Update: ADB Lighting HATHOR Desk PHOTO

I got a lovely little surprise in my inbox after coming back from lunch.  Looks like a reader has seen the HATHOR console or possibly knows some one at ADB lighting to be sending this along.  What can we tell from this photo?  It seems as though the codenamed HATHOR desk coming from ADB Lighting has at least one integrated touchscreen and has the ability to record, look and chaser.  All good qualities of a desk! What else… not much, what do you think?

I guess we’ll just have to wait till next week at ProLight + Sound to see more of the desk.

Martin Has Even More Coming at ProLight + Sound

This week has been all about Martin’s rumored new control surface which is being officially announced next week at ProLight + Sound.  It all started with a little video and then some more details about the desk.  Well, it looks like that is not all that Martin is announncing next week.  They have a couple more things up their sleeves.

Fro the teaser intro on Martin’s web site, Martin claims that the competition will have to take this one laying down and will be shocked at the news. Here is a line up of the products Martin is preparing to announce.

• 4 new moving heads in the MAC range
• 2 new LED video panels
• 2 new indoor & outdoor LED striplights
• 3 new indoor & outdoor LED luminaires
• 3 new controller solutions
• 1 new Jem smoke machine

Add them up and that comes to 15 new products being announced at ProLight + Sound for Martin! We’ll just have to wait till next week to see what the other 14 new products are.  Stay tuned!

Rumor Confirmed: ADB Lighting to Preview New Desk at ProLight + Sound

ADB Lighting out of Belgium is preparing to preview a “new generation control desk” as ProLight + Sound next week in Frankfurt Germany. ADB will be showing of a prototype of their multi-modal lighting and video flagship desk codenamed HATHOR.

So what makes this new desk so revolutionary? Here is what little ADB is saying about the desk thus far.

Advanced features include a graphics based user interface with support for up to eight multi-touch screens, advanced luminaire and fixture tracking facilities, state of the art lighting cue transfer control, flexible user configuration and customization, and unlimited capacity and full scalability.

The new controller is a professional theatre and television studio ‘concept’ desk that will be the flagship of the ADB lighting controller range, integrating control of conventional luminaires, moving lights, matrixes, LED, video and architectural control embracing all available protocols.

Looks like ADB is holding this one close as they are not even releasing a photo of the concept desk.  If you are attending ProLight + Sound next week, make sure to stop by the ADB Lighting stand at B36, Hall 11.1.  Maybe by that time, ADB will update their web site, www.adblighting.com with more information.

More on Martin’s Mystery Video and Control Surface

Yesterday I posted a very interesting video from Martin about what they plan on launching at ProLight + Sound at the end of the month. Well, Martin was kind enough to send over a few details and photo of the desk. Here are some of the details that Martin was able to provide about the new desk.

• Fully integrated control solution in smaller a form
• High resolution touchscreen in 16:9 format
• Folding built-in display
• Lightweight and solid construction
• Powerful software with unmatched ease of operation
• High quality components for tactile access
• Multiple playback systems
• Multiple external display
• Up to 46 direct access to playback from surface
• 6144 parameters
• Digital LCD buttons for direct parameter access
• Multiple wing attachment (MaxModules)
• 4x DMX Universe direct from the console
• Up to 12 Universe over Artnet
• Calendar and schedules
• Customizable Graphical User Interface
• Powerful effects engine
• 1000 cuelists with fader control
• 1000 cuelists with playback control buttons
• Parallel execution of multiple cuelists
• Submaster, Groupmaster and Override functionality
• Fanning functionality on Parameter and time
• On-the-fly global timing adjustments
• All this is just 14.4kg or 32 lbs.

A name has still not been released along with any additional photos. But from yesterdays video, what what you can see when the camera is in focus and in between strobes, it looks super sexy. The new Control surface will be on display at ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt Germany starting March 24 in the Martin Professional Stand, Hall 9.0 B91.

Elation Focuses on Compact & Energy-Efficient Lights at ProLight + Sound

This year at ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt Germany, Elation Professional is focusing their product lineup on energy efficiency.  With the growing trend of LEDs and “Going Green”, Elation is showing off a couple of fixtures that not only are energy-efficient, but also pack a punch with some of the features and light output that we have come to expect in certain fixtures.  Here is a little info on just a couple of the fixtures that Elation will be showing of at Prolight + Sound 2010.

Platinum Spot 5R – This DMX moving head produces an output comparable to a 575-watt fixture, yet is half the size, uses less than half the energy and weighs half as much as a typical 250-watt fixture!.  The secret is its advanced MSD Platinum 5R technology, a revolutionary lamp source from Philips, which rated at 2,000 hours, also burns twice as long as a conventional 575-watt fixture’s lamp.  Additionally, the Platinum Spot 5R moves faster than traditional moving heads on pan and tilt, as well as on color-gobo changes. It offers a full complement of professional design features, including: 8 dichroic colors; 22 gobos (8 rotating/indexing, 14 static); 3-Facet Rotating Prism effect; Variable Frost; Motorized Iris; Motorized Focus; Variable speed Shutter/Strobe; and 0-100% Mechanical Dimmer.

Design Spot LED —   An LED-powered version of Elation’s popular Design Spot 250 Pro DMX moving head, the Design Spot LED weighs less than the original model while offering output equal to a 250-watt discharge lamp plus an extended 50,000-hour LED lamp life.  It offers all the same features as the original, including a Variable Frost Filter, which allows it to function as a hybrid spot/wash effect, and a Motorized Iris and Motorized Focus. Nine dichroic colors, 14 gobos (7 rotating/indexing, 7 static) and a 3-facet Rotating/Indexing Prism are also included.

