Media Servers for Lighting Programmers

CHAPTER 1 How Did We Get Here? A Brief Look at the Beginnings of Digital Lighting

When automated lighting first debuted, fixtures were extremely limited in the number of patterns that could fit in the unit. Manufacturers constantly pushed to develop fixtures with more gobos and effects in response to demand from lighting designers. However, the trade off as manufacturers developed new products was larger, heavier lighting fixtures with as many as three gobo wheels. But there is an upper limit to the size of a fixture you want to hang on a truss. These fixtures, while providing more than 20 patterns in some cases, simply took up more space in the rig. Other factors like price (some of these fixtures cost upwards of US$10,000 each) were also prohibitive. ...