It is kind of funny that I got my post in only a minute after gafftaper's, though now I think I would elaborate on the
Eos. I realize that not many people have got to
play with them yet, but being that I live in the city that is home to the
Eos with serial No. 00001 I actually have.
gafftaper said:
The
Strand Light Palette VL is probably the closest competition to Congo.
The
Strand LightPalette series is actually designed to compete with the
ETC's
Eos. The
Eos is really the only thing that would make me consider switching to
ETC for a
console. In the new LightPalettes, which I have yet to
play with, the combination of Horizon with
Strand OS should prove to be a vrey cool thing.
Strand, IMHO, really had a much better OS than the Obsession II. Then along came
Eos.
I only got to
play with a pre production model when
ETC brought it to town to show the guys down the street at the LDS conference center here in Salt Lake City. (Now they have
Eos #1 and something like 4 more coming to be installed) With
Eos,
ETC took everything that was good about the Obsession and meshed it wish all that I love about
Strand that Obsession didn't have. They also added a host of really nice features.
The basic
Eos can be configured with 4 displays, two internal to the
console and two external. The two on-board displays are full size touch screens that can be configured a host of different ways. You can have macros, direct access buttons, channels, and more right as a nice configureable
button. In the
channel display,
ETC has finally decided that MLs can be under one
channel (like
Strand) as opposed to dealing with "ML Live" thus making calling MLs and conventionals easier.
For basic programming the syntax, as I mentioned in my previous post, is almost identical to Obsession II. This is a great thing because you don't have to re-learn the wheel. The
Eos attribute encoders now support force
feedback at both a coarse and fine setting. This allows you to get
feedback right from the
encoder to know you have say, advanced to the next color in a
gel string on on a color wheel.
Here are some other really nice ML features on the
Eos. First is Reference and
Mark cues. Imagine
Strand's "AutoMove While Dark" but better. You need your MLs to be
preset for a particular
cue, you tell the
Eos that
cue X is a reference
cue for the fixtures you need. Now, you can either have
Eos automatically find the
Mark cue (
cue where the lights
preset) or you can set it manually. Since Reference and
Mark cues are
dynamic, if you ever change the position of the lights in the Reference
cue the
mark cue automatically updates.
Next nice ML feature, attribute splitfades like the Congo. My favorite ML feature: color selection. We were told at the
Eos demo that by
release the
console will have the entire
Gam,
Rosco, and
Lee swatchbooks as color libraries for
CMY and
RGB colormxing devices. You can also select colors by inputting their
HSV values or tapping on the color wheel. Also, if you use multiple kinds of MLs, the color wheel will show you what colors all of your fixtures can make.
Here is yet another great feature of the
Eos, the ability to import your LightWright file. Not sure if it is capable of importing the
softpatch from it yet, but they say it will be able to, but this allows you to name lights and channels for use by other
Eos features.
Eos also features a customizable
channel display, want your channels to appear on the
screen in the orientation of your
light plot, you can do that.
The other thing that the
Eos has that could be a good feature is true multiple
cue lists. You can run completely independent
cue lists on separate faders/GO buttos so that you can control many individual things. I haven't figured out how I would use this feature, but I am sure that I would if I had it.
The biggest downside to the
Eos that I have found is the fact that it does not have any onboard
DMX outs, you have to use a
DMX node (which comes with the
console).
Now is the time that you say: "Why is the guy who swears by his
Strand pushing the
Eos?" Well, really the answer is that I haven't had the chance to
play with
Strand's new LightPalette consoles so I can't say anything about them. I just know that I like the
Eos. I kind of feel like if I were going to consider a Congo I would compare it to a Hog, not a LightPalette, and I think the Hog would be a better choice.
The other reason that I would take the
Eos over the Congo in an educational setting is that your students are more likely to encounter an
Eos when they get out of school than a Congo. Also, if they learn the
Eos syntax they will be able to sit down in front of any Obsession II and program away. And since currently the Obsession is basically the most prevalent
console in use, this seems to be a more logical choice.