It's Show Time
By Joel Rollins, CTS-R Well, here we are in April. If you’re like most of the rental and staging industry, it’s show time. There’s an old saying that “April showers bring May flowers.” In rental, April showers are the things we barely have time to take between shows.
I sometimes wonder if people from outside our industry can possibly understand how time works for us during show season. Frankly, I wonder sometimes if even Stephen Hawking could understand how time works for us during show season.
The following things are the symptoms that you’re running on “show time”: - People paging you to ask where you are – from someplace you’re supposed to be three stops from now.
- After three days, your hotel room is littered with room service trays and empty Starbuck’s cups – but the bed is still made.
- Looking at your watch to see that it’s 3:10 – and you’re not sure if it means AM or PM any more.
- Walking in the door of your hotel room – only to answer the phone for your wake-up call.
- Sitting down at the head end table at 2 a.m. to review a cue sheet – and being awakened suddenly by the walk-in music.
- And the one that has actually happened to me several times over the last 20 years – waking up in a hotel room, like any other hotel room, and having to look at the phone book to remember what city you are in now.
This is made even more difficult by the client’s sense of time surrounding shows, which is time away from the schedule of the office. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been perched in a man lift, working on a recalcitrant video projector and watching my wristwatch tick away the hours until show time, when a client called me to ask if I wanted to play golf before the show. Remember that it is actually dangerous to laugh while standing in a lift with your tweaker in your mouth so you can handle the phone.
On top of all this, our time difficulties are always compounded by the meetings about the meetings… you know, the ones where we nervously look at our watches and answer text messages while we pretend to listen attentively to the report of the Garnish Committee about what the plates will be decorated with at the dinner. We wait patiently, drumming our fingers on the table, for the discussion to proceed to the AV support, only to have the rest of the committee finally ask us to “take it offline.”
When these things happen, it is all we can do to remember three important things: - They (the clients and their associates) have no idea what we do behind the scenes. They don’t need to, and we wouldn’t want them to.
- While we do this every day, they DON’T – and whether or not they admit it, it can be nerve-wracking for them, as their jobs may be on the line.
- If it weren’t for them, we’d be working “normal” jobs like everybody else. And I don’t know about you, but that idea is nerve-wracking for ME.
So, during this season, we run on coffee, adrenaline, and determination a lot of the time. What can we do about it? Nothing I’ve found so far, except to sleep when we can, and remember that summer is coming and we’ll wish we were this busy again.
Unless Mr. Hawking can somehow straighten out the flow of time for us. rAVe Rental [and Staging] contributor Joel R. Rollins, CTS-R, is General Manager of Everett Hall Associates, Inc. and is well known throughout the professional AV industry for his contributions to industry training and his extensive background in AV rental, staging and installation. Joel can be reached at Joel can be reached at joelrollins@mac.com
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Extron Announces Multi-Rate SDI to DVI and RGB/Component Converter Extron debuted the DVC 501 SD, which converts SDI, HD-SDI, and 3G-SDI serial digital video signals to DVI-D and analog RGB or component video formats. It extracts embedded AES3 audio, automatically equalizes incoming SDI signals to optimize transmission over long cables, and includes RS-232 serial control. The DVC 501 SD is ideal for applications including television production, medical imaging, military simulation, houses of worship, and live events that require interfacing SDI signals from broadcast-type sources to professional / consumer-level displays and signal distribution systems that only accept DVI or analog signals.
The DVC 501 SD is compliant with SMPTE 259M, 292M, 424M, and ITU digital video standards. It accepts data rates from NTSC and PAL to HDTV 1080p/60 and 2048×1080. An input loop-through delivers reshaped and restored multi-rate SDI signals for re-transmission over long cables. The RGB output can be set for RGBHV, RGBS, and RGsB. Bi-level or tri-level sync can be selected when the unit is set for component video output. For complete specs, go here: http://www.extron.com/product/product.aspx?id=dvc501sd
NICE box, for those of us in the middle of the SDI transition, allowing us to mix in our older displays, and smaller displays, as we push on into SDI.
–JRR
Back to Top Sony's Latest 40" LCD Touts Low Power Consumption Dubbed the FWDS42E1, Sony’s newest 42” LCD panel is a native 1920×1080 resolution display that’s designed for 24/7/365 operation in both portrait and landscape mounting configurations. At a list price of $1950, it claims to be one of the lowest power consumption LCDs on the market at 98 watts typical (hmmm…) operation and 0.5-watts in standby.
