UK - CAST is pulling out all the stops for PLASA 2012 with the debut of not one, but four new products, plus an educational seminar. PLASA will be held at Earls Court in London, 9-12 September and CAST will be exhibiting in Stand 1-E27.

The latest wysiwyg release, R29, has so many new features and improvements, your job instantly becomes more proficient, more professional and more profitable, says the company. New features in R29 include the ability to touch select fixtures and manipulate in Shaded View, create camera flies in 6D, a new six degrees of freedom camera system, drawing purge, truss end indicators, multi-rotate, enhancements to the Layer Database Window, gyroscope, world grid and more.

BlackTrax V1 is an Ethernet-based, powerful, fast, and accurate solution that tracks objects or people in a defined 3D 'space' and "delivers the dynamic positional data in realt

UK - Allen & Heath is introducing a new product to its range at PLASA, the ICE-16, a 16 In/16 Out audio interface allowing performers and audio engineers to easily capture high quality multi-track recordings direct to a USB drive or interface to a computer.

Fitted into a compact 1U rack design, ICE-16 is capable of studio quality interfacing, converting and bi-directional streaming of 16 channels over high-speed USB or FireWire at 24 bit, 96kHz resolution. Alternatively, 16 channels can be simultaneously recorded straight to a USB hard drive or memory stick at up to 24bit 48kHz resolution .wav file. The ICE-16 is expandable, so you can link units together and synchronize recording of many channels

ICE-16 connects to any audio mixer or analogue source using ¼" jacks for the inputs and RCA phono connectors for the outputs. Signal and peak metering is provided for each chan

UK - Cogent Lighting is showing a selection of its current LED solutions and products on the stand of the Cooper Controls Group at the PLASA exhibition in Earl's Court, London. (Hall 1, booth E38).

Highlighted are the latest white light fixtures, utilising the state-of-the-art high powered LED technologies and offering 0 -100% dimming. These are ideal for theatre and performance lighting applications needing ultra smooth dimming.

The series encompasses a whole range of down-lighters from 3 to 46 Watts - all available in cold white, warm white and natural white (4000K) variants, complete with high quality homogenised light engines.

Also featured will be a selection of Cogent's comprehensive range of colour changing RGB and RGBW architectural LED light fittings - up and down lighters, wall washers, in-ground lights and spot lights, all designed and made in the UK.

(Jim Evans

UK - Launching at IBC and PLASA 2012, the new Roland R-88 eight-channel recorder and mixer is designed for recordists who currently record in stereo but want to switch to multi channel recording and for those who need more channels than existing 4 channel recorders. Designed for a variety of professional needs, the R-88 provides a portable recording and mixing solution for situations where there are multiple microphones on location and music recordings with more than FOUR microphone channels. Complimenting the existing award winning range of Roland portable and hand held field recorders, the R-88 is a high quality yet affordable solution with rugged construction, an extended feature set and superb sound quality.

The R-88 is fully compatible with SMPTE timecode and can act as slave (with timecode regeneration on the timecode out) or as master to enable a fully synchronized video

UK - High End Systems' new SolaSpot LED automated luminaire is being introduced on the AC Entertainment booth (Hall 1, Stand E10) at the 2012 PLASA Exhibition. AC Entertainment is the exclusive UK and Irish distributor for the full range of lighting products manufactured by High End Systems, a Barco company.

Lightweight and compact yet extremely punchy, the 550 watt SolaSpot LED is the highest performance LED spot in its class. The luminaire weighs only 24.5 kg but produces a high fixture output of 6,000 lumens and offers an extremely even beam field. SolaSpot LED's fixed color wheel creates vibrant red, blue, green, yellow, magenta, orange and cyan; the fixture's innovative indigo highlighter function creates dramatic new design possibilities. With a color temperature of 6,500 K, pan / tilt of 540 x 250 degrees, variable zoom and iris, remote focus, static and rotating gobo pat

UK - Spotlight is introducing three products in the new Green Line - FresneLED250 Tunable White, ProfiLED 200 and ProfiLED 250 RGBW.

On display in T H5, hall 1 will be three innovative LED products of the Green Line, luminaires that are characterised both by high optical performances and by the real contribution in terms of energy saving, achieved thanks to a specific use of the LED and to the application of 'clean technologies' in the luminaires' production.

