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Ian_P

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  • Member Status
    Amateur theatre practitioner
  • Current Employment or place of study
    Telecomms Consultant and now IT manager
  • Professional organisation membership
    None
  • Full Name
    Ian Pratley

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    ipratley@hotmail.com
  • Website URL
    http://
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Profile Information

  • Location
    Leicestershire
  • Interests
    Theatre lighting, sound, set construction, special effects, in fact anything to do with presenting community theatre.

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Ian_P's Achievements

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  1. Hi all, I've been systematically upgrading the lighting kit at my local stage, and now have a good mix of Selecon Fresnel, Source 4 profiles, and a good number of LED colour washes. So for drama and the types of production we do - I think we have a great set up - very flexible and easy to use. The old replaced kit is now languishing in the attic, using up space, and having offered some of it to other local groups at zero cost and been turned down, it seems it's worthless. On Ebay similar kit seems to stick and not get sold. Broadly I have a set of rainbow colour scrollers - not used for 20+ years, a dozen Strand profiles, Par cans, some old CCT Fresnels with the old lamp housing, some no-name locally made dimmers etc. Is the only option here to tip the lot? Cheers Ian
  2. Just to complete this thread, I ran Cat6 cable, and purchased a Antiference 4 way splitter, but I coould not get it to work. It would flash the video up on the screnn for about a second then nothing. I tried local power to the baluns - same. Tried different displays, different inputs, different baluns (there were 4 in the box) - no joy. As the video does display for a moment I have to assume the splitter is at fault. Gave up and ran a direct 30m HDMI cable which works perfectly. Anyone want an Antiference Video spliter...?? ;0)
  3. HI all, I have a dressing room monitor that comprises a SM58 in the stage pros arch, a 25m mic cable running through the attic to the dressing room, plugged in a powered speaker pair - a Behringer SM16 if I recall correctly. We use this for the cast to monitor the audio from the stage - usually plays so spoken word. All works fine until I turn on the stage betapack3 dimmers, when a mains buzz is heard - which persists until they are turned off. The stage PA doesn't have this issue, and I recently installed a battery powered DI box to the monitor to try lifting the earth - but this makes no difference. The building is single phase so everything is on the same dist board for power. Any ideas what to try next?
  4. Many thanks - I’ve found strobe - under beam as you said - in plain view and I couldn’t see it!! thanks again!!
  5. Thanks - I think I must be missing a step as when I select anything other than colour - I get a ‘ palette not created’ - so it looks like a palette must be built??
  6. Hi all, just got myself a Zero88 FLX, and I have set it up to run my generics and a number of LEDs. I have assigned the Stairville xBrick correctly in the add fixtures, and I can successfully control their colour output, but I’m trying to get one set to strobe, as the units are all set as 6 channel, the strobe is there - but I can’t see how to jump the dials off from rgbw and onto the last two fields - strobe and intensity. what am I missing?? thanks
  7. After a long piecemeal upgrade to the dimming equipment at my venue, I have alot of old analogue kit to dispose of. Qty 3 6channel dimmers - Brand PCD - 0-10v control and twin IEC outlets per channel. Made for me by Pete Dunsfold Electronics back in the dim & distant past. one channel triac blown. 3channel non-brand dimmer - analogue control S72 Strand DMX to analogue convertor 1 home build D25 plugs to Zero88 analogue plugs patch panel (DMX convertor is D25 plugs - dimmers are zero88 type) 2 Zero88 3channel dimmers - once analogue, one DMX but can't be addressed above channel 28. Siruis 24 Control desk - analogue only. Fat Frog Desk - all working - but about to be decommisioned. I got fed up with floppy disks! The thing is - all this kit seems unwanted when I watch similar auctions - so I am tempted to tip the lot - (except the Fat Frog) Is there an alternative to skipping all this stuff? I really need the space back.
  8. Thanks all - the message I'm getting is to run CAT5 cables from the tech corner to all places I'll need video/audio. This I can do no problem. Once that is done - I'm looking at an Antiference hdmi0108scat unit or similar (Thanks Geoff), which means I don't need local power for the convertor dongles. One challenge I'm having is I've replaced the old compostite video camera with a new CCTV FHD camera - I was expecting this to work as the connectors are all the same - but it don't! Is CCTV not compostite video anymore..?
