Pharos - Leaderboard - May 2024

Video and AV

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UK - Operated by Kirklees Council, the Town Halls of Huddersfield and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire boast stunning Grade II-listed Victorian architecture and interior design, and are used for a wide variety of entertainment events, conferencing and presentations. The Council recently sought to make enhancements to visual provision at the Halls, with a view to future-proofing and improving the overall quality for screenings at meetings, conferences and general events.
Andrew Wrixon, technical manager for Kirklees Town Halls, explains: “At Huddersfield Town Hall, we were motivated to buy a new projector as our existing one was 10-15 years old and failing in terms of light output. We host Council conference events using visual presentations that could be difficult to see with full stage and house lights on. Also we’ve increased the range of activity in the hall to include the

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Canada - The Screen Industries Research and Training (SIRT) Centre at Sheridan College is one of Canada’s leading Technology Access Centres (TAC), dedicated to research, applied learning, and innovation in the screen industries. Located at Pinewood Toronto Studios in the heart of the city’s entertainment district, SIRT is a premier destination for film, television, and gaming professionals to test and validate emerging technologies and new workflows.
One of SIRT’s main roles in the industry is to explore emerging trends to encourage innovation and technological advancement. For the past several years, SIRT has been prioritizing virtual production for film and television, working with some of the country’s top studios including Pixomondo and Spin VFX on research and validation. A key area of focus is on in-camera visual effects for productions filmed in LED volumes.

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France - A pioneering series of immersive concerts by French electronics maestro Jean-Michel Jarre was hosted recently by Radio France. It took place during their Hyper Weekend Festival in Paris, and was staged at their La Maison de la Radio HQ.
Planned as a homage to pioneering electronic musician, Pierre Henry, who had bequeathed a series of sounds to Jean-Michel Jarre during his lifetime, Oxymore a brand new musical creation by Jarre, was performed twice daily across three days. It was broadcast and live VR streamed to tens of thousands of viewers, while audiences of 250, immersed in the 360° space, witnessed it live.
The event followed his successful Welcome to the Other Side Notre Dame Cathedral VR experience, which took place last New Year’s Eve during lockdown. The Radio France live performances were broadcast via radio and streamed in 6DoF binaur

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Germany - LED specialists, Absen has appointed Jaswinder Guleria as industry development director for the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. Bringing two decades of experience within the AV industry, Guleria will expand and strengthen the company’s business alliances throughout the MEA region, to bolster Absen’s global network.
Reporting to Ruben Rengel, senior vice president, global business development at Absen, Guleria’s primary objectives will be identifying and introducing Absen to potential clients, consultants, and distributors in the region, to forge new business associates and partners in Absen’s global network.
Guleria - whose industry experience includes more than 19+ years in the visual display market - joins the global LED display manufacturer, having previously worked alongside brands such as Philips, Samsung, LG, and Epson.
Ruben Rengel

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UK - Television lighting specialist Version 2 has appointed Kelly Cornfield to the position of sales director at their Reading operation.
Graduating with a degree in Live Event Technology, Cornfield began her career at the Vari-Lite warehouse in 2002 (later VLPS). After a year out travelling in New Zealand, she returned to the warehouse, since acquired by PRG, and moved to an office role, working under project manager Mick Healey on major events including the Robbie Williams’ 2006 World Tour to the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.
Cornfield went on to focus on the TV market covering numerous shows including the Brit & MTV Music Awards, X Factor, Britain’s got Talent and more recently The Masked Singer.
Over the last 20 years she worked her way up the ranks to become head of T

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India - Christie laser projectors have been deployed for a spectacular projection mapping show at the historic Red Fort in Old Delhi, a 17th century monument and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to commemorate 75 years of India’s independence.
Titled Matrubhumi or Motherland in Hindi, the 30-minute visual spectacle made its debut on 25 March as one of the major highlights of the Red Fort Festival, which showcases India’s rich history and a kaleidoscopic diversity in art, heritage and culture.
For this performance, the Lahori Gate and its surrounding walls are illuminated by 19 Christie D20WU-HS 1DLP laser projectors installed and commissioned by Christie’s longstanding partner, MSS World, known for numerous high-profile, large-scale projects across India. The show’s mesmerizing contents were designed by Knownsense Studios, which specializes in conten

