(30 July 2012) -- As sports broadcasters flood into London to provide news and commentary on the Olympic Games, one TV station has made the decision to go all LED – with ETC's Source Four LEDâ„¢ profile spotlight providing the majority of the light. France TV Sport, a division of France Television, has rented 48 ETC Source Four LED Lustr+â„¢ Zoom 25-50° luminaires from Dushow, outfitting a temporary TV studio on the north bank of the River Thames for the duration of the games.
“We needed to use LEDs, as we wanted to keep an eye on our power usage,” explains Florian Allain, Dushow's technical director. “We only have a limited amount available and we wanted to get the most out of it. So with that in mind, we did a shootout with a number of fixtures, concluding that ETC's Source Four LED, which was demonstrated to us by ETC distributor Avab Transtechnik France, was the most suitable for us.”
“The presenters sit in front of a window with the Tower Bridge in the background, which could have been our biggest challenge: we need enough lighting to avoid them being silhouetted, even with the bright light behind them. But the Source Four LEDs are really powerful, providing a light bright enough to keep the directors back in France happy.”
Allain worked with France TV Sport's director of photography Jean Clavé. Together, they praised the smooth color-transitioning capabilities of the Source Four LED – something which competitors are unable to achieve.
Allain adds: “We were also impressed by the color mixing – the seven-color system in the fixtures means we can always get exactly the color and skin tones we need. We had already experienced this with the Selador Classic Lustrâ„¢ we have in our inventory.”
The ETC Source Four LED Lustr+ was designed to offer a wide range of colors, from high-intensity whites to soft tints and supple vibrant hues. It can move smoothly from one color to another and also produce an adjustable white light that flatters any skin tone, either in person or on screen.
For France TV, the directing and video engineering is all performed from the channel's main studios in Paris. Source Four LEDs can also be controlled directly from the panel on the rear of the fixtures themselves. And up to nine fixtures can be linked together via the power in/through Powercon connectors to save on rigging time.
Dushow – based in Nice, Marseille, and Paris – is one of the busiest rental companies in France, with a stock of more than 3200 moving lights (including ETC's Source Four Revolution® moving lights). Allain accompanied the equipment from his base in Paris and worked with France TV to get everything rigged and ensure the station's technicians had everything they needed.
For more information on ETC and its products, please visit www.etcconnect.com