Bad_Rock Posted February 22, 2008 Share Posted February 22, 2008 Hi this is a question that hurts. Is there any big rental company in lighting using known chinese brands such as PR/Fine Art/ or Terbly? I know there are many that includes asian fixtures in their shows but I didn't hear of one exactly doing it 100% with chinese fixtures specially when they have very demanding artistes. Is there any company that can preach with the example? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niclights Posted February 22, 2008 Share Posted February 22, 2008 You seem to mix rental company stock with fixtures used on a particular production. The rental company will stock whatever is demanded. A production will use whatever is required by a designer. I can't really see the point of this question or why it is important. Certainly you will find examples of productions in Asia using huge numbers (100's) of the 'cheaper' branded movers. But exclusively across an entire rig, including generics? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tokm Posted February 22, 2008 Share Posted February 22, 2008 To put it simply (in my experience). No. Name any 'big name' company and their gear'll only be of the trusted & well proven variety. Seems to be that the general feeling behind not using Chinese fixtures is the unknown or in some cases.. poor, build quality. Availability of spares. And just general brand loyalty to western manufacturers that have proven themselves in all aspects for many years (Martin, VL, CP, Robe, HE Systems... etc). Sure this is based my personal experience of 'big name' rental companies hire stock, but I have a feeling most people will say similar.. as has been done before in the various other threads about Fine Art/PR/other Chinese fixtures. Search for the China's Glowing thread. Seemed to be the largest topic on that subject. HTH, Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bad_Rock Posted February 23, 2008 Author Share Posted February 23, 2008 You seem to mix rental company stock with fixtures used on a particular production. The rental company will stock whatever is demanded. A production will use whatever is required by a designer. I can't really see the point of this question or why it is important. Certainly you will find examples of productions in Asia using huge numbers (100's) of the 'cheaper' branded movers. But exclusively across an entire rig, including generics? Dear Niclights If you don't see the point why you waste your time answering? To me it's very important because I'm in a different country with a very different market and retailers are giving us the information they want ( things like this company in Europe it's using PR for every show and they say they work better than Martin's etc ). I think that one day chinese equipment will be accepted in touring riders I'm just trying to figure out if this day has come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musht Posted February 23, 2008 Share Posted February 23, 2008 Well everyone has an interesting history in moving lights. VariLite, one of the pioneers, stuck behind trade secrets then patent battles, still a lot of elderley Varilites still working. Coemar Robot first moving mirror Scan as we know it, bit handicapped in the support department. Clay Paky Italian disco centerpiece makers until seeing Coemar and improving it with GoldenScan High End, started as a Clay Paky dealer , got annoyed at slow delivery from Italy and copied the GoldenScan to create the Intellabeam. Martin purveyors of cheap smoke machines for years before being `inspired` by Coemar and started making scans, broke into touring market by sponsoring Gary Numan tour to show it was tourable before that was sneered at as being `disco` gear. Robe , oem maker of Movitec and Futurelight units before releasing gear under their own name. Chinese manufactures employ a few people who used to work for one or other of the above companies. Build quality, after sales support , get the support number before you purchase, try phoning it and spares availabilty and diagrams so you can locate the part number... be big on the list. Herd mentality as well whats everyone else got if you want to cross rent in or out can you get a match locally? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted February 23, 2008 Share Posted February 23, 2008 In the UK the Chinese goods have a poor reputation for reliability and for batch consistency, and for spares availability. A friend ( a disco shop proprietor) ordered a container load of moving heads from China as a result of having four demo models in his shop. Trouble was that the production models were not even similar to the demo models and all his pre-paid customers were really upset at him the importer for conning them. Also spare parts were not available, so none could be repaired. Currently getting the product you think you are buying from China is too unreliable for mainline stockists to be interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceecrb1 Posted February 23, 2008 Share Posted February 23, 2008 Our director has gone down the chinease route once or twice with mixed outcomes. Our Fineart "city colours" are a pain and I spend more time doing last minute patching repairs on site with them than anything else, however they are the strongest floods in the city so we make our money off them!!!I have 6 in my workshop needing repairs, every time we order them.. other parts arrive. Its been like that for 4 months. Our Fine 2000´s arrived in a dreadfull state off the boat direct from china. It turned out it was all down to bad handling and only one has had a "problem" and needs a new display. However having repaired a few now, the build quality leads me to believe they will not last nearly as long as the more recogniseable brand they "look like".We are replacing small plastic parts with martin originals as they will fair the future better. We bought un-branded led bars. we were told 230V goes in.Wrong 40V DC goes in.. we fried them all trying. Our led screens have passed 7 years old and are close to bin stage, They are a pain and I´m ALWAYS repairing boards and replacing leds. But theý´ve reached a stage where we need to get rid of them, but that is due to age/competition/higher deft newer screens and not quality. Truth is it is working out well ENOUGH for us. We got the city colours for 2000 euros each and sure they made their money VERY quickly. They spend all summer out on sites, however they are starting to have charecteristics of a 10 year old light.. not a one year old light! My honest opinion of the CURRENT chinease lights is, if you wanna buy them, be prepared to pay a little and own it a short time. Be prepared to replace rather than repair. There is money to be made from them but you gotta spend a lot of time inspecting them and fixing them up best as u can every job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnhuson Posted February 23, 2008 Share Posted February 23, 2008 High End, started as a Clay Paky dealer , got annoyed at slow delivery from Italy and copied the GoldenScan to create the Intellabeam. I think that is a little unfair, whilst I'm sure the Intellabeam was inspired by the Goldenscans they are significantly different products. I'd say the Intellabeams were developed, where as there are plenty of Chinese manufacturers who do 'copy' sometimes even clone existing products. For some interesting comments on Chinese lighting industry I would recommend a read of this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musht Posted February 24, 2008 Share Posted February 24, 2008 High End, started as a Clay Paky dealer , got annoyed at slow delivery from Italy and copied the GoldenScan to create the Intellabeam. I think that is a little unfair, whilst I'm sure the Intellabeam was inspired by the Goldenscans they are significantly different products. I'd say the Intellabeams were developed, Richard Belliveau, think got spelling right,one of founders of High End, actually told that story in a magazine interview a few years back. Japanese started out copying things , sometimes badly, now look where they are, other thread is indeed a fascinating insight into the worlds workshop.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Cavill Posted February 24, 2008 Share Posted February 24, 2008 We have no chinese fixtures in our hire stock, simply due to reliability issues and getting spares for them. As its been discussed in another thread about the Pearl desk, they simply cannot be relied upon. Our hire stock mainly consists of Clay Paky and Pulsar fixtures, which have never given us any real problems, just the usual lamp failure and the odd fuse in a DataPack. I cannot understand why people go for the chinese imports, other than costs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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