High School Upgrade

[mac.calder]

I personally don't know how anyone can CONSIDER recommending a system which appears to be built for moving lights etc to the OP - even desks - he may have mentioned DMX lights etc etc etc, but with the maintenance cycle they appear to have, I would say stick to conventional fixtures and a DMX based dimmer rack.

 

I don't care what anyone says, add a moving part to something and it will need servicing FAR more often - with conventional fixtures they may have to change a buble every so often, with moving head, they will have to either know how to perform maintenance on them, or they will have to send them away - and as the OP said, they will end up going in the store room.

 

As for the PC based solution - lovely device, I'm sure, but schools have a high turnover - anything that cannot be taught from start to begining in 20 minutes, with a concise manual to go in the ever elusive 'Manuals' folder will never be used to it's full capacity.

 

Eg: My old school before upgrade had a 2 scene preset board. The teacher who managed to get the lighting system retired - the lighting board was used as a single scene board there after, because no one knew how to use it. The system was analogue. No one knew the basics of lighting design. "Lighting" was basically a few flood lights each on their own channel with either a red or blue gel on it.

 

I only designed for a show there once before pushing for the upgrade, and the principal approached me afterwards and said "I never knew our equiptment could do that" - I used a few PC's and zoom profiles, and both scenes, and because more than one light (or all lights at once) changed at a time, he was surprised!

 

Bought a second hand atom 24 and 2 12 channel dimmers, taught the current drama teacher to use the system in half an hour (as well as a couple of students), as well as the basics of each light, they can use it with ease - by teaching the students (year 10) how to use it, they will be called in to year 9's drama class and do a crash course for a couple there, who will next year teach the year 9's etc.

 

When doing over a school, you have got to ensure that you put in place a system which will sustain itself - moving lights are far to complex for that environment, unless you are going to have an onsight technition, which from the OP's post is not likely.

[paulears]

all sounds fine to me.

 

I am a bit confused by MrDan saying that crashing is outdated. This certainly isn't my experience. I'm quite happy to not instantly blame Mr Gates, but I have 9 machines on the network here. The carillon music computer runs sx, soundforge and sibelius. It doesn't have any other software on it at all. It has plenty of ram, runs xp-pro and stacks of hd space. Most of its crashes (it tells me very unhelpfully) are caused by device drivers - in most cases I suspect either the soundscape 16in/16out cards or the midi interface. It does not spend any time on the net - so should be ok. I keep the drivers updated and despite this, it isn't 100%

 

All of the xp machines are better than the one running 98se, but not much.

 

 

The xp machines are stable enough, but do fall over or do odd things like not be visible to certain others on the network. I'm not complaining, but although I have some show playout software, I've never yet dared risk it without a backup.

 

Everyones getting excited about strand going xp - Dos seemed fairly ok to me, not sure if xp is yet that stable? We'll see

[Freddie]

Agree with the Windows/DOS crashing thing. I'm a volunteer in the school library (It's great, I can advise on what books should be ordered, we now have a large drama section ;)) and last year we changed from a text based (similar to DOS, but not) IRRR (Issues, Renewals, Returns, Reservations) system, which crashed approximately 0 times; to a Windows-based system, which crashes at least twice a day. Admittedly the situation isn't helped by a certain kiss-up Yr8 who claims that Scandisk is a bad thing nd must be cancelled every time. :o

[MrDan]

I am a bit confused by MrDan saying that crashing is outdated. This certainly isn't my experience. I'm quite happy to not instantly blame Mr Gates, but I have 9 machines on the network here. The carillon music computer runs sx, soundforge and sibelius. It doesn't have any other software on it at all. It has plenty of ram, runs xp-pro and stacks of hd space. Most of its crashes (it tells me very unhelpfully) are caused by device drivers - in most cases I suspect either the soundscape 16in/16out cards or the midi interface. It does not spend any time on the net - so should be ok. I keep the drivers updated and despite this, it isn't 100%

 

All of the xp machines are better than the one running 98se, but not much.

 

 

The xp machines are stable enough, but do fall over or do odd things like not be visible to certain others on the network. I'm not complaining, but although I have some show playout software, I've never yet dared risk it without a backup.

 

Everyones getting excited about strand going xp - Dos seemed fairly ok to me, not sure if xp is yet that stable? We'll see

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Maybe we're talking about two different things. I was talking about the actual operating system crashing, like a blue screen where you have to reboot the entire computer. Those kind of crashes are very rare with Win2K and WinXP. Of course applications have nothing to do with the operation system and therefor can crash as often as they want. But with WinXP (unlike Win98) they don't take down other applications. I have to admit though that some drivers can easily bring down the entire computer even on WinXP and Win2K. But then again, that is application/driver related, so if you don't have an application with a badly written driver installed on your XP machine then you should be fine.

 

Does this make more sense? I'm not saying in general that WinXP is a great operating system. As I kind of hinted, we in our company were staying with Win2K for various reasons. E.g. WinXP's security vunerabilty is just unbelievable.

