New Lighting Board to replace Strand 300 series

[JDLX]

I was actually quite suprised to see this thread surface again. As it happens we are still soldiering on with the Express in the Studio, but I have since used an Ion on a production at the theatre and I'm having one on demo from Jeremy for a Main House production this January. The aim being to replace our aging and dying 520i. They are great desks and if the theatre had the money I would suggest buying one for both venues but that just isn't going to happen unforunately. I am hoping, that once we have the Ion sorted I can have a look at the Element for the studio.

 

Joe

[paulears]

Here a 500 has just been replaced with an ETC EOS, and although for panto, the LD brought in an outside programmer, as nobody here has yet had any time to get to grips with it - the general feeling is that it's a nice and capable control, although it seems to be monitor city. They like it much better than the Strand Palette they bought for their studio theatre - needless to say that despite them being able to get used to the Strand, they have gone for yet another make. Says it all, I think.

[JDLX]

Here a 500 has just been replaced with an ETC EOS, and although for panto, the LD brought in an outside programmer, as nobody here has yet had any time to get to grips with it - the general feeling is that it's a nice and capable control, although it seems to be monitor city. They like it much better than the Strand Palette they bought for their studio theatre - needless to say that despite them being able to get used to the Strand, they have gone for yet another make. Says it all, I think.

 

I have also had an EOS on demo for a different project and they are lovely consoles, although you are right you need a LOT of monitors to view all the info! I especially like the all in one ML control panel, although the encoders are just as good. My only qualm with the eos range overall is the lack of easy customisation of the display windows. It would be nice if you could enter a mode where you can simply drag and drop the windows you want into the places you want and set sizes etc.

[Andrew C]

I was actually quite suprised to see this thread surface again.

Isn't it? I've literally (no, really, literally) just this second ordered an Ion.

[GridGirl]

I was actually quite suprised to see this thread surface again. As it happens we are still soldiering on with the Express in the Studio, but I have since used an Ion on a production at the theatre and I'm having one on demo from Jeremy for a Main House production this January. The aim being to replace our aging and dying 520i. They are great desks and if the theatre had the money I would suggest buying one for both venues but that just isn't going to happen unforunately. I am hoping, that once we have the Ion sorted I can have a look at the Element for the studio.

 

We've done exactly this over the last year (except we replaced an even older 520, not the 520i!) and couldn't be happier with the Ion and the Element. Coming from a Strand background we've had very, very few problems switching over to the Ion and it's serving us extremely well.

[LeeStoddart]

I work mainly with two particular theatres. The larger has a 520i the other had a 300. I say "had" because it is sadly no more. When it became time to change they chose a Palette. I was surprised at that because what I had seen from visiting companies at the larger theatre I thought that the ETC range was probably the replacement path. I've been impressed by Ion and EOS and what I read of Element it looked like a good contender for the 300 replacement. But not my decision - I'm only a visiting LD/programmer at the smaller theatre.

 

But I must say that I was very impressed with the Palette. Much better than I had assumed from all the early discussion when Phillips took over Strand. They have obviously listened to their customer base and it is much closer to Genius Pro command language than the first releases. I found it very easy to get to grips with. Obviously there were some commands I didn't immediately find the equivalent of but I was able to plot two shows quickly enough. I found several very nice features and it makes me think it is a serious contender for when the 520i does need to be replaced.

[Smiffy]

Myself and two others just finished programming all of the Dark Rides at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi with EOS Systems. The whole park is on a very large network, with the main programming accomplished with the aid of two roaming Eos Consoles, and each dark ride has its own RPU that then drives the shows, triggered by the Medialon Show Control Systems, again in each attraction.

 

Just about every ride has multiple cue stacks firing simultaneously, often with each cue stack calling multiple effects, and a couple of the attractions being masterpieces of follow-on, loops, links, and Macro's...

 

All in all a very, very stable console with an interface that's easy to get to grips with (although I'll admit that having been in mostly Concert Mode for the last few years, I did occasionally have to RTFM).

 

I'm sure that those of you that have purchased will be more than happy with the product, and for those that are about to. I'd chose the Eos / Ion over a Strand any day.

 

Probably worth noting at this point that I am not an employee of ETC :P

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

[J Pearce]

We have a classic palette, and I quite like it 99% of the time.

In my opinion its a good 300 series replacement, and probably a 500 series equivalent; but technology has moved on so far since the 500 series was last updated, let alone when it was created, that I doubt it could compete with the Eos or GrandMa or Vista.

 

The big killer for me at the moment is still the shape generator and handling of effects in submasters and cues.

 

Cue programming of generic and moving lights (for cue positions rather than shapes) is great, it has some nifty maths to do straight line movement as opposed to polar movement, and has all the old Strand stuff like cue parts and individual times etc.

 

Handling of led kit is good with support for virtual dimmer, a good colour picker, and scope for working in CMY, RGB or HSV. However at the moment colour information in fixture profiles isn't corrected, so the same colour picker position isn't he same colour for two different fixtures.

 

The macro and scripting functionality is good, but desperately needs a wait command, as using cue stacks to make a script work is tiresome and not really satisfactory.

 

There is the Palette VL range, but as far as I understand this runs the same OS; it just adds more buttons and encoders.

 

Lastly, and most importantly, the team at Strand are great! They are always quick to create fixture profiles, and have very open ears and minds when it comes to suggestions on how to make Palette better.

[Ynot]

<chuckles>

Another here with a 300 in house at the moment and over recent weeks have been contemplating the next desk we need to look at - both our 300 desks are developing niggles now (in fact have been for some time).

 

I'm also looking forward to a loaner ION from the good folks at ETC around Feb/March as a prelude to making a purchase should we get on OK with it (which by all accounts I fully expect we will).

 

And I know that at least one major house at which I work as a cassy will be trading their 500 series for an EOS and the studio 300 for an ION. Which (from a purely selfish/personal pov) means that as we'll likely have ours before them it'll stand me in good stead when they get theirs!!

 

:P

[Paul Turner]

As this thread has been dragged up from the depths of the archive and things have moved on in the last couple of years.

I thought it might be worth pointing out that the new Jands Vista V2 "Byron" software has been rewritten from the ground up, with new features such as

Split time cross fade,

Tracking back up with "zero configuration networking" allowing a PC to be used as the back up machine, without having the expense of a second console or RPU,

A more powerful effects engine,

A matrix function, allowing effects to be run across any type of fixture in a matrix, (not just LED)

An easy-to-use Fixture Editor so you can build your own library files

A command-line interface so you can enter fixtures, levels cue timing and more through the keyboard or a keypad

Media server control with thumbnail import via CITP.

 

 

Its available free on a "Beta" download from www.jandsvista.com/download/public-beta/

 

If anybody would like a demo or has any questions, please feel free to get in touch.