Thursday, October 13, 2016
ETC Celebrates 40th Anniversary with New Gear at LDI
Stage Directions: ETC will celebrate its 40th anniversary by giving away gifts at LDI. Instagram users can take pics of ETC Source Four fixtures they’d like to upgrade with the ETC Source 4WRD retrofit kit, which turns any traditional Source Four fixture into an LED fixture. ETC will also showcase several new products at LDI, including the full ColorSource family, including the ColorSource and ColorSource AV lighting-control desks and the brand-new ColorSource Linear striplight. LDI show attendees can get demos of the Irideon FPZ architectural luminaire, the GDS CueSystem cue light system, and the Prodigy P75 Self Climber hoist. They also promise a “big surprise” product debut for LDI attendees.
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4 comments:
ETC is creeping into the rigging market more and more, but I hope they don’t over expand themselves. ETC makes the bet conventional fixtures, they just do, stop it Altman, just stop. ETC does not make the best theater winches though. I know that they are only selling them because its what they are going to install into high schools and churches, but I still wish they made better winches. Usually, ETC makes a good product and then incidentally sells it to high schools and churches, but it was developed for if not high end theater, at least real theater. It is a shame that people like JR Clancy and Sapsis wont use ETC gear in their installs now because ETC is encroaching on their business, but maybe ETC will get big enough and good enough at making rigging products that they will become a new god of rigging.
In response to Chris’s comment, and as a lighting person, I am also not nearly as excited about their rigging equipment as I am about their lighting fixture development and control network.. ETC got the ellipsoidal lighting fixture right with the source four, and they’ve done nothing but provide minor tweaks that perfect the lighting fixture in the time since the source four has been available. They also got the PAR right with the source four PAR, and then they got the LED fixture right with a 7 color mixing system that provides a huge array of both high and low saturated colors. They even provided an extremely advanced miniature fixture that can function exactly like a regular source four with the source four mini. ETC also got theatrical lighting control right with the EOS series of consoles, so much so in fact that the syntax of the console is practically a language that lighting people speak to each other when designing a show. We as a school have 5 consoles in the EOS line, plus various accessories that we can network in with these consoles to provide even more workstations, and even a backup console that assumes control in the event that the main lighting desk fails.
All this is way more meaningful to me then the various rigging systems that ETC has to offer, and the simple proof is how widespread ETC’s lighting equipment is throughout the industry compared to their rigging solutions. I very much hope the surprise at LDI this year regards their lighting products over their rigging products.
So, what's the big surprise going to be? I'm going to take a guess and say it's some sort of LED fixture. That's obviously where the industry is headed, and ETC has established themselves as the go-to manufacturer for LED theatrical profile fixtures. Above, Chris and Alex might be onto something about ETC's rigging equipment. I'm not sure that a reveal of a new rigging system will be very exciting, though. Another possibility for the reveal could be an automated fixture. Since the Source Four Revolution, ETC hasn't released any moving lights. That's a pretty competitive market to jump into, but ETC could manage it. If they shove their x7 color system into a mover, they would fill a gap in the market: an LED profile moving light with great color mixing. I'll throw out one more idea: a Series 3 color mixing system, with more than 7 colors. That might be the most realistic of all of these theories. As ETC has shown us before, adding more discrete colors to an LED mixing system only improves the quality of light (when done properly, of course). Well, we'll find out soon enough.
I was at a conference this past summer where ETC had some of their product line on display for demoing purposes. It was really interesting to see what they would be coming out with in the future and what they would be adding to their product line. I really enjoyed playing around with all the equipment and comparing it to the gear we use at Carnegie Mellon. I find it fascinating that they are able to have all these product launches and still have the people buy the stuff. It is curtain not cheap to constantly be updating your stock and it is virtually impossible to keep “up to date” on the latest and greatest. I’m looking forward to a time when ETC comes out to campus and let more drama students get a feel for what they might be working with in the future. ETC is a very well respected company in its field and I am interested in what is instore for the future.
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