Marineboy63

We had this exact same problem a few years ago. The projector was powered from the shows distro on stage, while the sound desk and QLab Mac were powered from a different supply at front of house. This is usually fine, especially with the use of Cat5/6 in place of traditional analogue multicores. However as soon as the HDMI lead from the projector was plugged in to the laptop there was buzz from the sound system. In the end we solved the problem by running an extra power cable from their distro to the front of house mix position, thus eliminating the ground loop, and the buzz.

What they said.

Run all the kit from the same power source if you can. Then they all have the same earth.

Hi Stephen,

Not sure how you define 'budget' but I recently bought four of these.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0788TN2MG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Battery lasts up to five hours. Bright and good colour. Chases built in and DMX option.

I like them.

Paul.

Replace the swivel castors on one side with fixed ones. Two fixed and two swivel castors underneath means that you can steer your trolley.

On behalf of all users ever, please don't. This just makes movement harder for the rest of time whilst saving maybe £4 on initial purchase

Everyone's experience is different, of course, but, depending on the weight and size of the base, I've found two fixed and two swivel work very well,

I worked briefly at the Prince Of Wales Theatre in the West End in the early nineties. As I recall, to get to the control room you had to go out of Stage Door and climb up the fire escape and you could only see the stage whilst standing up at the corner of the room. The cuing was done via DSM so it didn't matter if the monitor view was a bit rubbish.

As way of compensation, there was always a crate of Newcastle Brown Under the Lighting Desk.

Hi,

I have an old ETC Ion and I was wondering if anyone had a compatible touchscreen they might want rid of?

Cheers,

P.

I recently bought a couple of Mac 2000s from them at a bargain price.

They came from somewhere in Europe but no problems at all with the whole process.

As capital bid time arrives, I return to the fruitless task of compiling a list of things I would like to add the the theatre which are then roundly ignored by the finance department.

This year, I'd like to replace our infra red assisted hearing system with a new model ( and hopefully one that people will actually use.)

I could ask around and get a quote, but as they very rarely give me any money I don't want to waste a suppliers time time.

So. Any had one installed recently? Ballpark cost. 300 seat end on venue.

Thanks,

Just seen “Dial M for Murder” at the Norwich Theatre Royaland the show includes a strobe section which seemed to ignore all of the ABTTguidelines.

It ran for more than seven seconds, at more than fourflashes per second. They were out of synch, pointing at the audience and I didn’tsee any signs front of house.

Just wondered if there was an explanation.

I agree with the cost to Amdram groups being too high atm. I recently started investing more into LED for my various groups but its only viable because I work with so many groups doing multiple shows a year.

 

Also add the costs of changing the cabling in the smaller venues and most groups will need a desk update to use LED effectively and I don't see many smaller groups changing anytime soon

I completely agree about the costs of changing lanterns and wiring. But for how much longer will T series lamps be available?

What are peoples views on the long term future of Tungsten lighting?

Despite the exemption, is it inevitable that once the big companies embrace LED, supply will dry up, prices will go up and we'll all be sucked along whether we want to or not.

Should venues be saving up funds for a big financial hit in five or ten years from now?

Even the best Directors are not necessarily good Lighting Designers.......(No, really..)

One of the LD's jobs is to take what Directors ask for and interpret it into something that will work. I would suggest you do as asked with the LED strips but also have some side light, G.C. etc ready that you can add to light the actors. otherwise you'll end up with the oft heard comment, "It looks lovely but I can't see the actors faces."

Belt and braces every time....

(no patronising intended :-)

7562.5 (in an ideal world)

 

http://www.softschoo...law_formula/82/

Thank you for that prompt and precise response. If only the manufacturers could be that helpful.

A question of illuminance.

According to the Chauvet website.

The Slimpar quad 12 has an illuminance of 4,500 lux at 2M

The Chauvet Par quad 18 (obviously better and more expensive and therefore, one assumes brighter) has an illuminance of 1,210 lux at 5M. But what's that at 2M?

In my experience of working in NZ, there is quite a lot of "she'll be right , mate" going on.

At the venue I worked at, an amateur theatre company were putting on a production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and they wanted to make Augustus Gloop fly up a tube.

They had a hand built metal frame for the boy to stand in, attached to a rope which went over two pullys to the side of stage. On the other end of the rope they attached a large lump of concrete which they placed on a platform three metres high. When the wanted the boy to fly, they pushed the weight off the platform. When they wanted the boy to come back down, they grabbed a handle on either side of the block and carried it up two step ladders and put it back on the platform.

When I asked where they got the concrete block from, they said "It's the one we use to fly people."

When I asked what the parents of the child thought, they said "It's okay, his mum is the Director.

True story...........

We currently have an IR system which is never used. Our audience (mostly elderly) hate using it. It's faffy to use, confuses older patrons and it singles them out as hard of hearing. We are often asked why the loop isn't on. (we don't have one) but we have a member of staff who uses hearing aids and her aids don't link to a loop anyway.

So, app based solutions are no good for an audience who wouldn't know a smart phone from a Star Trek Communicator. Loops don't work with some modern hearing aids and IR /RF systems are clunky and embarrassing.

What's going into new builds and is there any official advice from Hearing support organisations?

Thanks in advance.