As part of this refurbishment, Network 10 lighting director Pete Koole examined ways to make his lighting rig more cost effective, reliable and easier to use. During his research he came across the Philips Selecon PL1 LED luminaire. "I could see straight away that the PL1 LED had great potential as keylight in the news studio", he says. Koole now owns 18, all fitted with wireless receivers and he is delighted with them.
The PL1s have addressed a number of issues. Koole's newsroom is situated at the bottom of a five-story atrium and vulnerable to fluctuating colour temperatures from the changing ambient natural light. He also has to deal with a suspended lighting grid cluttered with acoustic baffles and other studio hardware. The PL1 LED wireless receivers require no DMX cabling, however there is capability to run DMX from the receiver to other non-wireless luminaires such as florescent softlights. This makes each PL1 receiver a mini DMX 'Hub' for the rest of the rig and allows Koole to do a total re-rig in a couple of hours instead of the eight or so it used to take.
"The studio lights are on and off from 5.00am in blocks ranging from 15 minutes to three hours until 10.30pm," Koole explains. "My main keylights averaged 10-12 hours per day. The beauty of the PL1 is that we can turn them on and off without worrying about the halogen cycle. With the MSRs we had to run them for at least 20-30 minutes to avoid failure of the lamps or components."
Energy saving has also been a goal of the Ten Network so being able to reduce the power draw from the 250W MSRs and 220W fluorescents to the 90W of the PL1s was a huge bonus.
(Jim Evans)