  9. Hi all, I have an opportunity to set up a backstage monitoring system, to take over from the damp string and bean can set up I have now. Audio in the dressing rooom is fed from a 'Archer' battery intercom with the transmit button screwed down, feeding into the music on hold port of a Nortel PABX, so the dressing room phone can select this feed. It's not very loud, buzzes when the stage lamps dim and is a bit tinny. No video. The side of stage wings TV monitor is a 14inch portable CRT type TV fed from a old webcam. All works, but is very poor video quality. I would like the system to start with 2 screens but be able to expand to 4 or 5 in the future. Could the speakers in the TV screens be the recieved audio? I need audio in the dressing room only, but availability elsewhere would be nice. I would imagine HDMI cables would be the way to connect all this up, but as we don't have this yet, happy to consider better alternatives. Given a clean sheet of paper, and being aware of the low cost of quality HDMI type screens available these days, can anyone suggest what would be the best approach? What equipment might I need? Video splitter, mic audio souce, input, pa etc? We have just purchased a 42 inch screen for the dressing room, and a 32 for the side of stage monitor. Everything else is up for grabs. Thanks Ian
  10. Thanks all - I knew there would be some solid ideas and suggestions to solve this. We carried on with VLC for the final performance on Saturday, as it worked reliably on all tests. However, I have taken your suggestions on board, I'll be bringing the theatre laptop back home to load Office on, and then prepare powerpoint as the method for the next show that needs it. Thanks again. Ian
  11. Hi - sorry - I was not clear, screenmonkey won't run on my home laptop under testing, so it never made it to the theatre laptop. VLC worked great on the theatre laptop for a while - but crashed during the performance and as the crew couldn't see the dialog boxes - we're not clear what the issue is. Screenmonkey not working on the home laptop and VLC crashing on the theatre laptop are not pointing to a hardware issue.
  12. Thanks - I used to use screenmonkey successfully when I was in Hong Kong, but downloading a few days ago - I just can't get it to work now. When I load a video on a tile - and try to play it - I get a 'exception thrown by invocation' error - and it won't play. The Live Monitor on the laptop also will not work. Tried looking at the support and forums - no response from a FB message. Gave up on it after a few hours trying to get it to work. I've looked at ProPresenter. (I don't have a Mac) - but it's high cost will sadly preclude this choice. Thanks for the suggestions.
  13. Hi all, this partly a request for help, and chance to vent about a subject that seems to be easy to the man on the street (or me before I was forced into getting it working) but in experience is a minefield of complexity, things that don't work as advertised and differing standards. All I need is a laptop in a control booth, with an hdmi cable running to a TV screen in the auditorium, with the video controls on the laptop, and the output video to play to the TV, with a black screen on the TV when it is not playing. Simple eh? Issues I've had: Choice of software to play the video, tried SCS, Windows media player, settled on VLC. Tried 2 projectors before hitting the credit card and buying a TV and mount. Projector issues - not bright enough, vga can't run the distance, projector lamps availability - loss of remote makes projector unusable (!), etc, etc. Two more items to the landfill. After much googling, I selected VLC as there is a blog explaining how to set up VLC to have the controls on the laptop, and the output on the TV. Great! Only it doesnt' work! Select screen 2, extend desktop, switch off all sleep functions (but it still goes to sleep - !!), and video still plays on the laptop. Found a comment from someone else about this, suggesting to make the TV the main screen and success! Only have to drag all the icons from the TV to the laptop, (tricky to grab a window or click a dialog when the TV is 15 metres away). And this worked great. For the opening night. In the second night - all tested ok before house open, during act one VLC crashed, and all the dialog boxes opened on the TV, too far away for the crew to see what to do, and so we had an awkward moment on stage with the cast reacting to video that no-one could see. Luckily the audio still worked. Reset everything at the interval, all working fine. Tonight's performance is still out there in a game of chance. So what to do? Am I missing something here? Why doesn't VLC work as advertised? Is there an alternative program that just works as required - controls on the laptop, laptop as main screen, TV as the source of video? Shirley I'm missing something here, as everyone else doesn't seem to have this issue. Awaiting everyones' thoughts or suggestions. Thanks! Ian
  14. Thanks Bryson, I contacted Halls, they confirmed it is an early version of their T60, with round bottom rails rather than square. Due to this, wheeled runners can work, but could jam, so they recommend cleaning and lubricating with PTFE spray, and rotating the bobbins to an area with no worn grooves. All which we have already done. So we are looking at continued careful maintainance, or a complete replacement of the track. Cheers Ian
  15. Hi all, Hopefully someone will recognise this very old tab track - we use this for our main FOH tabs, I reckon it was fitted in the 60s, and the track would benefit from changing to wheeled runners/bobbins if possible. Anyone know what track this is so I can see if wheeled bobbins are available? Thanks IAn
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