Barco ‘Ups the Ante’ at Hard Rock's New Joint
$60 MILLION EXPANSION OF LAS VEGAS ENTERTAINMENT VENUE DISTINGUISHES ITSELF
WITH NEW HIGH END SYSTEMS LIGHTING AND CONTROL PRODUCTS

The new entertainment venue at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas has recently installed a line of High End Systems lighting and control products. The New Joint, with a price tag of $60-million, held its star-studded grand opening April 17-19 with concerts by The Killers, Avenged Sevenfold and Paul McCartney.

Montreal-based Solotech and The Joint’s Lighting Designer Alex Ares handled the installation, which includes 13 High End Systems SHOWGUNs, 4 DL.3 digital lights with a D-Tek D-Mix Pro switcher, 2 SHOWPIX pixelation luminaires and a Road Hog Full Boar console.

Says Alex Ares, “I chose the SHOWGUNs to add an edge over every house rig in Vegas. They are tons of fun and their ‘punch’ is just awesome! After having them in the old Joint for a year I feel like I can't be without them. They are a part of every design I've been doing. I also went with the DL.3s to add another dimension to my rig and added the D-Tek switcher to give my video guy three more cameras to play around with to enhance the overall experience to our customers. I like the Road Hog Full Boar console for control – it is very stable and user friendly.”

Says Ares, “We had an incredible opening weekend. The Killers just brought the house down and I’m still speechless by the show Sir Paul put on! The New Joint is an amazing venue and we’re going to see more incredible shows to come.”

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Axons Rock the Award-Winning ROK Vegas
SJ LIGHTING SPECS 15 MEDIA SERVERS FOR "EASE" OF THE SYSTEM

High End Systems Axon media servers played a big part in a Best Video System award for a Las Vegas club. SJ Lighting was honored in Club World magazine’s 2009 Club World Awards for the video system design in the Rok Vegas nightclub. Located in the New York New York Hotel & Casino, the club design features the first installation of a 360-degree seamless video screen in Las Vegas.

The video screen presented challenges in size and surface. “At 75 feet long by 40 feet wide by 12 feet high, and a 360-degree elliptical surface, it is not an easy screen onto which to project,” explains club designer Stephen Lieberman, president of SJ Lighting in Los Angeles. “The Axons made it possible to do such a unique installation.”

The Axon media server -- powered by the award-winning DL.3 graphics engine and featuring an extensive onboard collection of images -- proved to be the solution to this unique installation. Lieberman specified 15 Axons for the project. Lieberman says, “The Axon was our first choice of media servers for several reasons: ease of installation and software, ease of image blending, ease of curve correction, and DMX and Art-Net capabilities based on our control system specifications.”

He continues, “The Axon is an extremely robust machine with all of the tools we needed to get the job done. All of this is run from the lighting console, which allows us the flexibility to run the system in a ‘live’ environment. Cloning content from server to server is very simple – and all of the management functions of the server are very user friendly.”

Digital Media Design’s Scott Chmielewski programmed the 15 Axon media servers to project logos and powerful moving images onto the screen.

Because of the uniqueness of the design, Lieberman says tech support was also a key factor in his equipment specification. “High End Systems has always been known for its customer service and support – this was a critical factor when deciding to use the Axon server.  In these environments, it’s inevitable that we will be on the phone with tech support, and I knew the company would be there to back us up when we really needed it. This system’s high level of visibility meant that there was no room for error on the systems design. Overall, I’m very happy with the performance of this equipment and so is my client.”

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Barco/High End Systems Tour Updates

LD Butch Allen has specified 6 DL.3 digital lights in his design for No Doubt’s tour. Epic Production Technologies is the lighting contractor for the tour running May 2-Aug. 5 in North America.

The Dave Matthews Band North American Tour features 6 SHOWGUNs mounted to 6 pantagraphs (scissor-type retractable motorized moving light mounts) custom made by tour lighting contractor Theatrical Media Services (TMS) of Omaha, NE. LD Fenton Williams chose the SHOWGUNs to "ride" the pantographs “because of their intense light output capability and unique LED ring.” Additionally, TMS is supplying 14 Studio Beams, 17 Studio Command 1200 and 16 Studio Command 700s. The tour kicked off April 14 and runs through the beginning of October.

LD Jon “Hillbilly” Weir of Majestic Productions recently added a DMX Processor 8000 to his Wholehog 3 console system on the Chris Tomlin tour. “I have been very happy with the results,” he says. “With the DMX 8000, I noticed an immediate improvement in speed and reliability with the console.”

The v1.5 software release expands feature functionality and provides a host of improvements and updates for the DL.3 Digital Light and Axon media server. Major features include frame blending for smooth, slow motion playback, and the expansion of Collage Generator™ capability, which allows users to create a setup that is now up to 16 fixtures wide by eight fixtures high. A Segmented Collage feature enables advanced users to pre-slice their content to create large collages with high overall resolutions.

Another new feature is automatic content encoding validation. This unique process scans content as it is being loaded into the system to ensure correct encoding and trouble-free playback. For more features and the free download, go to http://www.highend.com/support/digital_lighting/dl3.asp.

Wholehog v3.0.3 Offers System Improvements

Wholehog software version 3.0.3 (Build 2452) has been recently released for the Wholehog 3 console, Road Hog, Road Hog Full Boar, Hog 3PC and Hog iPC console. Version 3.0.3 is a patch release that includes general system improvements and bug fixes to further enhance the stability of all Wholehog consoles. Go to www.flyingpig.com to download the new software and view release notes.

For more information on products or other offerings from Barco/High End Systems, please visit www.barco.com/events or contact your sales representative. If you received this email in error or want to unsubscribe, just reply with Unsubscribe in the subject line or fax us within the U.S. at 1-800-818-6014.