Automated Fixtures Purchasing Moving Lights

[Pie4Weebl]

Guys, Vipers are the way to go. Hands down no contest. The handles on the yolks make moving them a breeze, they are punchy as all get out, have a great zoom a refreshing gobo selection, and are all around killer lights.

Of all the lights in this thread, Vipers are the only ones you will still see around in 5-10 years.

 

[techieman33]

You know, maybe I'm Sancho Panza, but I would advocate fighting the used equipment battle. A 4:1 ratio is well worth it.

It's for a school and 99.999% of the time schools won't allow the purchase of used equipment.

 

[np18358]

I can't fight the used equipment. Just demoed the Viper against the Robe DLS. In White, The Viper is definitely brighter. In every color, the DLS knocked it out of the park. In the red, I would say almost 50% brighter. In the Blue and Green, maybe even 75% brighter. Unfortunately my Light Meter wasn't working so no actual measurements. Also, the DLS is also almost half the weight of the viper, no lamp changes, fan noise is almost non-exsistant, and I find the stock gobos to be more useful for theatre than the mac vipers (though this is certainly arbitrary). Also, the Framing Shutters and great Zoom (virtually the same as the Viper) make it phenomenal. Also, I can put 4 instruments on a circuit, versus 1 for the Viper. The DLS won in literally every aspect except the white intensity. It is also cheaper. The viper is still a great instrument though.

 

[derekleffew]

... The handles on the yolks make moving them a breeze, ...

Also makes it easier to separate from the whites. /not racist

Pie's opinion that the Viper will be the only one we'll still see around in 5-10 years may be true, but only because LEDs will continue to improve, whereas other sources have probably gone as far as they can go. Didn't I read somewhere that Martin stated the Viper was going to be their last discharge lamp-based fixture?

EDIT: Yes, I did. Here.

... It's said to be the last of its kind - Martin's last discharge source.

 

[Wood4321]

@derekleffew Thank you for the joke! I was trying to come up with something for that and was totally drawing a blank.

As for the Viper, I agree its a fantastic fixture. And likely the brightest 120v fixture available. But I 100% agree that in 5-10 years almost all fixtures are going to be LED, (unless something better comes along) Hell, the newest stuff from HES even looks pretty great. (Shocking, right?)

They are claiming 20k lumens out of the new Solaspot 1500, (but high end's numbers can be a bit sketch)
And what the hell is a "lens defogger"?

The Mac Quantum looked fantastic at Infocomm, and was only running at 80%
I have heard people say its around twice as bright as a HES Solaspot (original), Even thought they technically have the same number of lumens per the manufacturers numbers..

In any case as a side note, If you are buying LED spot fixtures, get side by side demos..
Numbers are marketing, naked eye (almost) never lies.

 

[soundlight]

Let me just fire up my broken record here...

The new Robe LED units - DLX and DLS - are amazing. Most people haven't adopted it yet because Robe is a mostly unknown brand in the US. They're just now starting to get people's attention with the Pointe. I personally have set up a Robe DLS side by side with a MAC700 Profile. I'd put the white brightness between a VL2500 Spot (MSR700/SA, the dimmer of the two) and a MAC700 Profile (HTI700W/D4/75, the brighter of the two lights). I'd put the color brightness close to if not equal to that of a VL3000. If you go anywhere else in the world, Robe is a well-respected brand. Why they haven't gained that reputation in the US mostly comes down to poor efforts on their part, from what I understand. Their lights, from all accounts that I've heard, just don't break. Even their old 575s. They just don't break. They build so many of the parts at their own facility so that they can quality control everything.

Another thing, not necessarily for specific discussion in this thread, but more generally: why are we putting subtractive mixing systems in front of white LED chips? The GLP SpotOne and now the Robe DLS/DLX have done a phenomenal job of providing an LED color mixing system through a hard edged light. The quality and brightness of saturated colors is significantly better. One other major thing that I've already brought up and always will is that with a native RGBW color mixing system in the back, you eliminate the need for several moving parts - those being the color mixing system, the bit that fails first on many moving lights that I've serviced. You don't have a system of dichroic glass flags or discs with the associated system of motors, belts, gears, pulleys, glass blade tracks, limit switches, and motor drivers that are all failure points. You just have LED drivers and LEDs, which in my experience (except in the B-EYE K20s, surprisingly - have had a few LED driver boards go already, luckily they're easy to swap) have been miraculously stable. Also, unless the LEDs are on, the unit isn't producing all of the heat (it's already way less heat than associated with an arc lamp of the same output) and the thermal system can take a break, thereby bringing less dust in to the unit.

With LED units in general you also don't have the dimming problems that Martin arc source fixtures fixtures - specifically the Viper - exhibit when they're dimming, which is that the strobe blades provide the dimming and it looks like crap at the low end. It's not something you'll see through haze when the unit is used as concert backlight/deck units, but it's something you'll see when you do a 15 count fadeout in a theatrical show. I put a Viper Performance on a 20 second fade last week and you could see the toothed strobe flag coming in in the bottom 25%. Everyone was surprised, even the dude from Martin who was showing it off.

Definitely get a demo of the DLS. You won't be disappointed.

 

[DJZS]

The new High End fixture is pretty nice. I saw the prototype of it. I'll be looking at the final next week at LDI.
Also look at clay paky. they're AMAZING fixtures.

 

[Judge]

I use a lot of Robe gear and have found it to be very reliable and well built and the price point is right as well. If I was installing in a theater I would go DLS/DLX without a doubt. As mentioned above, less moving parts - remote shutter blades - for goodness sake, why even consider a lamp that does not have that feature.
Oh, and noise. BIG issue. A dozen Vipers in a rock concert - not a bother but I guarantee you will notice the noise in a theater. LED is finally at a stage where it is doable.
Robe is a company that really stands behind its products and customers, you cannot go wrong with them.
BTW what is the plan for control? If you are buying new multi parameter instruments esp with shutters you are going to need something nifty to control them.
But thats a whole other argument waiting to happen.

 

[FTKD]

As the owner of Vipers, you can not go wrong by heading that direction, but another fixture that hasn't made a splash in this thread that should, is the High End Solaspot Pro CMY. I sold a pair to a community theater on a tight budget and they have been exstatic. I was hesitent at first, though the specs looked great and I will say, they didn't disappoint in the end. Prior to purchasing the Vipers for my own inventory, I had said if they still made new HES Studio Spots I would purchase them in a heartbeat as they have always been a favorite. The Solaspot picked up right where the SS ended and with the LED light source enginge you can't beat them. If you are budgeting 10k/unit at 8-10 units, you could fit about 16 of the Solaspots in your budget.

 

[np18358]

Thanks! I will certainly check those out.

 

[tdeater]

We have some VL770's and are very happy with them so far. Been using 4 of them for a year now, just ordered 2 more this past week. Paid $7250 ea for them this time around. Plenty bright, nice colors, smooth movement.