VLPS Lighting Services, Inc. has announced the release of the Virtuoso® DX2, an upgrade to its current Virtuoso DX control console. The DX2 upgrade will be available starting January 2004 for existing inventory and will be part of the build of a significant number of new Virtuoso DX2 consoles.
The new DX2 release includes a sophisticated media window providing graphic control over video clips for digital lighting media servers. The upgrade further includes inhibitive submasters, track and fill, and a high-resolution encoder mode for slow and accurate control of parameters. A timing/filter window has been upgraded to show labels by parameter for each type of luminaire as fixture selection is changed and the beam select palate has been increased to 200. An additional software release due out later in 2004 will include expanded dynamic states for the creation of custom 'effects engines'. The Virtuoso DX2 supports 676 DMX universes with the addition of external Ethernet Virtuoso Nodes, each providing six DMX universes per Node. The DX2 runs on a dual Mac G5 processor with OS X operating system.
Since its release in 2000, the Virtuoso control system has been widely used, including the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, the annual Grammy® Awards, the current Fleetwood Mac world tour and the current Broadway smash hits Mamma Mia! and Gypsy. It is available exclusively through VLPS Lighting Services.
VLPS was separated from parent company Vari-Lite last year, when the latter became a part of Genlyte. At the time, many wondered if the deal represented the end of the line for the Virtuoso. Clearly that was not the case. For more information, click here.