You can see all the specs at: http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/product/FWDS42E1
Everybody notice that the manufacturers are suddenly putting emphasis on low power consumption? In our purchasing, we should be too, as there’s little doubt that within a very short period of time clients (especially large corporations) will be asking about them when we quote shows.
–JRR
Back to Top Next-Gen Christie Series 2 Digital Cinema Projectors Now Showing For some theater owners, How to Train Your Dragon is not just the latest 3D movie to be released, but an accurate description for making the tech transition from yesterday’s 2D cinema to today’s 3D movie business. Christie is addressing this transition-apprehension with the Solaria series (beginning with the Christie CP2220), described by Christie as “the most practical, cost-effective solution today, based on time-tested, highly reliable DLP Cinema technology.”
Since shipments began in January and with orders coming in daily, Christie now confirms full production, shipping and installation of this latest generation of 4K-ready DLP Cinema projectors based on next-gen Series 2 DLP Cinema technology.
Designed to meet all Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) specs, the Christie Solaria is upgradeable to 4K digital cinema and features Christie Brilliant3D technology. Christie stresses these next-gen DLP Cinema projectors produce more light with less energy. They also say they made a lot of other improvements to the new Series 2 platform to make the units easier to service and simpler to operate. A dozen or so staging companies have purchased the DCI spec’d projectors for large-venue video applications.
Christie now leads digital cinema deployment with 70 percent of all digital cinema installations worldwide since the intro of DLP Cinema projectors (which Christie was also the first to market).
Go here to learn all about the Series-2 Digital Cinema Technology: http://www.christiedigital.com/AMEN/Products/christieCP2220.htm
Although this projector isn’t specifically designed for rental applications, as the story mentions, some staging companies are already buying into the 4K machines for large screen applications, especially where windowing and effects processors are in use.
–JRR
Back to Top NEC Adds 52" Pro LCD to P Series Ruggedized for rental applications but extremely affordable, the new 52” addition to NEC’s P Series LCD monitors, dubbed the P521, is a native 1920×1080 display that’s spec’d at 2000:1 contrast ratio, 700-peak cd/m2 light output and has both analog (VGA) and digital (HDMI and DVI) ports in addition to Display Port. It’s capable of being displayed in portrait or landscape modes and is shipping now.
To learn more, go to: http://www.nec-display-solutions.com
Looks like a nice panel for rentals — the small bezel size and ruggedized chassis will play well for those of you already renting into digital signage applications. The intehrated handles look nice, too — sure hope they’re removeable like the feet.
–JRR Back to Top Barco Buys Element Labs Barco announced this month that it has acquired the products, intellectual property (IP) rights and know-how of Element Labs, an LED video systems company based in Santa Clara, California. With a focus on mid-end market requirements in rental, staging and fixed installations, the Element Labs products will complement Barco's existing LED product range.
Barco told rAVe that the “Element Labs” name basically ceases to exist, effective immediately, and structured as an asset sales transaction, Barco obtains all product designs, rights and intellectual property of Element Labs, without assuming the liabilities of the former EL-company (aka: a good deal). As of today, the core team of Element Labs in Santa Clara, California, will function as Barco's competence center for creative LED solutions, whereas Barco Kuurne (Belgium) will remain the competence center for tiled LED solutions. Barco will announce its new mid-range LED products in the coming months.
For complete details, go to: http://www.barco.com/corporate/pressrelease/2499/
I mentioned in a previous column that Barco was stepping way outside the box of the traditional projection manufacturer, and this is yet another example.
–JRR
Back to Top Extron Launches New Presentation Classroom Controller/Switcher Extron has added a new all-purpose controller/switcher in the form of the MPS 409 — a switcher for integrating digital and analog signals. It combines five independent switchers in one rack-mountable enclosure: 3×1 HDMI with embedded audio, 2×1 DVI, 2×1 VGA/HDTV component video, 2×1 composite video, and 9×1 analog stereo audio. The MPS 409 is unique in that it has three switching modes: one, the Combine Switcher mode routes all digital sources to the HDMI output allowing a combination of up to five HDMI or DVI sources to be switched to the HDMI output; two, Single Switcher mode is basically real-time one-touch switching from any of the nine inputs – like staging/rental applications; and three, Separate Switcher mode segregates switching operations so that the MPS 409 operates as four separate video switchers under a single point of control. The MPS 409 will start shipping this month and you can see all the specs here: http://www.extron.com/product/product.aspx?id=mps409 Well, we all know flexibility is the name of the rental game, and at 1RU this could be a really handy device for getting our switch racks past the current state of mixed formats. For a better understanding of its use that the description gave (at least for me), check out the application diagram on Extron’s website.
–JRR
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