Various New Lighting Products At InfoComm Shine

ORLANDO – With the various projection and audio products having been highlighted last week from the InfoComm show, there were lighting products as well worthy of note.

Among the more notable new products on the floor was ADJ’s Hydro Wash X7. Suited ideally as an outdoor fixture, with its IP64 rating (for moisture and dust), for churches with special services outdoors during the spring or summer, the moving head fixture with seven 40-watt RGBW (4-in-1) LEDs, is a worthy consideration. New for this year’s InfoComm, the fixture is slated to begin shipping in 3-4 months. When it is time to update the fixtures’ firmware, the fixtures are outfitted with a IP65 USB port, paired with protective covers over the connection for outdoor setups.

Another interesting new moving head product was showcased by GLP, with their Impression S350 Wash. With its white LED engine, the fixture scores incredibly well with a CRI rating of 96, which indicates how accurate the fixture is at rendering color when compared to a reference light source, like the sun, which rates at 100. In addition, the fixture comes with a variable color temperature control system, allowing fo full range between 2,500K and 8,000K to be selected. With each fixture weighing in at 56 pounds, it makes it suited to be hung in confined spaces within the worship space without issue. The S350 Wash is also already available for shipping.

At the Avolites booth, one intriguing new product being featured was Synergy, software that pairs a media server with your lighting desk. Too often, the abilities for a church in terms of what it can do with additional lighting needs stops at how many DMX channels they have available to do the task at hand. With Synergy, though, its abilities are not constricted by one’s available DMX channels.

For example, it allows one take content from a video wall and pixel map that content to your lighting fixtures, such as clouds being shown moving across a video wall, with none of that pixel mapping work requiring a single DMX channel for the media server work. Typically, when running a media server, it adds up to about 100 DMX channels per layer. Without that burden, it doesn’t burn through your available DMX channels.

Using a Cat-5 connection, one can ingest video content directly to the console, and converts it to the right codec. With a simple drag-and-drop setup, a user can move 4K video content directly from a list of downloadable files into a list of saved files for use on the Avolites console.

With the speed that content can be added to a console, Brad White, national sales manager for Avolites, he highlighted one instance using this software planned to be released in August, having been used on one project recently where an integrator having used a prerelease version, originally scheduled the lighting work on that project needing two months of programming time, but with the help of Synergy, was able to cut that down to a week and a half.

Lastly, at the VectorWorks booth, the highlight the company rolled out at the show was the integration of the systems integrators plug-in, connectCAD, which had purchased that technology to incorporate it into the program. The plug-in is designated for schematic design, AV integration, live entertainment, and connectivity documentation.

With VectorWorks’ three CAD programs, from Fundamentals, Architect and Landmark, the software has evolved from initially being based around lighting design, to today, total production design. Aside from ConnectCAD, another valuable aspect is the add-on module, Braceworks.

As noted by Jim Woodward, senior entertainment product specialist, through the Braceworks software, “When you apply weight to it, it will show how the structure will react. It will give you graphical representations, on how the weight will influence the structure, and how something is bending as a result. For truss installations, Braceworks analyzes the system, showing the bending lines where trusses are unduly stressed, while also creating a FEA report to show the components used, the materials used, and the spacing of the components.