Giotto Digital 1500

[steve h]

I got home from work today and found an envelope with my name on it. Inside was an invitiation to "an exclusive premiere" of the Giotto Digital 1500, built by SGM (info)

 

From the card it describes a moving head with inbuilt computer animated graphic gobos.

 

After a little bit of internet digging (the only photo google brings up is this here which doesnt give much away) I came across the manufacturers website and started reading. It seems quite an impressive fixture being able to project films and videos and animated gobos, as well as being able to have all the same functions of a normal moving head, iris, zoom, frost, colour wheels, CMY mixing - and then I thought...hold on...thats mixing "profile" specs and "wash" specs...I carried on reading

 

The range appears to be on a modular design in a case. Each case can take 3 modules of a set of 7, allowing you to create the lantern best to suit your needs, as the website points out it seems that this would be great for hire companies who wouldnt need as many lanterns to cover all possibilites. (different website here)

 

I may have just come across something thats been around for a while and its new on my radar, in which case ignore and carry on your lives. But for me this seems like a great step in the right direction. I was wondering whether anyone had seen one of these and know how powerful they are and whether its worth all the hype SGM seem to be trying to give it. The one thing that came into my head was how robust the modules would be and whether they could cope with constant changing, and whether they were still as effective as other units with the parts built in.

 

And also...how did they get my address?

 

Any thoughts?

 

Steve

[LXbydesign]

ah yes - I got that.

 

Are you subscribed to LSI ? if so thats where from ! - at least , thats where they got mine from as the buisness name was the same!

 

Im gonna go if nothing else but for a free beer and a few nibbles!!

[the kid]

I got this today, amid the running about of a tech I read it about 3 times and the 1st 2 I thought it was a invite to the baftas to see a new light which I thought a little weird.

 

It does look interesting, not just for hire but school as well. I think if there is good R&D I would have a couple of these over x# wash and x# spot's, at least in the current space.

 

Am I being thick but is a spot not a profile?

[The Gaffa]

Got two invites, one at home, and one with this weeks ET mag.

 

Pic on the invite looks intresting.

 

Might even go visit to playdo some reserch

[martinw]

The range appears to be on a modular design in a case. Each case can take 3 modules of a set of 7, allowing you to create the lantern best to suit your needs, as the website points out it seems that this would be great for hire companies who wouldnt need as many lanterns to cover all possibilites.

It doesn't really work out that way. The last thing a rental company wants is a pile of very expensive bits sitting on a shelf that they can't rent because they are missing the rest of the fixture. Combine this with the time required to swap over the modules - which is often greater that a fixture company's marketing would have you belive. This approach has been tried before by other fixture manufacturers and its never really taken off for these reasons. The fixtures still get bought, but the modules tend to stay in place.

 

Martin

[tomy364]

I have looked a lot moving light`s on Frankfurt messe this year and GIOTTO 1500 is highlight.

The SGM team is give a real presentation on they exhibition area.

[Pete McCrea]

Everyone's on these sorts of units at the moment, and I think it's partly in response to Barco's take on a projector in a moving yoke which is also a light, whereas SGM have gone moving light that is also a projector. I don't think they offer it as modules, but the same chassis can be bought in Digital, Spot or wash configuration, and I'd echo Martinw's comments about wanting expensive modules sat around.

 

Barco have cracked the problems of cooling a 10,000 lumen projector in a compact package using a liquid cooled DLP engine, that is fully sealed. No one else has done that. Yet. The HES DL1's, DL2's etc are LCD and not sealed, so will suffer from the ingress of haze and smoke, as well as only offering up to 6500 lumens. There's no mention of the SGM being sealed so who knows....

 

As a Vidiot, I know where I'd put my money, and that's with Barco, because the CLM is a good machine (there are a few minor niggles), and if they've got the DML right it'll be great. What it will be used for I'm not too sure though...

[MickHannaford]

The main difference between this type of machine and the Barco is that the Barco is projector lamp based and has a colour rendering index associated with the lamp used giving a more even RGB mix required for a colour 'balanced' picture. The Giotto uses a 'standard' MSR series lamp which has a higher index producing a brighter light that 'cuts through' in a way we need it to for stage and show work.

[Ben]

The way I see it is that the SGM unit is a moving head that can do projections, the Barco units like all the others out there are Projectors that can move, very different products with very different applications.

[steve h]

Did anyone go?

[Ben]

Was quite interesting, think of a DL1 with an 80 gig pc in it and able to do some simple effects, would have liked to see a live feed in but really quite interesting and I can see it slotting nicely in to many uses,

[Pete McCrea]

The way I see it is that the SGM unit is a moving head that can do projections, the Barco units like all the others out there are Projectors that can move, very different products with very different applications.

 

Nope. The DML1200 is a projector and 1200w wash head: from Barco's site:

 

 

n light mode, the DML-1200 produces a perfectly circular light beam with a light output equivalent to that of a 1200W hard edged moving light – 12.000 field lumens and four times as bright as any other digital light on the market today.

 

In video mode, the DML-1200 features a fully sealed DLP engine which delivers full color DLP quality video with SXGA+ (1400 x 1050 pixel) resolution. With a light output of 10,000 center lumens.

[Ben]

Once again I will point out, this is a PROJECTOR in a moving yoke.

 

The SGM unit is a moving head capable of projecting it is NOT a projector in a moving yoke, can you really not see the difference?

 

Please don't tell me I'm wrong without properly looking at the specification of both units and the way they work, the Barco unit talks about how "In light mode, the unit produces a perfectly circular beam with a brightness equivalent to a 1,200W arc source moving head luminaire."

 

PLEASE NOTE THE USE OF THE WORD EQUIVALENT

 

However the SGM unit uses the MSR GOLD 1200 FAST FIT so one claims to be the equivalent (and im not saying it doesn't live up to the claim) and the other uses a MSR source, I know which one I would want to use if I'm after a 1200W wash.

 

Also the SGM unit has the optical module you can swap in about 2 minutes to make it a true spot or wash using the same source you try doing that with anything else on the market and let me know how you get on.

 

I'm not saying this is the best thing out there or that any of the others are not great but this is different and that's worth noting and looking at

[johnhuson]

The SGM unit seems to be everything that LSD were trying to achieve with the Medusa several years ago. Real shame the project ground to a halt before they finished R&D.

[copyright]

Here's a video of the moving head in action: