New Lighting Desk

[propmonkey]

i think that is a good choice i wish i had the 125 memory. strand and etc are similar. i know strand and i had to do some work on an etc so i had a pretty good idea what to except and work with. names are different but realivitly the same.

 

[dbldland]

I w/Steve. We have 3 Strand 500i boards in our spaces. Although I have never been "Stranded" I must say the service has been less than stellar. All my "emergency" calls are user error. But I like the fixture library and the ease of working with movers for very basic stuff. the work arounds are very cumbersome on heavy cueing. I also likje the wireless control with Strand. 2 differnet systems allow simple PDA programming, etc. and another for complete laptop designer remote. Movers off the designer laptop wireless is sweet, but the wysiwyg interface for remote cueing is not good. ETC is simple, easy and user freindly. Simple mover cues are easy. stay away from difficult cueing.

 

[len]

I would love to have a hog II, I have seen it in action, and its a beautiful desk, but when I showed my director the price, he nearly passed out. I would think the hog II would be a waste at my theatre too because I doubt many of the students at my school would be able to program it, and all of its advanced features would just go to waste. Renting and waiting isn't really an option because our board is really old (I think its from the early 80's) and is starting to slowly die.

The express 48/96 is nice, but I've never used it for moving lights.

Hog II USED is about $12 - 16K. I think the IPC is even more. They're fairly easy to program, once you get the basics. I think they're a pain in the a$$ unless you have a very large 100+ moving fixture rig.

My vote would be to get LightJockey, but with all the add ons.

Here's the dollar breakdown (estimated).

LJ and software - $1,200.

Good pc (I use a notebook, but that is more steal-able, so get a pc) $1,000. Get one with 2 video cards. Only need about 40G hard drive and 512M of memory to operate LJ very well.

Touchscreen monitor. Essential for running a show. Load cues, put them into the 2532 or LJ Touch (free add on) and push buttons. $800.

Fingers. Ideal for running conventionals on the fly. You can patch in up to 48, plus do tons of other stuff with it. And there are upgrades being made to the functionality so it will only get better. $900.

Way under the $7K budget.

Why buy it? It's the best, IMO. I've used Hog PC, LJ, Compuclub, and a bunch of others. The ease of use of LJ is the best of all of them. Plus, a user forum, and tons of revisions, upgrades, fixture profiles, that just makes it the most stable, dependable, easy to use product of them all.

And no, I don't work for Martin.

 

[Radman]

I'm sure you could afford a full Emphasis system, which, due to the addition of wysiwyg, would not have a problem expanding to intels. I can't speak for strand, never used one. Otherwise, the Leprecon X series looks good, if you get the big one.