17
DIGITAL LIGHTING AND MEDIA SERVERS

Concert lighting has certainly taken a giant step toward controlling more visual stage presentations with the latest addition of digital lights, media servers, and light-emitting diode (LED) walls. The lighting community has moved beyond practical illumination and effects-to-the-music lighting to incorporate projected graphic imagery, stills, and movie clips. Visual imagery and the mobile components that enable the lighting designer to create and manipulate these images have become staples of most touring concert lighting systems.

ADDING THE CONTROL OF VISUAL MEDIA TO LIGHTING

As if fulfilling the lighting needs of the artist weren't enough, lighting designers have inherited responsibility for the design and control of visual media with the introduction of digital lighting and media servers. A digital light is xa luminaire that uses digital projection techniques to modify the beam parameters, mostly shape, intensity, and color. A media server is a computer dedicated to the task of organizing and playing back video clips, still images, or three-dimensional images during a performance. The combination of these two components, with the help of LED wall displays (also driven with a media server), has presented the entertainment lighting world with powerful technology and control that can further enhance and assault the visual senses and elicit emotion, more so than just lighting scene changes can.

Adding visuals was a natural progression and an unstoppable train that collided with concert lighting beginning in the mid-1990s. The use of visuals is still progressing with so much speed that this explanatory sentence about it will be out of date by the time this book is released. The visual media movement toward entertainment lighting has been fueled by clever innovation and adding computer protocols and telecommunications methods to the mix. This is all a result of efforts to improve moving luminaires and, using the DMX-512 protocol, to better manage them. Plus, there is a significant financial benefit; any time you can combine job duties and equipment function—in this case, by getting the lighting crew to pitch in and the lighting designer to control media imagery as well —a large part of the video crew can be eliminated. I'm sure this is a consideration, or at least an inadvertent consequence, that has pleased the accountants.

Projecting movie clips and still images has been used in live theatrical productions probably since the invention of the film projector at the turn of the 20th century. Bill Graham was famous for showing cartoons before his Fill more concerts and other films during set changes between bands, but these cues were operated manually. Only with relatively recent tours has media control landed directly in the hands of the lighting director, along with so many options. Adding control of visual media automatically promotes the lighting designer and programmer positions to those of visual artists, which make them even more valuable to the product, but at a price. New tools, hardware, software, parlance, and technical information have been added to the lightingdesigner's inventory beyond luminaries, dimming, and control.

Medusa Icon M

First, as usual, we should add some history. The evolution of controlling a digital light from the lighting control console came by way of Light & Sound Design, a company originating in Birmingham, England. After establishing itself as an innovative company with such clients as AC/DC, Prince, and Madonna, they moved to offices in Los Angeles around 1981. A couple of years later Vari* Lite released the VL.1, and Light & Sound Design began working on its proprietary moving luminaire, called the Icon, which was eventually released for their rental customers in 2003, even though some of their Icon road tests began as early as 1993. Fast forward a few years to the 1999 Lighting Dimensions International (LDI), when the Medusa Icon M was introduced surrounded by a shroud of mystery and demonstrated only for small groups of people at a time (Figure 17.1).

Mark Hunt, imaging system and software engineer for the Icon M, explained that, “The Medusa was developed in strict secrecy. It was rumored that it would never work and, if it did, it would be too expensive. Medusa Icon M was the first digital light even though the name ‘digital light’ had not yet been coined as the official term at that time. It came about as a result of Bill Hewlett's* persistence and his recognition of the possibilities of Texas Instruments' DLP technology.” Hewlett was the technical director of Light & Sound Design. The idea of a digital light was entirely his concept, and he joined the company to see the project through.

The Icon M used Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing (DLP) micro mirror technology. It contained the entire DHA Lighting gobo catalog onboard, with custom vector images or grayscale bitmaps, each with instant random access. The DLP technology enabled digital dimming, iris, strobe, and zoom functions. The Medusa never reached production, and when we asked Hunt why, he said, “The main issue was light output. We could never get enough light to compete with other luminaires, and it was felt that the fixture would have to be useful as a luminaire as well as an effect. The DL.1 rather proved our point.” (More on the DL.1 later in this chapter.)

High End Systems' Digital Light (DL) Series

High End Systems started the move to digital-based lighting with the Catalyst moving mirror product and showed it a year after Medusa Icon M was shown at LDI. The original Catalyst combined a media server and moving mirror light with a stock video projector. Richard Bellview—High End Systems' chief technology officer and innovator of the first Intelli beam moving mirror luminaire (circa 1990) and more recently the SHOWPIX and SHOWGUN range of fixtures— added some first-hand account details: “I think that we give credit to Richard Bleasedale for providing the video server concepts for Catalyst. Mr. Bleasdale was the software writer and inventor for the media server portion of Catalyst. The Catalyst moving mirror head was conceived by Peter Wynne Wilson of WWG (acronym was derived from the two owners, Tony Gottelier and Peter Wynne Wilson). In putting the two concepts together, we basically showed people that video projection could be used as another entertainment instrument different than conventional video projection.” The term digital light was simply invented at that time to get the lighting community's attention. Bellview explained, “We have used the term digital lighting to define DMX controlled products that produce images without a stencil, by some type of light valve control. The defining factor is if the instrument is controlled by a lighting console; otherwise, it's a projector.” In 2003, High End Systems launched the Catalyst media server with the ability to apply more than 80 visual and color effects to digital media.

The DL.1 (second generation) debuted at the Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA) tradeshow in London in 2003, which was designed to complement the Catalyst media server. The transition from the moving mirror system to the DL.1 was simply a projection system package with a moving yoke. It used the communications standards of both VGA (video graphics array), RGBHV (red, green, blue, high voltage), and S-Video inputs for movie, film, or graphics content but with DMX programming capability could be remotely pointed or focused. The LD could now switch the video input selection and choose content from multiple input devices simultaneously with color, brightness, contrast, and other video-related parameters, such as the keystone correction feature (keystone compensates the image on a surface for off-angle projection). High End Systems marketed the DL.1 as the lighting industry's first commercially available digital moving light. The DL.1 is out of production today.

The DL.1 was connected with data and RGB cables to a Catalyst media server that was generally mounted in racks (the number depending on the number of lights that it was driving) and positioned off the stage or sometimes suspended. The break through innovation and technology used for the DL.2 was its on board media server and a Sony camera mounted in the front of the light for live-action feeds. With regard to changes in the moving luminaire world compared to the fast-track video world, Bell view was asked to explain the differences relative to the DL series: “Let's talk about iterations, which happen very fast in the video world. We build an automated lighting instrument and five or six years later we are making the same instrument with very little change. Video has annual or semi-annual changes, and everybody in video understands that there are advance-ments that displace their current products. Once we started tracking video in the lighting world, iterations took place based on video expectations. As the performance of the projection systems increased, DL.2 was created to put the server into the digital light and break loose of the video cables running down to FOH (Front Of House), to make it basically a plug-and-play operation.” Substantive advances were made with the DL.2, but it is also now out of production.

In early 2008, the DL.3 was released with an on-board Axon media server, a higher light output of 6500 lumens (using a single 330-watt projection bulb and improved optics), new features, and additional libraries that offered more movie loops and high-resolution images. The integrated media server also supported the user's custom content with the ability to import three-dimensional objects, media files, and still images (Figure 17.2).

In June of 2008, Barco announced the acquisition of High End Systems. Barco is the leader in four product areas of the rental and staging market: LED video displays, LED products, large-venue projectors, and image-processing products. High End Systems was integrated into Barco's Media and Entertainment division, instantly increasing their live entertainment market share and intellectual properties. This business acquisition strategy is certainly indicative of the convergence of video and lighting segments as an area of increasing growth and development.

Prior to the acquisition, the DML-1200 (Figure 17.3) luminaire was launched in 2007 as a super bright moving digital light source and high-quality video projector. It uses four 300-watt high-pressure mercury lamps, and in light mode the fixture has a light output equivalent to that of a 1200-watt hard-edged moving light at 12,000 lumens. In video mode,

the light output decreases to 10,000 lumens. The unit features a fully sealed DLP engine and full-color DLP video. As an option, there is a built-in media player, based on the Hippo tizer V.3 media server.

DIGITAL LIGHT DEVELOPMENTS

The High End DL Series did not have any competition, and the brand itself was the name associated with the digital light. However, at Prolight + Sound Frankfurt 2008, two established manufacturers emerged: ROBE Lighting introduced two digital light models, Digital Spot 3000 DT and 7000 DT (Figure 17.4), and SGM launched its Giotto Digital 1500 (Figure 17.5). The challenge was to produce a luminaire that would be an effects projector but also have the intensity to compete as a moving luminaire. while digital software and control were showing steadyadvancements, there were cooling issues. The SGM Giotto 1500 is an attempt to tackle that problem. It includes a feature for lamp power reduction in the event of overheating, but the increased intensity is competitive with a moving luminaire and is achieved by using a Philips MSR Gold 1200 Fast Fit short arc, which is rated at 48,000 lumens.

SGM has taken a different approach from High End with its on-board media servers, Axon and Catalyst. The Giotto Digital 1500 uses DLP technology and has all-digital system graphic effects. The

still images and AVI-MPEG4 format video clip libraries can be updated wirelessly.

ROBE'S Digital Spot 3000 DT is the first moving digital light that combines an LED-based wash light in the front of the fixture. The fixture is rated at 2700 lumens from a single 200-watt projection lamp and is used for smaller projects. The Digital Spot 7000 DT is based on LCD and LED technology. It has one 330-watt projection lamp for 6500 lumens. Combining a digital projector and two 48-RGBW LED modules generates digital gobo effects and saturated colors with the one digital light.

With only three manufacturers releasing digital products to date, it will be interesting to watch the competition in this market unfold. As businesses go head to head in owning the digital market, LED options are plentiful and growing. Low- and high-resolution LED projection displays, both straight and malleable, and soft curtain and other shapes, such as tubes, strips, and tiles, offer more wide-ranging light-emitting options than do digital luminaires, which are limited to surface front or rear projection.

See Figure 17.6 for a list of digital lights.

MEDIA SERVERS

Media servers were designed to control media in a way that is intuitive for the lighting designer, director, or programmer through the DMX-512 protocol. Because media server parameters often exceed 512 channels in a show, and considering other conventional and moving luminaires, this pushes control to limits that require organizing show control through multiple universes (a universe equals one DMX grouping of 512 channels). Generally, a letter is used to separate each universe; for example, A512 would be conventional lighting, LED, and effects; B512 would represent moving lights; and C512 and D512 would represent digital luminaires and media servers.

Whereas the digital luminaire is essentially a unique projection light source with beam shape, intensity, and color, the media server is a sophisticated computer that stores video clips and still images libraries. It can be used to manipulate any of those images with color, effects, and image correction to surfaces (curved or flat) through digital light sources, or similarly manipulate images that appear through various LED screens.

The lighting control manufacturers have adapted quickly to bring visualization, media, and lighting together in user-friendly, all encompassing consoles and software, enabling switching, programming, cue recording, and playback to come together in a logical way. It is a lot to be responsible for, and control is the key to managing the growing list of effects and functions that have been introduced to the lighting designer and director and push the media server frontier to produce live visual graphic presentations that audiences will enjoy.

MEDIA SERVER CAPABILITIES

Currently, about a dozen media server manufacturers offer products and accessories usable in this market. Only a few manufacturers are mentioned here as examples of the many features that media servers are capable of providing. Basically, the differences are variations in file storage capacity, graphics and effects capability, and the royalty-free content selection that is included with the media server package. However, a set of standardized hardware components is needed to fulfill the basic functionality of a media server and generate effects that all the makers have. The media server will have a computer, containing:

• A large amount of hard-drive storage for the content
• Ahigh-performance graphic scard
• A control interface, for either DMX or Ethernet

Ethernet is a standard communications protocol embedded in software and hardware devices, intended for building a local area network, or LAN. Media servers send a screen signal from the video output of the computer to projectors and light-emitting media, such as high- or low-resolution LED screens or fixtures. If it requires DMX controls, the media server generates the DMX data from the video pixels internally and sends the data to the lights. Each media server manufacturer will have distinct features that will ultimately be sent to the light source or projection, and many of those are standard fare among all the makers, such as keystone correction, rotate, color, and scale of images. Manufacturers sometimes change the labels for standard functions, using a descriptive proprietary name such as “Collage Generator,” which the High End Systems Axon server uses (Figure 17.7), which does the same thing (blending several digital lights together to form one seamless image) as “Soft Edge Blending” by Coolux International's Pandora's Box media server.

With standard functions fulfilled, the media servers vary in features and price (normally in direct proportion to how advanced they are), including the library content offered, pixel mapping (a video scaling technique used in display devices), or audio data synchronization features.

MBox

An example of advancement, Production Resource Group (PRG) used the technology developed from the early roots of the Medusa Icon M for their design of the M Box Extreme. The M Box Extreme is a single server rack unit equipped with two video outputs that can be used to drive a projector, LED wall, or other light-emitting displays. This unit stores up to 65,535 videos and still images! Large production clients will use multiple M Box servers (up to 14 so far) to get the flexibility they want. The Madonna tour used a single server playing high-definition (HD) content then split the video out to drive several screens, lending perfect synchronization between screens.

Green Hippo

Green Hippo developed different products to satisfy small to large users. Hippotizer Express uses one standard definition output and larger applications by linking servers for multiple-machine interaction via Hippo Net, which uses standard LAN technology to allow multiple servers and control computers to communicate and share elements to create one control grid. The Hippotizer V3 system is made up of multiple building blocks called “components.” Each component is specifically dedicated to running a control screen, outputting video to displays, and listening to DMX.

V4 Media Server

Catalyst refined their original version to produce V4 Media Server and software, that supports Mackie control hardware and other MIDI devices including Behringer BCF200 and MIDI keyboards. This is the first version of Catalyst that offers alternative control, but DMX still reigns king in concert lighting control. The Pro version of Catalyst has 6 on-screen output mixes and 12 independent assignable layers. multiple on-screen mixes mean that show operators can break down their set designs and run different effects over different sets of LED fixtures, LED wall controllers or projectors at the same time. The Catalyst has been discontinued since High End and Barco merged companies, but at the time of this writing, Catalyst V.4 and earlier models are still widely used in concert productions.

Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box Media Server has given rise to the products Media Server Pro, Media Server STD 8 video, and Media Server LT 4. Each product adds more features than the last, increasing the amount of video, graphic layers, and redundant arrays of independent disks (RAID) for up to 500 GB of hard disk space.

As you can see, the digital luminaires and media servers are as complicated and as large as your budget and imagination will allow. To create and produce sophisticated visuals on a smaller scale, the media server is already a capable tool for concert lighting visual expansion that can be assured of exponential product development.

CONTENT

Building a show using a media server requires content. One the most powerful features of a media server is the ability to combine and modify content in many different ways. This allows users who use only stock content to do so in an original way, such as taking a still image and manipulating it with an automatic motion effect, texture, or color.

The various media server manufacturers use different methods to provide content, and an important feature is the stock video clip library that is unique to each server. Generally, a content provider, such as Art Beats (artbeats.com) or Digital Juice (digital juice. com), license Quick Time short film loops for everything from aerial views of New York City by helicopter, to underwater tropical fish swimming through clear oceans, to violent weather patterns or gentle nature. The licensing is for extended periods of time; for example, for the lifetime of all DL.2's will be permitted use on only certain clips licensed in bulk for that unit. Green Hippo allows users to choose DVDs of content suitable for their show requirements. Once the content is purchased or licensed for a rental media server from a company such as PRG, the content is royalty free to use in any live form worldwide or broadcast that it may appear in.

Using the content responsibly is somewhat self-policed by the users and vendors, although there are ways to preclude custom content from ending up in someone else's show as a media server moves from one tour to another. Mark Hunt, Electronics and Software Engineer at PRG in Birmingham England, explained two ways that the company is addressing potential license breach problems. “All our content is encrypted and can only be played on a genuine, licensed M Box. We make our encryption available to our clients, so they can protect their content in the same way. This protects against casual theft from an unattended unit, and it keeps our stock content providers happy, too. All of our media servers are ‘cleaned’ between rentals, so there is no risk of us giving a client's custom content away accidentally.” Every lighting designer will have access to the same media server or digital light tools. Content selection and timing will be the key differences between one show and another. See Figure 17.8 for a list of media server and software manufacturers.