This wide family, which includes Fresnel, PC and Profile spots of the series Mini, MIDI and Sintesi, designed both for shop windows, malls, museums, etc., and in theatre or TV studios.

(Jim Evans)

UK - LED Engin, Inc., a leader in high lumen density LED products, has demonstrated emitters and LED modules that enable the size of entertainment lighting products to be reduced significantly, on stand 2-S11 at the PLASA 2012 exhibition.

The company's LuxiGen platform of white and multi-colour compact emitters generate the high luminous flux density demanded in entertainment lighting, particularly for spot beams, distance lighting effects and in dynamic lighting scenarios. Patented thermal management technology allows the LED die to be driven to higher current levels and in a denser configuration than industry standards, without adversely affecting operating life. LED emitters are up to 80% more efficient than traditional tungsten lighting and this combination of features in LED Engin products enables lighting fixture designers to at least halve the size of their products, and

USA - Community Professional Loudspeakers has announced the second generation of the VERIS (VERsatile Installation Systems) Series. VERIS 2 offers a new range of two-way, three-way, and subwoofer designs created for the most demanding installed sound reinforcement and playback applications.

VERIS 2 is an expanded, evolved collection of 11 new VERIS models, from small-format enclosures for distributed systems, fill and delay applications to mid-sized three-way systems designed for superior front-of-house performance.

VERIS 2 includes some significant enhancements, including newly designed 1-inch exit HF drivers, as well as a re-engineered grille design. All models offer improved crossovers, with individually voiced crossovers on 64 and 96 degree models. All smaller VERIS models come standard with a fully rotatable square horn. And Community has added a new subwoofer to the line

UK - At PLASA 2012, Nexo put the spotlight on its concert sound loudspeakers and, in particular, the intelligent amplification solutions that power and control them.

Four loudspeaker families were presented - the new STM Series of modular line array cabinets, scalable for audiences from 1,000 to 100,000; the Geo S12 all-purpose compact line array; the radical 45-N-12 stage monitors, shaped like a wedge of Brie; and the classic PS Series.

But in prime position was Nexo's NUAR or Universal Amp Rack, filled with technological innovation and functionality. This is a scalable amplification solution for all Nexo concert systems, encouraging inventory standardisation among Nexo users and facilitating cross-hire opportunities.

The Nexo Universal Amp Rack contains two NXAMP4x4 amplifiers, a new Digital Patch Unit (DPU), an intelligent output patch panel, a new Digital Meter Unit (DMU

The Netherlands - Recently debuted at IBC 2012, Genelec has unveiled its new Smart Active Monitor (SAM) concept. Genelec's SAM range, which includes the multi award-winning 8260A (in fact, all monitors with a x2xx code are SAM), is capable of automatically adapting to acoustical environments to offer an indispensable tool for sound professionals in broadcasting, post production and music studios.

Introducing SAM, Lars-Olof Janflod, marketing and PR director at Genelec says, "Our launch of SAM is set to chart the beginning of a new era in the audio monitoring industry. This new era has come about thanks to digital technology and rising user expectations of what can be achieved with audio monitoring solutions. In line with this, system designers have also demonstrated that digital audio monitoring solutions have significant capabilities beyond what is possible with traditiona

The Netherlands - Canford announced a new e-catalogue facility at IBC. The soon to be available service provides customers with all the benefits of both a website and a paper catalogue. It is the first of its kind in the broadcast and pro-audio industry and permits the user to create and post orders and to download and print individual pages and sections of The Source, Canford's 1500 plus page catalogue. The users simply need to have internet access to exploit the innovation.

The new e-catalogue is named THE e-Source and replicates its paper twin, THE Source in its entirety with fully specified product listings and application notes. Once users have identified the product they need, they can add them to a basket in the usual ecommerce way and place the order online, or simply create and save their shopping list ready for placing the order at a more convenient time.

UIK - Martin Audio has provided a major boost to its touring and theatre portfolio, with the successful introduction of the new high-output XD Series at this year's PLASA 2012 in London. This sets out to "define the ultimate in performance and versatility for professional, fixed-dispersion, two-way loudspeaker systems".

The models in the XD Series - the XD12 and XD15 - have been designed to deliver best-in-class performance, including higher output levels and more extended frequency range than is normally associated with similarly-sized systems. They are designed to represent new benchmarks for the compact two-way format which has always played a central role in professional sound reinforcement.

