics for Vari-light. Pop a Source4 in half, throw a seachanger in the middle, put the lens tube on the front and you've got an amazing CMY ellipsoidal for around $2300 (including the S4) They have a new wash light that uses the butt of the S4 only. It's got the CMY unit with a built in fresnel lens. Very cool.

Tungsten is coming to the moving light world. The VL1000's have been discussed at length here and they are very cool. Now Martin has just added the T1W a moving head CMY tungsten wash light. When asked they were very elusive but admitted that every other instrument in their line comes in both a wash and profile model. One sales person hinted that the "P" version would be out next year some time. (Martin has done an amazing job of venting this sucker, I touched the lens after the demo and it was barely warm). Robe also has a nice looking tungsten wash light although it's just a prototype and appears to be 6 months or so away from reality. Source4 Revolution looks worse in person than the discussion in these forums. It's too big, looks like something from Star Wars... but not in a good way, it's slow... and it's got a color scroller. For now it's Vari-lite for an ellipsoidal and Martin for a fresnel.

From the I can't use them, but the were really cool: Lasers Awesome, video projection on a "screen" of smoke, video projection on a "screen" of water, WAY TOO BRIGHT lightning generating lights, Huge low res LED video walls to blow your mind, and then there were the two booths shooting confetti all day long... pity the poor guy cleaning up.

Finally there are the booths from the "what are you doing here" file. First off there were two booths selling no brand 12 mega pixel digital cameras for $300... I can't believe anyone was buying these things. Then there was the booth with the bad DJ scratching out the beats all day... wrong decade guys. I feel really sorry for the little guys out there trying to break into the market with a product that is completely dominated by major companies. There were like 4 light console manufacturers that I guarantee you've never heard of, a small gobo manufacturer... apparently Apollo and Rosco aren't doing a good job and need the competition, and the tables where a lone employee sat all day talking to no one... not sure what she was even selling. Finally there was the "Apollo" both... no not that Apollo this was the Chinese Apollo selling cheap sound and lighting equipment... I smell a law suit.

Some interesting websites:
Hard to explain, it’s a mini light lab using tiny lights, very clever www.seelightbox.com
Here’s the link to the only picture of “right arm” on the Apollo site http://www.internetapollo.com/News/Default.aspx?n_id=93
Giving out T-shirts that say, "legalize Gack": www.buygack.com
BMI Supply is in the process of putting their entire store on line making it much easier to get the prices you need. http://techsmart.bmisupply.com
Creating fabric sculptures for us to light check out the gallery, they rent!: http://www.pinkincdesign.com
 
You didn't mention what I thought was one of the coolest things there; InfoTrace. InfoTrace is Wybron's latest creation and eliminates the need to plug each scroller or CXI in on the ground to address it. All you have to do is plug them all in, plug in your laptop and do it all from there. It even tells you how many times the scrol has run, how long it has sat in various frames, and all sorts of other useful info. The best part the program that it uses runs on a Mac as well as Windows. They also have a chip that you can put into existing devices like dimmer racks and moving lights that will allow you to address them remotely as well.
 
HI Mark
probably the best summary of LDI I have seen anywhere on the web :)

A quick question, did it look like the Right arm was high speed for effects, or more slow speed for positioning?

Sharyn
 
<A quick question, did it look like the Right arm was high speed for effects, or more slow speed for positioning?>

I hope you don't mind my hopping in on this question!

The Apollo Right Arm is intended as a repositioning device first and foremost, with use as a moving fixture second. The speed from extreme pan left to right is 6 seconds to cover 340* in 16 bit resolution. Extreme tilt top to bottom is 270* at a speed of 4.5 seconds in either 8 or 16 bit resolution.

One of the unique features of the Apollo Right Arm is the ability of the user to choose between left to right pan settings. While a Right Arm may be used on the first electric with a pan of 340*, a balcony rail Right Arm may only need to cover 90* to cover the entire stage plus the wings and pit. The user may chose pan limits of 90*, 120*, 200*, and 340*.

As mentioned, 8 bit and 16 bit resolution are available, depending upon your needs and availability of DMX channels. The Apollo Right Arm may use either 2, 3, or 5 channels of DMX.

Please let me know if you would like more info, and I'll get it to you. You may also view the LDI Right Arm product video at

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiZFlJjCaOk
 
hmm that right arm looks kind of nifty, I would worry about accidentally dumping scrollers out of pars but I suppose thats what the tilt limits are for.
 

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