 

Agree with the Windows/DOS crashing thing. I'm a volunteer in the school library (It's great, I can advise on what books should be ordered, we now have a large drama section ;)) and last year we changed from a text based (similar to DOS, but not) IRRR (Issues, Renewals, Returns, Reservations) system, which crashed approximately 0 times; to a Windows-based system, which crashes at least twice a day. Admittedly the situation isn't helped by a certain kiss-up Yr8 who claims that Scandisk is a bad thing nd must be cancelled every time. :o

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is it WinXP or an older (Win98?) system? Again, is the application crashing or the operating system itself? With badly written software you can't blame the operating system.

[Tomo]

However, Win2k is very bad at USB.

 

For example, the HogPC we used on my last ship 'lost' the outboards and the dongles regularly, requiring a reboot, replug, replug again, much burning of incense and a certain amount of prayer before they came back up.

 

We had at least one show that very nearly didn't happen because the DMX dongles wouldn't respond until almost the very last minute, meaning that we ended up striking & homing the movers literally seconds before curtain.

[MrDan]

However, Win2k is very bad at USB.

 

For example, the HogPC we used on my last ship 'lost' the outboards and the dongles regularly, requiring a reboot, replug, replug again, much burning of incense and a certain amount of prayer before they came back up.

 

We had at least one show that very nearly didn't happen because the DMX dongles wouldn't respond until almost the very last minute, meaning that we ended up striking & homing the movers literally seconds before curtain.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

USB drivers are provided by the application developer not the operating system. (I know, we wrote our own USB driver). So it is the (bad) USB driver from the applications manufacturer not the Operating system. I would like to give you a recent example we had with a client running USB over fiber to another building but that would be plugging so I don't.

 

Additional Note:

The only operating system where USB is build in the operating system itself (the way you'd expect it) is Mac OS X. All Windows systems (and Gates only knows why) don't have USB build in the OS (only on a lower level). Every application has to supply it's own USB driver. (Most developers use an old Microsoft USB driver example and modify it to their own needs)

 

(Sorry if this was too much information)

[Tomo]

By "lost" I mean that scanning the USB chain using the Microsoft USB utilities didn't bring up the devices in question.

Whether the drivers existed or not that should still bring them up, so I don't think it was entirely High End's fault.

 

And by 'Bad', I mean that even mass-storage (which Windows 2k and XP DO include) is broken. Win 2K can't handle the idea of two mass-storage endpoints in the same device - so any USB memory stick with more than one drive inside fails.

And this is apparently regardless of whether you try installing third-party drivers.

 

WinXP has fixed this though.

 

And Win2K/XP do provide generic drivers for USB devices - you can write your own drivers, but 90% of the time you don't have to...

 

Anyway - this is getting massively :o so sorry everyone!

[MrDan]

By "lost" I mean that scanning the USB chain using the Microsoft USB utilities didn't bring up the devices in question.

Whether the drivers existed or not that should still bring them up, so I don't think it was entirely High End's fault.

 

What I didn't mention is that losing the connection to a USB device can have a lot of reasons. E.g. the application passes the data to the (application provided) USB driver. Then it gets passed to the lower level USB stack of Windows. Then the data gets passed to the firmware in the USB device. If any of those points the software is out of synch then the communication will be lost. E.g. if the firmware in the USB device (the dongle) "crashes" then the windows operating system will not "see" the dongle until you reset the dongle.

 

Also if a USB connection is not closed correctly from either side (which will happen if the firmware "crashes"), then it is also not possible for any other USB utility to open the device driver because it is still open from the (crashed) firmware side.

 

If that happens, the only thing you can do is restart the computer and reset the dongle.

 

Anyway - this is getting massively  :o so sorry everyone!

You're right, I noticed that too. So I quess we stop with that software talk ;)

[axle]

I've just been looking around and as I know we're on a tight budget (the school is tight pocketed) I was looking at maybe getting some equipment that would allow a staggered upgrade.

 

I was looking at replacing the current Analogue dimmers (Strand but not sure what model) to Strand's newer Act 6 which (it claims) has analogue and DMX inputs which would allow us to keep the current desk and upgrade the lights and dimmers for now.

 

Thoughts?

 

P.S. how do you become qualified to do PATests? (as I mentioned, the school is cheap and it'll also add another qualification/skill to my resumé)

[Freddie]

Is it WinXP or an older (Win98?) system? Again, is the application crashing or the operating system itself? With badly written software you can't blame the operating system.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Whole operating system (Blue Screen of Doom tm), software is apparently used in nearly every school in country. Admittedly, it's winME on a Time PC :gulp:

 

Jumping back to the orignal argument: In a school environment, hardware desk every time. Picture the scene: 6 experienced students (LX, Sound, Mic Runners x2, followspot x2) plus me and 2 other newbies. Tech Rehersal. LX can't make it. It's decided that I should fill in. If I can learn to operate a Sirius 24 in 2minutes with no manual, just moving faders around to work out what they do, anyone can learn it easily. I fully expect the Yr8 shadowing me at our rock concert next week to master the use of flash buttons and presets (and maybe subs) and let me slip off for 5mins.

