Bryson

At a previous job, I had a big old wedge cabinet (with no drivers) that I was planning to fit a flat-panel monitor into for use as a discreet confidence monitor that would fit in with the audio monitors.  Never quite got round to doing it.

4 hours ago, lxkev said:

ndi

The endpoints are not cheap, mind.  (Unless Birddog finally ship the Play, obviously..). I have a similar project with about 30 odd screens and I'm using NDI for most of it, but there's a couple of sync-critical screens that I'm keeping in the SDI realm.

20 minutes ago, mac.calder said:

Autocorrect is fun! DA's. not Days...

Now that's a long sync time.  🙂

I have seen shared boots, actually, but only in the context of the “visitors boots” on a construction site, which are to be avoided at all costs.

I generally like the RF based systems, but it looks like they're not an option in the UK?  I guess the frequencies are spoken for.

The WaveCast has dedicated receivers if that helps:  https://av.ampetronic.com/products/wf-r1n-wavecast-wi-fi-receiver/

"Prohibited to film the screen"

Good heavens.  What an audience-hostile thing to do.  "Shut up plebs and clap when we tell you to."

Are you in "Tracking" mode, maybe?

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/855941/Chamsys-Magicq.html?page=111

(There are many that would argue that Tracking is the "correct" choice and you should get your head around how that works....)

Maybe more in the price ballpark, have you looked at the Chroma-Q* Color One 100s?  https://www.aclighting.com/color-one-100/

They are almost comically small looking, but you actually get a lot of light out of them, and they have a nice homogenized beam, go nicely with ColorForce etc etc.  I like them.

* = Buy Canadian! 😉

You can get an FX4 with HDMI outputs if that's what you want.

Maybe not cheap enough, but I was impressed with the Vari*Lite VL800 EventPar.  https://www.vari-lite.com/global/products/vl800-eventpar-rgba

And even more so: the Warm White version:  https://www.vari-lite.com/global/products/vl800-eventpar which was almost indistinguishable from a "real" Par64 to my eye.  Great for things like Orchestra wash or similar.

In my role as evangelist for Canadian-made products:  Radial make very nice stereo DIs:  https://www.radialeng.com/product/prod2

😉

3 hours ago, Edward- Z88 said:

You can then use a Philips Hue lamp of suitable style and lamp base in your fitting. In ZerOS 7.12 software, you will then be able to connect your FLX S24 to a Philips Hue bridge, and your Philips Hue lamps will then be automatically patched into your console. You can then control the Hue lamps just like a DMX fixture, with intensity and colour control, and record them into your cues.

I didn't realize this was a thing you could do now.  My wife is going to be furious. 😉

I’m not sure you can.  This is one of the reasons I often end up with a Paradigm where it might be considered overkill otherwise.

(I’d love to be proven wrong, though, so if anyone knows a way, do tell me!)

I run Parallels for those programs that just don’t have a Mac version and find it works great.  I’m running Bluebeam and various speaker modelling programs in it.

(EDIT:  I should note that I have an Intel processor Mac.  The situation for the newer ones is much more complex.)

The armourer is apparently the daughter of an extremely well-respected armourer in Hollywood. Which potentially explains why a relatively inexperienced person ended up in that job.

Now I need a video.

On 4/8/2022 at 4:03 PM, sunray said:

In my experience 3 quotes invariably goes wrong especially if there's a consultant involved.

I'll bite.  (Day job:  Theatre Consultant, although not in the UK.)

Why so?

I do competitive tenders all day every day.  I issued 4 last week and have two more going out the door today...the spring is brutal...   Yes, they do sometimes go wrong.  But not that frequently.

An older Theatre Consultant I know (actually at a different company, not my employer) once told me:  "They'll notice the one thing you get wrong, not the 10,000 things you get right."  Consultants are human, fallible and do make mistakes, but I would contend that the situation without access to them (particularly in orgs that don't yet have any technical staffing) would be much, much worse.

So...I may have forgotten to do this last night, but good news, I did it tonight instead.

We're all done.  I see new stuff in the title bar.  It's very exciting. 

There's another one!  It's like they're still actively working on the software or something.

So, yes, the Forum will be down briefly (hopefully) at Midnight BST Tonight (Weds 6th into Thursday 7th April 2022.)

Thanks all!

37 minutes ago, Andrew C said:

When I say "get a wheelchair up to it" wot I MEANT was, wheel a chair close enough to get user comfortable.  ie drop the height, but still get his knees under the lectern top.

Middle Atlantic L7.  But be sure you're sitting down before you check the price.

https://www.legrandav.com/products/technical_furniture/lecterns/l7_series_lectern

Ah, tempered hardboard is way more expensive here these days - up to $60-70 a sheet, and that's if you can get any (which you often can't.)

Note that the surfaces I'm talking about here are very different to regular Harlequin Vinyl - they're more of a rigid plastic or bakelite material in 4x8 sheets, and some of them can be screwed into, worked with woodwork tools and so on.

Has anyone tried out one of the dedicated stage surface products yet?  I thinking about Harlequin RockSure, plus some other North American ones (StageLam, StageBoard, PolyOnyx+) that I’m not sure are available in the UK.  There may be others I’m unfamiliar with.

Any experiences with them?  With the rising cost of Tempered Hardboard they seem more feasible budget-wise than before.

I was recently quite impressed with VL800 EVENTPAR fixtures.  They seemed the closest I've seen to the equivalent of a "real" par, particularly the warm white version.  I'm using them on a project to directly replace open white Par64s used as an orchestra wash.  No lenses to lose either, you just push the lens back and forth inside the snoot.  Not super cheap, but as expensive as the VL name might suggest.

Looks like Halls T70, but with round runners rather than square.  I vaguely recall this type coming up in discussion before...let me have a search...

EDIT: Here: looks...similar?  Not quite the same though

I'd contend that the need for an absolute blackout with no exit signs or aisle lights is rare enough to not require describing in your usual package.  If a show really, actually needs it, they will call and negotiate.

I used to have some pacific at a previous venue but only the red cap version.

Assuming you have the blue base you could try the T11 but it will likely not work very well due to the difference in filament pattern - the optics will have been optimized for the BP.  You might get weird optical aberrations and/or sub-optimal brightness.  The GKV will probably perform better.