FEATURE: LIGHTING CONTROL [KEY POINTS]
LED lighting has added to the range of challenges lighting control has to face
Now a key element in smart buildings: “daylight harvesting”
CAST Software's wysiwyg R32 lighting visualisation suite was used by director of photography Patrick Neufond for a recent production by broadcaster France 2
The industry supports many protocols – old, new and emerging – and each is seen to have a place
IP is assuming ever- increasing importance – but it is not yet widely implemented
Energy conservation and creativity will continue to drive the market
Everything’s under control
Whether it’s automotive lighting or torches/flashlights, LED technology is making the simple incandescent bulb a thing of history – and it’s also contributing to a changing landscape in the world of lighting control, as Ian McMurray finds out
FROM BOARDROOMS to bars, from audito riums to visitor attractions and TV studios, and from homes to offices, lighting is a central element of many AV installations. Controlling it impacts mood and atmosphere – as well as functionality and cost. Historically, lighting – in many of its guises – has been based on incandescent bulbs, but growing government focus on energy saving and green policies has seen legislation enacted over the past few years to remove them from the market. For a while, CFL – compact fluorescent lamps – were the preferred replacement, but now, LED- based lighting seems to be sweeping all before it.
A TIME OF CHANGE “Lighting control is a growing and multi-faceted market, and most areas of lighting control have seen growth in the last 12 months,” believes Peter Coles, business manager at Eaton Cooper Controls. “There’s a big trend towards the phasing-in of LED lighting schemes, and we have produced a range of dimmers to deal with this specific job. This is definitely a growth area.” “This is a time of great
growth and change, especially 36 March 2014
in regards to LED lighting,” echoes Paul Nagel, VP of lighting and comfort at Control4. “LED bulb technology is evolving. Early in its
adoption, the bulbs did not dim well or at all, causing many dealers/customers to not ‘dim’ them but just switch them on/off. This has improved significantly in the last year.” Scott Stephenson, senior
product manager for lighting and comfort at Control4, confirms that LED lighting brought its own challenges in terms of dimming – perhaps the most fundamental, other than power on/off, of lighting control operations. “We embraced Adaptive Phase technology and 0-10V dimming technologies to address these changes in bulb types,” he notes. “This allows for one product to be able to control incandescent, halogen, MLV, ELV, CFL and LED bulbs.” Inevitably, there are AV
markets where LED technology is not yet fully entrenched. “From an entertainment point of view, LED lighting instruments are supplementing, or even replacing, our beloved tungsten light source,” says Erik Larsen, market manager at Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC). “While LED is rapidly taking over the industrial/
‘This is a time of
great growth and change,
especially in
regards to LED lighting’
Paul Nagel, Control4
home segment, it’s coming into entertainment at a much slower pace due to the complexity and light colour quality (CRI) needed – not for effects lighting so much as for lighting the set and lighting people. Last, but not least, LED sources are only just beginning to provide the same output as traditional tungsten sources.” But lighting control extends
far beyond the ability to manage the brightness of a light source (and there are
those who claim that, in energy-saving terms at least, there’s no point in dimming LEDs as their power consumption is minimal to start with: dimming LEDs is about lifestyle and atmosphere). The advent of LED lighting has added a different dimension to an already somewhat complex subject.
“Within the lighting domain, the DMX512 protocol is still the main workhorse,” explains Maarten Engels, a director at Visual Productions. “However, as lighting applications grow larger, they can easily spawn 10 or 50 different DMX512 networks – known as ‘universes’. This requires a ‘data highway’ between the main controller and various DMX512 universes that are often spread out over different parts of the venue. The data highway is implemented by
DALI – which stands for Digital Addressable Lighting Interface – was designed as a successor to the 0-10V lighting control systems that preceded it, and was primarily directed at building automation/architectural applications. DMX is an analogue control system that has historically been favoured
using the Art-Net or sACN protocol, both being Ethernet- based protocols designed for controlling large quantities of fixtures.”
INTEROPERABILITY IS A MUST “Interoperability with other AV disciplines is a must in a modern lighting project,” he continues. “This requires the lighting controller to be fluent in protocols like UDP, RS-232, MIDI, SMPTE and GPIO. Especially worth mentioning is a relatively new protocol called OSC. It’s an Ethernet- based open source protocol for sending control triggers that you could think of as MIDI over Ethernet – but I think it’s much more powerful. I can't wait for the OSC eco-system of apps and devices to evolve over the next few years.” But there’s more… “The three main protocols
are those between the control DALI VS DMX: A BRIEF COMPARISON
in theatrical applications. DALI is generally considered slower, and thus inappropriate for mounting spectacles where fast responses are required. Where DMX is centrally controlled, DALI invokes a decentralised paradigm. It is claimed that DMX is easier to install.
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