These two Pixelation Luminaires are quickly making their way around the world, specified on high-profile events that you can read about on this website (click on the LD's highlighted name for a link to the story and photos in our news section). Here's what the pros-who-know say what SHOWPIX and StudioPix can do for their event.
Craig Gaff, Gaffworld:
"Until I saw what Lawrence Upton was doing (on The Crystal Method tour) the only thing I had seen people use the SHOWPIX or StudioPix for was either as a big wash light or for pumping video through them and very little else. But StudioPix was doing things like having one scene in a shape and a color and then the next a different shape in either a different color or multiple colors. I loved how the StudioPix were matching the LEDs on the SHOWGUNs in the show. That just made my mind pop as to what you could really do with this fixture. The only limit is one’s imagination really. Like say a wall of them on a game show starting with a small swirl in each fixture until it grows to where the whole wall is one big swirl. These could be the ultimate eye candy in so many different applications. I'm also thinking of these in either Latin or Asian markets where there is no such thing as ‘over the top.' "
LD Lawrence "Loz" Upton, The Crystal Method:
"I absolutely love the SHOWPIX. What a great job. These machines are awesome. Client in the rehearsal room thought they were awesome, too. Great job, guys."
"One of the more exceptional qualities of the StudioPix was the ability to snap change color. Instantaneous is more like it; yes, I realize that they’re LED, and yes, I realize that my photoreceptors are still going to be processing the color shift milliseconds after it really happens. You just can’t comment on the brilliance of the fixture’s illumination quality until your rods and cones have absorbed it.
"Something that I never thought I would like from the StudioPix - the built-in animations - I actually very much appreciated during the shows. I was surprised at how bright they were as well, and I was surprised how good they looked both coming from the fixture, and from the affect they had on the line of the audience. It probably helped that the lighting designer knew which ones to use at the right time, too - you know, that crazy design sense! The intensity of the StudioPix’ animations added a level of art to the overall picture that completely fit the music’s intensity, and they were used well. The LED quality of light just adds such a 'magical' quality to the atmosphere at a show, especially at such intensity; it may sound like an elementary thing to say, but LED light appears so worldly different than arc light to the audience. It vibrates; you have to keep the way the eye works in mind when designing, and the StudioPix (and similar LED fixtures) provides another quality of light to consider."
LD Johnny R. Goode, Disco Biscuits tour:
"I fell in love with the StudioPix as a washlight at first. I like its even spread. There are no holes, there is no drop off of light – it’s a completely even wash. It’s the best washlight because I don’t have to have a direct path for it – I can put it on the side of the stage and it can still go around a member of the band and still light another member on the other side and because it doesn’t have a sharp edge, it doesn’t create sharp shadows of the objects obstructing the light’s path."
"One thing I’ve found is that with a normal incandescent lamp, you can tell the color temperature drops between old and new lamps. With the StudioPix it doesn’t matter, the LEDs are all the same constant color temperature, there’s no drop between old and new units, and every day they come on and they’re the same and in a year they’re all going to look the same. There’s no worry so that’s a very good benefit to the light and it helps with the consistency that I’m looking for."
LD Howard Strawbridge, NBC 'Today' Show:
"The gear was more than I expected. I have changed my mind about the SHOWPIX - I like it a lot...I can't even express how impressed I am with these units."
LD Manfred “Vossi” Voss, “Wetten dass...? “: “I use 12 SHOWPIX in Europe’s biggest Live-TV Show `Wetten dass…?`(aka ‘Beat That...?’), produced by ZDF German television every 5 weeks. In this show I use SHOWPIX as an extreme bright wash light plus as a creative video-effects tool to enhance the musical acts at this live event. I am fully convinced of the brightness of SHOWPIX, so I can also use it for filigree and powerful video effects in my design. Modifying and controlling the color and the color effects with the stock content gives me many variations just the way I need it. This gives me the wide spectrum of usage of SHOWPIX in my design with ever-changing artists and set designs within the show. The SHOWPIX with their huge 18-inch output beam combined with the high output just looks BIG in the cameras...and they don’t hide behind the other 100 spot and wash lights used on the show.”
"It is the innovative fixture of the year for me. High End Systems has reinvented the LED washlight category. Using this LED washlight to light things in combination with the new option to do an external pixelmapping and use the fixure as a display device allows us to create new and never-before-seen looks, no matter what kind of event it is brought to. Well, it is big but it's OK because there is its smaller brother, StudioPix, out there now. I always wondered about those guys at High End Systems in Austin, Texas and what they do in their 'secret room.' Now I really know!"