 

TBH, if the dimmers work alright, I'd replace them later. Our old CCT packs are still going strong >10yrs on (In that time we've had 3 desks and a demux)

 

The order I'd do things in:

 

=> Cabling: Hard mains, Dimmed sockets, DMX

=> Desk: & Demux if you're keeping old dimmers

=> Lanterns

=> New Dimmers if you need them.

[sam.henderson]

=> Cabling: Hard mains, Dimmed sockets, DMX

=> Desk: & Demux if you're keeping old dimmers

=> Lanterns

=> New Dimmers if you need them.

 

However if you plan to get dimnmers in the near future anyway when you are buying the desk don't bother getting the demux just hire it in for each show until you get the new dimmers.

 

Sam

[Jivemaster]

If the yearly struggle to get new users competant with a programmable desk is going to get in the way of learning to design with light then the old analogue desk will be BETTER than any digital option. If you have the power and load rated bars you can hire in for shows.

 

In many venues training is passed from person to person and a bit is lost each time. There is a post on here saying how when the usual operator left the use of the two preset desk left with them and the desk was subsequently only used as a set of manual faders. If you have a complex desk then when you leave and the person you trained leaves the desk will become a barrier to even using the lights for speech-day.

[Guest lightnix]

I'll echo much of the above, firstly by suggesting a simple, two preset hardware desk. Something like the Zero88 Alcora, Elara or bog standard Frog would be my choice for a school / small college setup as they are simple to learn and operate. "Matching" dimmers and accessories are also available from the same manufacturer.

 

As for the rest of the system, look at what can be refurbished, don't just automatically throw it away. When it comes to the lamp stock, you may well find that much is still highly usable and that a good overhaul in the form of cleaning, rewiring and PAT testing will greatly improve its performance, along with providing a valuable educational exercise. Anything lanterns which are too far gone can be broken down for spares. Some of the best lanterns ever (e.g. Patt 23 Mk2, Patt 123 and Patt 743, to name but three) were made in the 60s and 70s and still give virtually unfailing service to this day. The only real problem with old kit can be spares, but in a school environment, where they are not gigged very hard, it's maybe not quite such a issue as trying to run them as hire stock.

 

Forget moving lights for schools. They are expensive to buy and maintain, take longer to program and won't automatically make for "better" lighting. At the risk of sounding snotty, there's far too much emphasis on technology over technique these days, particularly in lighting IMHO. Any school should be teaching people "how to walk" first; teaching people how to run should be left more to the drama colleges and other establishments running entertainments courses.

 

Some LED fixtures might be an option, though, especially for cyc floods / battens. Although the initial cost will be huge (and maybe prohibitive), the running costs will be much lower in terms of power consumption, gel and replacement bulbs. They could also make a good introduction to state-of-the-art technology, without overly detracting from the need to learn how to light.

 

Looking forward to seeing some pics of your current setup ;)

 

EDIT: I don't know if it's already been posted, but here's a link to the other discussion on school refurbishment - it may give you some ideas.

[sam.henderson]

I hope Lightnix' doesn't mind me quoting something that he said a few days ago but just to back up his point about LED's and the long term benifits:

 

One client of mine has recently replaced twenty, energy - guzzling, four cell Coda battens with Pulsar LED gear, having convinced the bean-counters of the savings. I can't remember the exact figures, but believe that the energy saving was estimated at around £600 per quarter, along with about £35 per show in gel and about one hour's labour (£16) per gel change. Assuming three gel changes per week, that adds up to nearly another £370 of savings per quarter. Factor in replacement bulbs and the quarterly saving easily rises to over £1000 !

HTH

 

Sam

 

Edit: Also have a look at some of these links, some of whats said in them may well be relevent:

 

Theatre Refit!

 

Tell me What bugs you.. May have some useful hints and tips generally

 

Dance Studio lighting Some of the infrastrucutre type advice may be of use

[axle]

Hopefully my pictures tomorrow will explain my reasoning for things, but most of this equipment, bar maybe some of the wiring and light bulbs are 30+ years old and have never been maintained.

 

I was looking at the Strand Act 6 purely because of the DMX and analogue inputs which would allow for a staggered upgrade and allow a quick backup should things fail.

 

Anyone know how much a small (has to be very small otherwise we won't be able to fit it in through the fire doors) cherry picker roughly is to rent per day? Currently the drama dept. just sends the caretakers up a ladder to manoeuver the lights (including the unchained ones!).

 

I do have a rather disturbing picture to get of one of the unchained lights... I'm not sure if the bar on the flood is threaded or not, but either way there is only about 30-40mm of thread before it comes crashing down o.o;

 

EDIT: (as I think it got missed or was unclear) is there an actual award available to say the you are certified to carry out PATests? if so, how do you go about getting the piece of paper?