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UK - Sam Healey, formerly of PRG, has joined television lighting specialists Version 2 as lighting gaffer, bringing extensive knowledge of the entertainment and events industry built up over 24 years.
Healey’s father Mick Healey, retired account director at PRG UK, introduced Healey to the industry back in 1999. Starting in cables at Vari-Lite, Sam worked his way round the departments from lanterns and follow spots to moving lights and rigging and in the early days would take his holidays and weekends to go out on site.
When PRG acquired Vari-Lite, Healey became full time crew member as events co-ordinator touring extensively and has enjoyed working on countless rock and roll gigs over the years, notably the Led Zeppelin 2007 gig at the O2 Arena, and more recently as event manager on TV productions and red-carpet events.
He acknowledges his father and Rich G

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Europe - Avocor is exhibiting several new innovations at ISE 2022 including the full Google Meet Series One product portfolio. ISE will be the first time, since the strategic partnership with Google was announced in August 2021, that both products will be showcased side-by-side.
“We can’t wait to debut Google Meet Series One at ISE 2022 in Barcelona,” says Scott Hix, CEO, Avocor. “With Google Meet Series One Desk 27 and Board 65, we’re now able to offer everyone meeting equity through shared devices for team meeting spaces and a personal device for your desktop - elevating the ability to see, hear and participate from anywhere - helping customers to connect and succeed in the evolved modern workplace.” Series One products will also be on show at the Google booth 2G220.
Visitors to the Avocor booth will also see its recently launched E Series and the Teams-c

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USA - Christie Digital has announced Hideaki Onishi as its new chairman and CEO. With more than 30 years of management experience in various positions within the Ushio group – parent company of Christie - Hideaki will begin his role immediately to lead Christie into its next chapter. Hideaki will replace Kazuhisa Kamiyama, who has completed his tenure with Christie and is returning to Japan to take up a new role at Ushio headquarters.
“It’s a great honour to lead Christie,” says Onishi. “Christie has a proud legacy of continued innovation, in its products, manufacturing, and in its ever-evolving business models. I aim to bring strong leadership and to honour principles of respect, transparency and integrity. Kazuhisa’s work was pivotal in navigating Christie through the many challenges faced in both the industry and the wider economy in recent years. I look forwa

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UK - Panasonic has announced availability of its new PT-FRQ60 1-Chip DLP projector with 6,000lm brightness designed to deliver detail, colour and smooth motion for a wide variety of sectors, including offices, STEM classrooms, digital museums, and eSports entertainment attractions.
Panasonic has added Quad Pixel Drive to its proven 1-Chip DLP SOLID SHINE Laser technology to produce smooth, sharp and detailed 4K images for deeper content engagement. Smooth 240Hz image processing increases the sense of realism with fine textures resolved in grid-less images. Rich Colour Enhancer delivers accurate colours, faithfully reproducing content as the creator intended. Fast-paced action is clearly rendered at frame rates up to 240Hz/1080p with below 8ms latency.
In addition, the PT-FRQ60 is compatible with Panasonic’s ET-SWR10 Real-Time Tracking Projection Mapping System, a re

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USA - tvONE and Green Hippo are inviting programmers, operators and designers who use Green Hippo’s Hippotizer range of media servers or tvONE’s CORIOmaster family of video processors to take part in the CONECT Control Competition.
Launched at tvONE’s CONECT Summit, which focused on how tvONE, Magenta and Green Hippo products can help professionals reimagine the AV landscape, the competition aims to showcase some of the best-use cases of the companies’ solutions for creative control.
Prizes of up to $1,000 will be awarded to the best entries in three categories: CORIOmaster Video Processors; Hippotizer Media Servers; and creative install using tvONE or Hippotizer products.
Submissions opened on 5 April and remain open until 14 May, with the winners announced soon after. To enter, contestants need to fill out an online submissions form and attach a file th

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USA - Evolve Technology is a video gear rental company serving the live event and virtual production industries, with offices across the U.S. The company’s ethos is built around the three equal pillars of rent, buy, and learn, where clients can get customised packages to meet their production needs, as well as hands-on education and training so that teams feel confident using any new piece of equipment. In the past several years Evolve has successfully expanded into virtual production consulting and training.
Recently, the company opened its new Evolve CX (Customer Experience) space in the Atlanta BeltLine. Evolve CX is a technology laboratory aimed at education and training specifically for the virtual production market, where professionals can gain valuable hands-on experience and creative studios can develop and demo content for their clients. The Evolve CX team, led by

