Scanners

[tokm]

Saw this article today..

 

Barco has announced the release of a new lighting product from High End Systems - the Cyberlight 2.0. This new product was recently unveiled in a sneak preview at the Austin City Limits festival in Austin, Texas.

 

The Cyberlight 2.0 is a full-featured automated luminaire with a 2000 watt short arc lamp, producing over 30,000 lumens of output from a new electronic ballast. As the newest version of High End Systems' classic Cyberlight, the Cyberlight 2.0 offers increased output, updated software capabilities and stunningly fast mirror movements. In terms of control, the fixture includes new RDM and DMX protocol and addressing, 5-pin DMX connectors, and an intuitive LED menu for DMX addressing. In addition to cosmetic changes, the Cyberlight 2.0 also offers a high degree of creativity, with tools such as electronic strobing, TriColor effects and dramatic new Lithopatterns.

 

"The Cyberlight has been an industry workhorse since 1994," said Richard Belliveau, CTO of Creative Lighting. "Our goal was to update the fixture, without compromising its features that users have come to know and love."

 

The new Cyberlight 2.0 retains the popular feature set of the original Cyberlight including remotely variable focus and zoom, motorized iris, variable frost and smooth dimming. The colour system consists of CMY colour mixing and an eight position fixed colour wheel while many images are available via the eight position Litho wheel and four position rotating Litho wheel. In addition, the unique eight position effects wheel provides amazing imagery, prisms, lens options, and more.

 

The Cyberlight 2.0 fixture is currently in full production and available today.

Seems like its only them and CP who make fixtures of this wonderful nature.. Wonder if this'll be the next big new trend much as LED and beam fixtures as well as digital heads.. Funnily enough, first brought to market by HE/Barco and CP :blink:.

 

5-pin DMX connectors, and an intuitive LED menu for DMX addressing.

Well.. I suppose they had to pad out the press release a little :blink:. Wouldn't want to pay all that money just to say 'look, we've brought out a v2 of a well-loved fixture and improved all the little nagging problems everyone's told us about'.

 

T

[Guest lightnix]

...improved all the little nagging problems everyone's told us about'.

You mean, like being the most boring moving light ever released? Oversized, overweight and a pig to address??

 

I still recall the immense sense of disappointment I experienced, the first time I was given them to play with http://www.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/sad/sad0141.gif Sure - they were very bright and very waggly and... ermmm... that was about it, really http://www.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/indifferent/indifferent0018.gif The gobos were uninspiring, the colour mixing average and the zoom highly overrated IMO :blink:

[Ben]

Umm sorry but lots of people still make scanners, the Cyberlight is still a current product made to order and has never been discontinued, Strong now make the technobeam, SGM make the Victory 2 and there are lots more on the market from other people, and this is all not counting the 1000s of disco products out there also.

 

Scanners have decreased as the moving head market has taken over but the scanner ranges are certainly not dead.

[Guest lightnix]

...the scanner ranges are certainly not dead.

 

I never said they were. I merely opined, that the Cyberlight was the most boring moving light ever released.

 

Quite where you got the rest of it from, I'm not sure

[Bryson]

...I think it's worth adding that the wring harness in older Cybers failed with a depressing regularity...let's hope the new ones offer some improvements in reliability...

[niclights]

Have to say I agree entirely with Nick. V. disappointed first time I used the originals and never liked them since. Not that this has anything to do with the new offering - always interested to try something new. Although I'm not convinced by their other 2000W number...

[james.sealey]

...improved all the little nagging problems everyone's told us about'.

You mean, like being the most boring moving light ever released? Oversized, overweight and a pig to address??

 

Seconded. Having rigged some of these at a festival earlier this year, they weigh a bloody tonne, took the guy who hired them about an hour to address, and then he still couldn't get them working. I am primarily a noise boy, but will quite happily rig LX for the lampies when they have rigged two PAR cans and need a tea break , and I will quite happily join in with any troubleshooting needed, but these things had me baffled. I just walked away, annoyed that I had dragged them 20 feet in the air and they were just sat there, looking big and heavy and very much unused!

[tokm]

Admittedly there are the issues raised and I myself have come across them too. But they were bright and very quick.. and IMO, the gobo's/litho's weren't that bad, along with the colour mixing.

 

The point I was trying to make wasn't so much about how good or bad the old cyber's were, it as that its good to see a manufacturer still making scanners with this lamp type/light output. Sure there's plenty of DJ/club scanners always about, but rarely nothing anyone could use in a proper sized production due to the lack of essential features we'd expect to have.

 

I know plenty of lampies and LD's who love scanners purely for the superior P/T speed that you'll probably never get from a moving head.. Surely there's a few people on here that also hold that view?

 

T

[LXbydesign]

Awwww, for the retro scanner work , I still cant beat opping GS3's from a Masterpiece!

 

The cybers were a pain in the arse but technobeams were a joy to prog as u could run them in 12 channel mode and therefore 1 fixture = one page on the masterpiece so there was no fiddly overlapping of fixtures / channels / pages!

 

However , Cybers were used as the main moving light element (or the only?) on the original Starlight Express and they were very effective on that show. For the time , apart from 'niggles' , bad address and the weight ,they wernt too bad - but the Golden Scan ruled the roost during those days.

[musht]

However , Cybers were used as the main moving light element (or the only?) on the original Starlight Express and they were very effective on that show. For the time , apart from 'niggles' , bad address and the weight ,they wernt too bad - but the Golden Scan ruled the roost during those days.

 

Orginal moving lights on Starlight Express were Lightwork`s Lightscans , nicknamed Ayatollahs because they would silently turn to Mecca, ,finally found a reference so didn`t dream it:

 

http://www.thefutureofscience.org/speaker/CharliePaton.html

 

Intellabeam was a copy of the original Goldenscan, Cyber came a lot later

[Davethsparky]

...the scanner ranges are certainly not dead.

 

I never said they were. I merely opined, that the Cyberlight was the most boring moving light ever released.

 

Quite where you got the rest of it from, I'm not sure

 

That was more likely a response to the topic title which does suggest that nobody makes them any more.

[gareth]

Orginal moving lights on Starlight Express were Lightwork`s Lightscans , nicknamed Ayatollahs because they would silently turn to Mecca

Almost true but not quite!

 

By the time they got to Starlight Express, they were already licensed to Strand as the very first incarnation of PALS. They were indeed known as the Ayatollahs due to their tendency to all occasionally face the same way and nod up and down, which is where Strand's first proprietary moving-light control protocol 'MRL' got its name from - Mohammedan Religious Leader.

 

People just don't have that sort of sense of humour when coming up with product names now. Shame ...

[LXbydesign]

And also to correct myself it wasnt cybers anyway was it! Doh - it was Intellabeams!!

[Jamtastic3]

Not really a fan of the old skool High End gear. I've had so many problems with Technobeams that I wouldn't be surprised there would be issues with Cybers. Although Cybers and Technobeams do have nice colours and lithos, sometimes all you really need is a simple circle gobo and not some radical image that's rendered useless.

[Ben]

...the scanner ranges are certainly not dead.

 

I never said they were. I merely opined, that the Cyberlight was the most boring moving light ever released.

 

Quite where you got the rest of it from, I'm not sure ;)

 

That was more likely a response to the topic title which does suggest that nobody makes them any more.

 

Yes it was, the op talks about how its nice to see someone still makes them almost no one else does and that is just not true. They are not as common but are still out there.