LD Mikki Kunttu, KTU Band:
"SHOWPIX is an extremely expressive fixture. It has a very strong character in terms of stage appearance.
Also it is a perfect companion to SHOWGUN, sharing the same aesthetics and opening new doors in a similar creative way.
In brightness and color it is second to none.
One great thing about the SHOWPIX is that you can use it as a LED pixel display, as a wash light or even as a blinder – and all this within the same song if you will!"
Michael Keeling, Project-X:
"Recently I had the opportunity to review the new SHOWPIX at the HES Los Angeles office. My first response was 'What The ???? Is this Monster?' I left the demo in mind to use its impressive range of graphic, movement, on board media server and brilliant color capabilities. At my next music video project I pitched the fixtures to my Director Simon Brand, a well know Latin director. Simon was awestruck by the SHOWPIX and its capabilities to enhance our music video. My design was a performance vignette with the SHOWPIX as the accent for the visual. On production day the fixture was very impressive. They were exactly what the shots required. They worked solid, produced a big bang visual effect using four fixtures, and again the color was very impressive and worked fluid with the Wholehog 3 control and SHOWPIX's internal media server. I was extremely happy, so was my client and the artist Fanny Lu.
I look forward using the SHOWPIX in mass quantities in the near future."
Martin Kuhn, Nature One Festival:
"It is awesome, bright, leaves an impact, and you can do all kinds of interesting new stuff with it. It is great for a rave (where I used it first) or a concert or TV special, and I hope also as a good cyclight. I have a show next week where I hope to light a 60’by 24’ cyc with 8 of them from 10’ in front/top. It was definitely a highlight of the Nature One festival and had the prime location assigned at the center of the main dance floor. Colors were great, and after getting around all the many parameters, I found a seemingly endless variety of effects. We had at first planned to use the extended mode and Pixelmapping, but due to lack of programming time decided to revert to the in-built efx. We never felt the lack of possibilities and I expect to see them around quite a bit. In combination with the LED ring on the 8 SHOWGUNs that we also had in the rig, we were able to achieve some really unique LED looks with very fast color changes and colored strobing."
“This exciting new tool has crossed a crucial bridge between screen content and lighting. SHOWPIX is not only a powerful lighting instrument with a wide range of applications for illumination, but it also is graphic and scenic. It has the intriguing ability to animate the LEDs on the face of the instrument, which gives this instrument an entirely new potential that no other moving light has had to this point. It is an entirely new class of instrumentation.”
The units rendered color very nicely and my only consideration for use in broadcast was that the light was so enthusiastic in regard to output, that we had to run them at 25 percent! When up full, they put out a formidable quantity of lumens.”
I found by moving the instrument while delivering content on the mini-LED screens creates a disarming and rather compelling visual. Programming was painless due to the file of patterns and images that have been compiled so far. I would imagine that use of this new approach to content/lighting (“contighting” or “lightent”?) would allow for many creative applications beyond that of a specialty instrument. We found the lights to be rather easy to hook up and calibration was quick enough to allow us to set, cable and calibrate 18 luminaires within a three-minute commercial break.”
“When all is said and done, I am excited about this new device that can allow a designer to combine two of the most powerful tools in entertainment, screen content and lighting, into one flexible instrument. Bravo!"
LD Matt Mills, 3 Doors Down tour:
“I just got back from a long pre-production day. When I finally got to mess around with them, (ShowPix), everyone stopped dead in their tracks and pretty much said, ‘What the hell is that?” These things are killer! I was a little concerned about them because I had only seen them in the video and at High End’s demo room; I was wondering what they would look like 35-feet up in a rig. Well, they’re surprisingly bright and definitely stand out. These things rock!”
Geoffrey Platt, Production People Inc:
"Simply amazing. Great job on another out of the box concept! I love it."
Ron Ruehling, Ruehling & Associates:
"Well engineered, alone in its class, and BRIGHT!"
LD Adam Dunaway, Dunaway Designs:
"What a cool fixture! This is the type of product development I love about High End Systems. No one has thought of this yet with LED fixtures. Pixel mapping at a moving yoke fixture level... Brilliant."
LD Ryan Hay, City Entertainment Systems:
"The High End R&D team never ceases to amaze me. Within the last year, High End has blown away Martin and every other competitor out of the water. The SHOWPIX seems like an absolutely awesome fixture. Keep up the good work!"