E Spot LED – A 14-channel DMX spot effect with a 50,000-hour rated  LED light source, the E Spot LED has an output greater than a standard 150-watt discharge fixture, while consuming about half the energy. At a featherweight 25 lbs. and petite 8”L x 11.8”W x 17.2”H, it’s packed with features for its compact size, including 8 dichroic colors, 7 rotating/indexing gobos, 3 rotating/indexing prisms (3-facet, 5-facet and 3D), Motorized Focus, Variable Speed Shutter/Strobe and 0-100% Mechanical Dimmer.

If you find yourself in the land of Hefeweizen, Wiener Schnitzel and Sausage, (Frankfurt Germany), between March 24 and 27, make sure to stop by ProLight + Sound to check out the Elation Fixtures on the Booth D51, Hall 11.

ArKaos Announces New MediaMaster 1.2

ArKaos has just announced the release of their latest update to their popular media server software, MediaMaster 1.2.  This new version of MediaMaster makes use of ArKaos’ latest generation of real time video technology to deliver incredible performance on any MAC or PC on which it is installed, including standard laptops. MediaMaster 1.2 is capable of playing up to eight simultaneous layers of HD video, without dropping frames, when running on an octo-core server.

More from the press release:

A major addition to this new release is the ability to both mix the audio track from movies and to control the global audio volume via DMX. As a result, a DMX control desk can now act as an audio mixer. Also new is MediaMaster 1.2’s support of Quartz Composer. This Mac-only technology allows both the creation of GPU accelerated movies and highly customized effects and music visualizers. The addition of this feature now makes it very easy to create animations that read information from web pages and present it in an attractive way. Flash Animation Player has been enhanced by its support of Actionscript3. This opens new doors to developers who want to create unique animations and music visualizers on Windows or Mac.

These new developments also open MediaMaster 1.2 to an infinite array of new creative possibilities by offering users an easy way to design unique audiovisual shows that combine traditional video and lighting with audio reactive visuals and advanced custom effects.

As a highly professional media server software, MediaMaster also comes with features such as improved Frame Blending Support for extremely smooth video playback even at slow speeds, perfect Soft Edge for seamless blending of multiple projectors, high resolution output at up to 4096 pixels on supporting hardware and advanced media composition due to its support of alpha channels.

The software is fully compatible with Matrox Dual, TripleHead2Go Analog and Digital Editions, allowing several projectors to be connected to a single server.

MediaMaster is the only solution offering decompression engines for almost any video format. This dispenses with the need to recompress video files which, in turn, provides maximum flexibility for the designer who can work with almost any file in a very user-friendly way.

Thanks to the CITP support, Media Server Extensions (MSEX) enable media information to be displayed on many lighting consoles, including those from Avolites, Chamsys, Compulite, ETC, Zero88 and ADB. The software also listen directly to a GrandMA console through the MA-eDMX protocol resulting in a simpler and more efficient setup between these two very popular products.

Finally, the ArKaos Media Server A10 HD already incorporates the new MediaMaster 1.2 software. This super-fast media server is designed for customers who demand a high-performance, turnkey solution which guarantees the best video performance and can run large shows seamlessly.

If you are attending ProLight + Sound 2010 in Frankfurt Germany on March 24 through 27, be sure to stop by ArKaos’s booth, C30/C28 in Hall 11.1.  You can learn more about the MediaMaster 1.2 by visiting Arkaos web site at www.arkaos.net. You can even download a trail version of the software to put it to some test.

MADRIX Introduces MADRIX 2.8 Prolight + Sound 2010

Inoage Trade, a German lighting and Control manufacture based in Dresden Germany is preparing to introduce a new PC based lighting controller at this years Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt Germany, MADRIX 2.8.

MADRIX is a professional LED lighting controller based on the windows platform. MADRIX supports a lot of well-known industry standards, such as DMX512, Art-Net II, the Philips ColorKinetics and Insta/Robe protocols, and DVI output. The application supports pixel mapping and is both an effect generator and media server with outstanding capabilities to display unique effects. MADRIX can be used alone, or along with any DMX/MIDI console or desk on the market.

Some of the features found in this latest version of MADRIX are Two fresh and creative effects called “SCE Metaballs” and “SCE Drops” as well as the much-improved Sound2Light effect “S2L Equalizer” extend the possibilities to amaze every audience. In addition, reorganizing effects by using drag & drop is now easily possible.

Combining effects was greatly enhanced by adding new features to layers, such as Copy, Paste, and Insert. This represents the professional and reliable performance of MADRIX combined with its ease of use.

The Patch was completely rebuild and is as user-friendly and fast as never before. And it now offers an advanced range of functions. Moreover, the DMX Watcher and the DMX Fader Tool—two very useful tools—highly increase productivity and simplify working with LED installations.

MADRIX supports a whole slew of DMX512 interface devices such as the Enttec Open DMX USB, Daslight’s DVC2 512 just to name a few.  MADRIX even supports Ar-Net interfaces.

If you’re interested in the PC based lighting controller, you can visit the MADRIX website at www.madrix.com and download a beta version of the software.  The developers are always interested to hear your feedback and comments via the online forum. Retail price for the base version of MARDIX, the Neo is €350 or $475 USD.