The Latest From Philips at LDI 2010

If you were at LDI this year, you had to have noticed the Philips booth.  It was kind of hard to miss it.  Philips was dead smack in the middle of the floor with a huge open layout with an awesome circle truss FILLED with all of their latest LED products from all of their brands, Vari-Lite, Strand and Selecon.

My good friend and funny man from Philips, Peta Borchetta gave me a walking tour of the booth going over all the latest and greatest products. Ignore the interruptions for the peanut gallery, Alan Kibbe for the Vari-Lite division wanted to throw us off and get his five seconds on camera. Maybe next time Alan! ;)

Thanks Pete for the tour!

Philips Selecon PL 1 LED

Philips Selecon has a new Architectural LED fixture available, the PL 1. It uses high output and fully homogenized RGBW LEDs with a variable beam from 14-50 degrees.

The PL 1 makes perfect sense for museums and other architectural installations where UV light may cause problems.  The PL 1 produces no ultra-violet (wavelengths of less than 400nm) in the UV-A, B, C or infrared (greater than 775nm) spectrum.

The fixture also has the ability to define maximum energy consumption with built in power preset from 30 watts to full power along with fan noise management.

For more information on the Philips Selecon PL 1 LED fixture, visit their website at www.seleconlight.com.

Sneak Peak at Philips/Selecon PL-3 LED Fresnel

When you reach the Broadway level of being a lighting designer, you can pretty much get what ever you want. I am not talking about fame and fourtune but new fixtures and technologies. Such as the case for Don Holder at the Broadway Lighting Master Classes this year. Mr. Holder put on a great session about LEDs vs Tungstens. Since Mr. Holder is a well respected and fantastic lighting designer, he has access to a load of products before they are even announced.

Such as the case with the sneak peak that we got of Philips/Selecon upcoming LED Fresnel, the PL-3. Mr. Holder was able to get not just one of these prototype fixtures, but two for his session. Yeah, I was a little jealous! ;) But enough about that, what about the PL-3.

The PL-3 uses three of the LED engines from the Vari-lite VLX fixture. That means that the PL-3 is a 3 engine, RGBW mixer at 90 watts per engine. Just like the VLX, the PL-3 color mixing happens behind the lens to give an even color out the front of the fixture. Speaking of light coming out the front, the PL-3 is putting out 8200 Lumens of LED goodness with a zoom range of 5 to 50 degree spread.

The entire fixture runs off just 320 watts of power and produces as much light as a 1000 watt tungsten fresnel. The PL-3 is still in the process of being developed but is rumored to have WDMX, WiFi, Network and DMX protocols included right on the fixture. If you look closely, you may notice the fixture housing and yoke are made of plastic. Since the fixtures runs a heck of a lot cooler then a typical tungsten fresnel of that size, Philips/Selecon was able to make the PL-3 even lighter by using a plastic composite.

The PL-3 is still not ready for the big time and like I mentioned, still in development so no release date has been announced yet along with pricing. I have heard hints of another version of the PL-3 is in the works, the PL-5. I’ll let you take a guess on what that means.

Take a look at some of the photos I was able to sneak in at the BLMC2010.

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Strand Selecon Introduce SPX Fixed Beam Fixtures

Strand Selecon recently announced the arrival of the SPX Fixed Beam fixtures. The goal of the SPX series of fixtures is to help round out the entire line of Strand Selecon fixture range including the Pacific and Acclaim series of lights.

The SPX Series of fixtures use 220-240v lamps, the 600w GKV, the 600w GLB and the 800w GKV lamps.  Currently, I have not found any documentation or cross reference to a 110-120v lamp for the SPX fixture.  At 800w, Strand Selecon is stating that the SPX fixtures deliver up to 63% more light on stage compared to current industry benchmarks. The combination of this optical reflector design with premium optical lenses (supplied as standard) provides a crisp white light with no pinkish hues or other colour cast delivering both high definition pattern projection as well as the color results you deserve from your filter selections.

The Strand Selecon SPX is available in 14°, 19°, 26°, 36° and 50° lens which are interchangeable.  Also available are two zoom fixtures, a 15°-30° & 25°-50° spread.

To learn more about the Strand Selecon SPX series of fixtures and all its features, visit the Strand Selecon web site at www.seleconlight.com.

Rumor Mill: Selecon Prepin’ to Release New Fixture at ProLight + Sound

It looks like the small fortune I invested in a spy mic has finally paid off… well, finally given me something!  Back in early February, I sent a fruit basket to the Kiwi’s at Strand Selecon to celebrate Waitangi Day.  Little did they know a mic was hidden inside! I guess they never found it because it still works. Probably not after today though.

The “fruit Basket” must have been a favorite around the New Zealand office as it was left out during some important talks and picked up some VERY interesting tid bits. From what I was able to decipher from the audio is that Strand Selecon is preparing to announce and show a prototype of a new fixture at ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt Germany at the end of the month.

From there, on, things got a little garbled and I could not understand what was being said.  I hope someone didn’t eat the mic! If so, looks like I need to send another “care package” to New Zealand!

So what does this mean? Look for something new and exciting from Strand Selecon this year at ProLight + Sound.  If we are lucky, we might just see something State side sooner then later.  I’ll keep after the US rep and see what other details I can find out.

LDI09: Rumor Mill – Behind Closed Doors

We love rumors around the industry here on iSquint and it seems like LDI will be the starting off point for some rumors to start spreading.

So what sort of rumors have been mumbled about around the industry with LDI right around the corner?

Lets first take a look at ETC, (Electronic Theatre Controls).  We have heard mumblings that their control line up of consoles is not complete yet.  So could this mean the release of a new console soon?  Details on this rumored new console that we are naming after our favorite alien, ET, are very scares. But we may be able to get a better understanding at LDI next month.

Next from Philips Strand, we have been hearing this phrase, Open Palette.  We are quite sure this is a new console, but open?  With the use of such a word as Open, we can only assume that means it will be an Open Platform in sorts similar to Open Source Code where users have the ability to customize features and/or layouts.

Certainly not last, will an LED ellipsoidal spot light be announced at LDI?  There is a huge race to be the first to the market with this.  But if something is rushed and not ready, there could be a huge backlash from the industry.  An LED ellipsoidal will happen, but when?

UPDATE:

Look like we were wrong about the strand Open Palette.  Seems like it has been around for a while!

Strand OpenPalette

Selecon to Join Philips Entertainment Lighting Group

Selecon Lighting of New Zealand has decided to sell the company to Philips to become part of the Philips Global Entertainment Lighting Group.  Selecon will be joining such companies as Vari-Lite, Strand Lighting and Color Kinetics. Selecon will continue to operate as normal with no changes made to management.

To read more about the press release from Selecon, visit thier website at www.seleconlight.com.