Designed principally for live sound, theatre/fixed install and high power stage monitoring, both the XD12 and XD15 combine a full, rich sound and an accurate 80° x 50°

UK - Declaring after taking over lighting company SGM last February that his days of producing moving lights were finished forever, word leaked out during PLASA in London this week that SGM's Peter Johansen's R&D team had in fact been feverishly developing radically different LED Spot, Wash and Beam fixtures from their skunk works in Århus, Denmark.

"We had wanted to keep this under wraps," stated Johansen, "but then someone got hold of our product pipeline and leaked it. When one of our key distributors heard about it, they placed an order for more than 2,000 fixtures ... even though we will not be launching the range until the Prolight+Sound Show in Frankfurt next April."

Up to that point SGM had been denying rumours that they were about to re-enter the moving head arena. And although full details will continue to remain secret, the product's big USP is

UK - Rosco has formed a joint venture partnership with The Black Tank, an advanced engineering group located north of Boston, MA to design, develop and distribute LED lighting fixtures to the entertainment and architecture markets.

The immediate result of this partnership was seen last weekend at the opening of the IBC Exhibition in Amsterdam and at the PLASA Show in London where Rosco debuted Miro Cube, its new line of wash lights based on Black Tank's successful Brick Blaster fixtures. Three luminaires - Miro Cube 4C, Miro Cube WNC, and Miro Cube UV as well as a range of innovative mounting accessories - are targeted at lighting professionals in live entertainment, film & television, museums & architecture, and theme parks.

"First of all, the products are fantastic. The engineering is so elegant and the light output is astounding. You can't believe it's coming out of th

USA - Chauvet Professional will showcase a wide variety of products at this year's Worship Facilities Conference & Expo show, scheduled for 19-21 September in Atlanta, Ga.

On display at will be fixtures from the VIP Series of video products, the new line of trussing TRUSST, Parnelli Awards nominee Legend 412 pixel-mapping moving yoke and powerful moving yokes Q-Spot 560-LED and Q-Wash 560Z-LED.

Representing the COLORado family of wash lights are COLORado Zoom Tour, COLORado Zoom WW Tour and COLORado Zoom 2 Tour fixtures.

Additionally, Chauvet Professional will highlight fixtures from the Iluminarc line of architainment interior and exterior lighting solutions.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - MediaLas has added new enhancements to the high end Infinity show laser projectors. Already the recipient of two industry awards, the Infinity is still MediaLas' "top-of-the-line product with many unconventional und extremely useful features for professional event companies and exclusive clubs."

"Besides the well-known, superb beam and color quality, the Infinity has been enhanced on the processing side," says the company. "A new firmware boosts both safety and reliability of the entire system. The computerized safety inside the Infinity even corrects user programming errors in some ways, be limiting the single point exposure time of the laser deflection system, and therefore smoothing the total irradiance of high powered laser rays. Further firmware updates have been released for the network client inside the Infinity, that allows to control t

UK - The new Philips Platinum 5R beam moving head is at the heart of PR Lighting's latest automated stage light, the XR 200 Beam.

Sturdy, compact and with a highly developed optical path, the fixture offers "enormous brightness in a compact form factor, with a weight of just 16kg".

At the same time, PR Lighting has worked considerably on the design and structure so that in addition to its weight advantage the movement is also faster and the running much quieter, while the legendary colour, gobo and prism/frost filter wheel ensure that it is fully featured. In fact the colour wheel boasts 14 dichroic colours, the fixed gobo wheel has 17 gobos (plus white) and the Prism/Frost Wheel contains CTO, frost, and 8-facet prism (plus white). The fixture offers 540° pan and 270° tilt, with a beam angle of 0°-4° (linearly adjustable).

(Jim Evans)

UK - At PLASA 2012 in London, Sommer Cable - alongside its established catalogue of products -exclusively presented the NL4FX-SOM cable socket, a special version designed in close cooperation with Neutrik.

Peter Rieck, key account & distribution manager for Sommer Cable commented, "This year the PLASA show was again a big success for Sommer Cable. We were able to reach many customers and attract new customers. Next year the fair will move to the Excel Exhibition Centre and we have already confirmed stand space."

(Jim Evans)

USA - Held this year in Indianapolis, CEDIA Expo 2012 proved that there is positive growth in the residential electronics sector with more than 450 exhibitors participating, and over 16,900 attendees from 71 different countries.

