**New** Strand Light Palette

[gareth]

There's been quite a bit of discussion on The Light Network concerning Genlyte's hijacking of the new Palettes by ditching the original software and installing Horizon's Marquee software in its place. (There's been a suggestion that this new 'bastard' control system should perhaps be called the Malette. )

 

Not having spoken to anyone from Strand for some time, I don't know how much truth there is in this, but I'm finding it very difficult to get the slightest bit enthusiastic about the idea. A large part of the appeal of the Palette (and its previously-forthcoming-but-now-unlikely-to-appear larger cousin) was that it was a natural development of the old GeniusPro 500-series software, it was a comfortable and easy transition for a GeniusPro operator/programmer and it would happily read GeniusPro show files in their entireity. I don't know much about the Marquee software over and above what I've seen of it at trade shows, but none of the above seem likely to hold true if Palette software really has been dumped in favour of Marquee.

[JMC]

A lot of truth.. had a good look through what they've done at PLASA..

[tokm]

What I did see of the original Palette OS was pretty good. I agree with Gareth, it would have been a reasonable transition from Genius Pro to it.

 

Though I'm surprised that with so many people being familiar with the software, Strand didn't just look at the current 500i series software, look at what people would like to have in addition to it (I'm sure over the years many well known programmers have sent in suggestions) and built the palette software to look/work the same way, but with either a WinXP or linux base..

 

Just had a look at the Marquee software(kindly provided by Martin), ok its not abysmal, but its not that great either. I know this isn't the exact software that will be used, but if it ends up being similar I can see ops/LDs/programmers at first going, erm... why isn't this working , gimme my 530i back! Or something to that effect. After that, some will get used to it, some will resort to old ways where they know what does what and how you do it.

 

I think we need to see what the Palette replacement for the 500 is like

Hehe, the Sub & Preset Palettes are already about the same size or bigger! ;)

 

Tom

[gareth]

I'm surprised that ... Strand didn't just look at the current 500i series software, look at what people would like to have in addition to it (I'm sure over the years many well known programmers have sent in suggestions) and built the palette software to look/work the same way, but with either a WinXP or linux base

To be honest, this is very much the way that the Palette software was developing (I was doing a small amount of beta-testing for Strand before their UK operation disappeared, so I can speak from experience!). Going over to Marquee is a fairly major "left-turn at the crossroads" kind of move for Genlyte/Strand, which has the potential to bite them on the arse in a fairly big way, I feel.

[tokm]

..which has the potential to bite them on the arse in a fairly big way, I feel.

Exactly. Apart from the radical change to the way the software works, do we know anything about its stability? Ok if it was on a Linux base then I could see it having the potential to be OK, even if the software was prone to c0cking up sometimes they'd have a much better chance fixing the bugs with a Linux system compared to if they had WinXP. XP well.. sometimes its OK, sometimes its not. I can see why Jands/AC went for Linux when they built the Vista software!

 

To be honest, in the long run, I (as well as most Strand users I would guess) aren't so much bothered about how the software works in terms of what software base or how it all mixes together, just that it works well for the desk. The thing that does bother me is the way you have to use the software. Gareth, any ideas why they moved from the idea of using the GeniusPro software as a starting point and moved to this? The Strand way of working (i.e. the way you do stuff on their desks via the near revolutionary command line) is pretty much unique, but its the one that more people know that any other desk. Why risk causing so much hassle and time wasting when they have a basic idea that they already know works. Im not saying they should stick to the way GeniusPro is now and not change at all, just that with such a big market they would cater for their users needs before.

 

Anyway, don't think were going to change their minds now!

 

R.I.P - Cue1 Go* & Sub1 Record*

 

Tom

[gareth]

Gareth, any ideas why they moved from the idea of using the GeniusPro software as a starting point and moved to this?

The impression I get is that it's primarily to do with the fact that when Genlyte accquired (and butchered) Strand Lighting, they already had Horizon Control Inc., and therefore the Marquee consoles and software, firmly established as a brand within the Genlyte organisation. I suppose there's little point in them sinking money into the development of a product that's simply a competitor to something that they already own ...

[Andi_Davis]

Gareth, any ideas why they moved from the idea of using the GeniusPro software as a starting point and moved to this?

The impression I get is that it's primarily to do with the fact that when Genlyte accquired (and butchered) Strand Lighting, they already had Horizon Control Inc., and therefore the Marquee consoles and software, firmly established as a brand within the Genlyte organisation. I suppose there's little point in them sinking money into the development of a product that's simply a competitor to something that they already own ...

 

Don't be to quick to dismiss the Horizon software, it has a number of things going for it...