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UK - Stars including The Who, Yungblud, Paul Weller, Liam Gallagher and Ed Sheeran took to the stage at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust, backed by Production AV’s cameras, screens, servers and crew.
Taking place over seven consecutive nights, the series of live music and comedy gigs were performed as fundraisers for the Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT), which provides care for people aged 13-24 with cancer. It was the second time Production AV supplied kit and crew for the events.
This year’s set up comprised Production AV’s Desay M6 LED panels as a central 8m x 4.5 screen flown above The Royal Albert Hall’s iconic stage and a large, curved 23.2m x 0.9m banner of LED screen across the back of the main stage, to help drive donations. This was supported with a camera package for the relay of real-life stories and live perfor

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Austria - AV Stumpfl recently released a new online information platform for its rapidly growing Pixera media server user community called the Pixera knowledge base.
In addition to combining the latest written Pixera documentation with video tutorials and animated clips of key topics, visitors to the knowledge base can also contact the Pixera team by creating a support ticket from the same interface.
The knowledge base covers topics related to Pixera media server hardware, software and the new show control system Pixera control.
Pixera control is a distributed, software-based integration and control framework that empowers users to seamlessly host new functionalities within the Pixera media server system and to control all aspects of an extended project environment. Anything users create and integrate can be distributed across their connected systems and shares i

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UK - PTZOptics, manufacturer of robotic cameras, has announced an extension to their distribution partnership with the Midwich Group into the UK and Ireland. Midwich (UK) and Square One (Ireland) now offer the full range of PTZOptics products, including from sister brands HuddleCamHD and TallyLights.
This partnership expands PTZOptics’s relationship with the Midwich Group, the global distributor of AV products that includes Midwich, Square One, and Starin, a current distribution partner for PTZOptics in North America.
“It’s been amazing to see, in less than a decade, the growth of PTZOptics into a truly international brand,” says Will Golde, director of channel development for PTZOptics. “Midwich Group is the ideal partner to help bring PTZOptics into new markets in the UK and Ireland. With their deep understanding of customer needs in the broadcast space, te

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UK - Hive Media Control has unveiled a new generation of media playback and control systems comprising four hardware video media players that promise to "dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of media player solutions". The product family has been designed for use by AV integrators, architects, event producers, show designers, and brand activations. The four products are known simply as Player_1, _2, _3 and _4. They deliver HD, 4K, 4K SDI and 8K SDI respectively, with the SDI models also supporting genlock from a reference sync source.
The range utlises the latest embedded GPUs by NVIDIA, and is said to offer "outstanding performance at a fraction of the cost and footprint" compared with other systems on the market.
Hive was founded by Dave Green, Trey Harrison and Mark Calvert, who have together delivered video systems for global projects including the London Ol

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UK - Crewing platform Entourage Pro (EP) has launched its free to use and join freelance production crew resource. The service connects and sources freelance production crew and underpins traditional word-of-mouth methods for finding work and sourcing crew.
Partnered by major manufacturers of production technology including Robe, Avolites, Yamaha, d&b audiotechnik, MDG, Chainmaster and Marshall, EP is an online network of crew that has already secured thousands of members from over 60 countries around the world.
Initial uptake is being extended by EP’s partnership with Showcase Music, with the platform being promoted to over 350,000 rental companies, artists, labels, management, venues and production and tour managers from across the globe.
Searches by role, experience, availability, credentials, visas, rates, languages, qualifications and much more, gives

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USA - The eight-time Grammy Award-winner and R&B superstar Usher Raymond IV recently headlined a Las Vegas residency. Opened at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in July 2021, Usher delivered 12 shows in total – eight in July, three in December, and a final event on 1 January, 2022.
BrainHub and LMG Touring & Entertainment, both part of Entertainment Technology Partners (ETP), worked closely together and with the singer’s crew to design a larger-than-life experience featuring more than 500 moving lights, creative LED, and video solutions.
“When the pandemic first hit we did some work with Usher in our studio out in Vegas. That wasn’t based on LED setup, but we were very good at bringing team’s vision to life and serving it with a solution that directly corresponded their requirements,” says David Luchsinger, director of LED services at ETP BrainHub.