Among companies taking full advantage, and successfully test launching several new solutions to the home technology professional were world leaders in optical screen technology, dnp denmark.

Global sales & marketing manager, S°ren Kraemmergaard, was making his fourth visit to CEDIA and noting the consistently high footfall on the dnp booth, he had no hesitation in describing it as "the best ever" for his company.

"We received a lot of serious interest from reps, dealers and integrators who were not only focused on home theatre but also equipping sports bars and even big commercial venues."

But the reason for Kraemmergaard's

UK - At PLASA 2012, Spotlight promoted a comprehensive LED range. The company wanted to present in London the latest products of the new Green Line family specifically projected for performing arts and TV studios.

With the three new FresneLED 250 White Tunable, ProfiLED 200 and ProfiLED 250 RGBW - Spotlight LED range attracted an audience as probably the most complete LED products line of the highest quality and efficiency today available on the market.

The luminaires of this wide range are characterised by excellent performances, energy saving, clean light without heat and UV/IR emission.

ProfiLED 250W RGBW, optical discharge profile spot, was the real highlight of the event, showing a light power equal to the one of a traditional halogen 2000W and with an extreme precision of the projection.

ProfiLED 250W RGBW impressed because it is innovative, versatile and interesting

The Netherlands The BroaMan brand, the new start-up from optical fibre network giants Optocore proved a major highlight at IBC 2012, and the stand design, featuring the BroaMan columns, grabbed the attention of an enthusiastic audience.

According to application engineer, Kari Eythorsson customers returned to the booth three or four times to discuss what Optocore/BroaMan tools could do for their applications, assisted by pens and sketchpads.

The main product focus at the show was the new addition to the BroaMan DiViNe (Digital Video Network) portfolio - which provides scalable, protocol independent, routing, repeating, transport and distribution of multiple professional video signals, such as SD/HD/3G-SDI, over optical fibre. This was in the form of the V3R-FX-INTERCOM-SDI, which conveniently packs up to six 3G/HD/SD-SDI I/O's and CWDM multiplexer, four ClearCom (or RTS) interc

UK - A high build-quality and very versatile range of flexible LED strips is available from OMC, the pioneer in LED lighting, backlighting and industrial fibre optic transmission. Unlike many LED lighting strips which are designed for relatively short-term, decorative use, OMC's Flexistrip product uses closely spaced, ultra high brightness LEDs and incorporate a number of features that ensure long-lasting, bright and even illumination. Strips can be cut to length with scissors and fixed in place using the pre-fitted, high bonding adhesive foam tape backing.

Suitablefor a wide range of industrial and sign-making applications, Flexistrip LED strips benefit from in-built electrostatic and reverse-polarity protection and an extra-thick copper substrate for enhanced reliability and longevity. Positive and negative connections to a low voltage supply power the strips, and a simple two

UK - MilTec (UK) Ltd and UK distributor MT-Pro Ltd. reported a busy PLASA with visitors to the stand right from the moment the show opened.

"We had a steady flow of existing customers and lots of inquiries from new contacts right through the show," said sales director David Faulkes, "Much of this interest was due to the new products that we were showing. We have been looking very carefully at the needs of the market and have focussed on designing multi-function products, giving the best value for money". This approach has led to innovations in both the LEDHead LED Lighting and MT Professional Acoustics ranges.

On the lighting side the company showed the EPW2 moving head luminaire and the batten based CycWash system, both using LED technology and both fulfilling multiple roles. The EPW2 is fitted with a 150W white LED for use as a spot luminaire and 8x 9W tr

UK - At PLASA 2012, Klark Teknik launched its pioneering DN9610 AES50 multichannel digital audio network connector.

The Klark Teknik DN9610 - a cost-effective solution for extending AES50 multichannel digital audio network connections (Cat 5e/Cat 6 cabling) to greater distances than previously achievable - was showcased for the first time on MIDAS' impressive PLASA stand.

Housed in a rugged, compact, alloy case, and enclosed in a shock-absorbing silicone sleeve, the DN9610 will fit almost anywhere, being no larger than many D.I boxes.

Each DN9610 is capable of extending two AES50 streams by up to 100m (330ft). Provision is made for dual redundant power supplies, with automatic, seamless recovery in the unlikely event of a power supply failure. Power supplies are multi-region and feature locking DC connectors to ensure against inadvertent disconnection.

The DN9610 is capabl

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