 

Most significant of these is that it already offers a number of features that the previous Palette software didn't - for example multiple cue lists and massively improved moving light support 'straight from the box'. These were all things that the orginal Palette software would (I'm sure) eventually have included, but the version that people saw at ABTT had a basically similar feature set to the exisiting 500 Series software. This kind of stuff was still some way off - I suspect that the 'Strand-ifying' of Horizon may provide a better product in a much shorter time scale. Given that the competition is massing (EOS, GrandMA etc) this is probably a good thing! Horizon is already a working product, which gives Strand a head start.

 

The big question will be whether the new product can be made to look enough like a Strand desk to keep the existing user base happy, whilst retaining the large range of features that Horizon offers but 500 Series doesn't.

[henny]

from what I saw of it at plasa the command line methored of control has been keept intact,

 

eg most of the commands you could in "gp" work in the new softwhere .

 

but there has been some inprovments

 

eg if you had some moving heads on ch 1 to 10 you could do the following 1.3>10.3 @ -90>90 enter

this would fan the lamps between -90degrees and +90degrees

 

that the main diffrence with movers, position is in degrees, Strobing ect in HZ and gobo rot ect in RPM

 

you can no longer build your own fixtures , but they now clame a 4 to 8 hour turnaround for new fixtures.

 

the colour managment is impressive , you can work in whatever colour spceing you wish eg CYM, RGB ect no matter what the lamp is. also there is a few gimics , you can pull up an on screen colour swatch from lee,rosco ect and click on the colour you want ect.

 

also the way you can say swap out a mac for an equilvent robe fixture without replotting it does all the re working.

 

also the onbord linking to windows media player seems good, with wither trigering wmp from a cue or macro or trigering cues from media player.

 

the onbord webserver also seems like a good idea , allowes control/editing form any webenabled device , eg pda, pc , ect.

 

also the support for other network protocals other than just shownet is good, eg ArtNet.

 

and with IE onbord , you can read the BR during a boring show.

 

henny

[gareth]

Well, if they can "Strandify" Horizon to an acceptable degree, then more power to 'em. The thing is, the GeniusPro userbase in the UK is huge, and too much of a shift in the way Strand consoles work is going to have an alienating effect on that userbase. People who would ordinarily have purchased a Strand console by default, simply because that's an OS that they know well and with which they're comfortable, will think to themselves "Well, if we're going to have to learn a new OS even if we do buy a Strand, we might as well cast our net a bit wider and explore the alternatives" - and the thing is that some of those alternatives are quite attractive ...

 

I wish I'd managed to make it to PLASA just to see what Strand/Genlyte had on display. Was there any hardware (even if only in physical mock-up form) which looked like it could be a successor to the 500-series? And I don't just mean a Marquee ILC!

[Andi_Davis]

Absolutely... the trick will be to combine the two and try to keep everyone happy! Tall order, but not impossible.

 

And of course one of the key considerations will be the ability to import .SSF files. Looking at the ongoing issue of the Congo, and its ability (or otherwise!) to import .SSF format showfiles, I think a console with significantly improved functionality paired with the ability to genuinely import exisiting .SSF shows would be a tempting prospect. This is something that it is extremely unlikely that other manufacturer's consoles will ever support.

 

With regard to hardware, the answer is basically 'no' - the software was (not particularly well disguised!) Horizon running under XP Embedded on the existing Palette hardware.

[Ynot]

<snipped> from what I saw of it at plasa the command line methored of control has been keept intact,

Henny - quite an informative post, BUT....

 

Please, please, PLEASE can you learn to use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation/capitals!!!

 

I had to read the post 3 times before my brain adjusted to the way you'd written it.

 

TD

[GridGirl]

I used Horizon quite extensively a couple of years ago (though not running movers off it, I have to admit), after growing up with Strand. I didn't find it too difficult to adapt to at all, it does operate in a similar fashion to the GeniusPro software. There are a few things that it took a little while to get my head around, but it certainly wasn't a whole new OS to adjust to - the basis is very similar.

[dbuckley]

And its not just the UK thats full of Strand desks; theres a fair few of them in NZ too, though they are somewhat short of ubiquitous. I know of one Christchurch based theatre that was planning on Palettes as upgrades for their 520i desks, and that was when Plaettes were just a rumour...

[Oovis]

I wish I'd managed to make it to PLASA just to see what Strand/Genlyte had on display. Was there any hardware (even if only in physical mock-up form) which looked like it could be a successor to the 500-series? And I don't just mean a Marquee ILC!

 

I had a chat with Bill Richards, at PLASA, and said I'm waiting to see what the 500 series replacement would be like, and he said it's imminenet :)

[Stu]

For info: Recieved 3 PDF brochure sheets about the new Palettes today, about the 500 replacements (from the subject title) - there are 3 varities, Lightpalette Classic, Live (for busking) and VL (advanced moving light console)... As mentioned before they are running windows embedded OS with a dual core processor (Intel Core Duo I guess?), with optional touchscreens. Seems the offline editor is Windows only now which is a shame.

 

Shipping to the UK around mid-November.

 

(edit to add the bit about 500 series replacements)