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The Netherlands - The Jeroen Pit House, a new children’s transitional care unit in Amsterdam, is now completed and ready to welcome chronically ill children and their families when the facility officially opens on 11 May.
With support from the AV community, the building boasts a sophisticated systems integration tailored to the special needs of its users. At a celebratory event last week, Mike Blackman, managing director of Integrated Systems Events and Wendy Griffiths, VP engagement and global development at CEDIA were in attendance to congratulate the project team on this achievement.
The Jeroen Pit House has been championed by ISE, along with ISE’s co-owners CEDIA and AVIXA, since planning began more than three years ago. The build has been supported with generous contributions from the AV industry to complete the eight apartments, dedicated cinema and presentati

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UK - As if reopening the venue after a little problem with storm Eunice wasn’t enough, UB40 managed to implement several notable firsts of their own for their show at London’s slightly ragged O2 Arena on 25 February.
“Grant Hickey, who took the reins as LD in 2018 was stranded in Australia by travel restrictions,” explains Oli Metcalfe. “Things in our business are currently so unstable but we have to roll with it. Fortunately Grant set me up with a starting showfile which I ran with and then added to on the load-in day. Even so, it was quite something to go in hot with nothing more than a quick sound check for the London show.”
Metcalfe had formerly designed for UB40 himself and indeed on that last tour had directed video while Hickey ran the lights. “Luckily mine and Grant’s histories with the band goes back some way and this design is still his. With t

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Europe - LED manufacturer Absen has announced the start of a new recruitment phase in a bid to further expand its global partnership network.
Supporting the growth of the LED market, Absen – who currently operate in over 130 countries – is set to expand its global network of systems integrators and rental stagers by reaching out to other like-minded businesses who may apply to become an Absen partner representative in its commitment to remain market leaders globally.
Absen currently boasts 13 domestic and overseas offices, employing over 2,000 staff and representatives who are responsible for the completion of over 50,000 projects to date. To further establish the global partnerships already fostered from two decades in the LED industry, the company is committed to welcoming ‘businesses with similar ideologies, vision and drive’.
“We have, and will cont

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Turkey - Earlier this year, Istanbul production company Autonomy partnered with virtual production facility MGX Studio and Formula 1 to deliver an immersive commercial project for the country’s financial hub and official sponsors of last year’s Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix, Istanbul Financial Centre (IFC). The project was filmed at MGX Studio, with Brompton Technology Tessera processing delivering optimum colour management for the LED wall.
From extreme close-ups of the F1 vehicle and the driver, to the revving engine sounds as the car navigates through the streets of Istanbul, and images of IFC reflected on the driver’s helmet, MGX Studio’s virtual production facility offered a spread of creative possibilities to the Autonomy team.
“Achieving optimum colour profiles and creating realistic reflections and natural background lighting were key challenges for t

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Italy - Green Hippo has appointed Prase Media Technologies as its new distributor in Italy.
Working on applications in the install, retail and rental channels, Prase will distribute the full range of Green Hippo’s Hippotizer Media Servers and in addition, tvONE products.
“We are excited to announce Prase as the latest distributor for Green Hippo,” says Frithjof Becker, EMEA sales director, Green Hippo by tvONE. “Our goal is to continue developing the growth of Green Hippo product lines within the retail and rental markets in Italy. We can’t wait to see the next set of impressive projects featuring Green Hippo and tvONE products.”
“We welcome Green Hippo’s premium media servers in our catalogue, and are thrilled to offer to Italian professionals the best-in-class technologies for creating an engaging and stunning multimedia experience,” says Luc

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Sweden - Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra performed a ‘musical adventure’ at the imposing Göteborgs Konserthus recently, enveloped in video projections driven by Hippotizer Media Servers.
The 90-minute orchestral performance, entitled The Crescendoing City, immersed the audience in a ‘visual flow’ designed to complement the piece.
Stockholm-based Pixelfield Studios - styled PXLFLD - was commissioned by the Gothenburg Symphonic Orchestra to design a visual concert experience based on ‘The City’ as an overarching concept. The PXLFLD team responded to the brief by considering what defines a city, taking in architecture, communications, culture and, most importantly, people. Over two nights of performances, audiences were treated to sweeping cityscapes, eerie urban scenes and flashes of abstract colour and patterns.
“We needed a reliable
  1. North Star Engineers equips Global Mercy hospital ship
  2. Rocco’s Bar & Gusto transforms with Harman Pro
  3. Whitwam delivers St George's Chapel AV upgrade
  4. Brompton Tessera processes Frozen on Drury Lane
  5. Brompton joins AV Innovation Days 2022
  6. Evolve expands relationship with Theatrixx
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