What am I thinking? What are you thinking? : Congo

PLASA - DAY 1

dlincecum — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:57:00 GMT

I say DAY 1 because it is a 4 day show. That is not an easy thing. As someone who believes all trade shows should be 2 days, I must object.

Oh well. The ETC stand was as busy as ever - although many of us commented that it was not as busy as usual. Sunday is known as a day for tire kickers. The professional crowd comes during the week - when they are on payroll.

The demos went non-stop though as people paraded in to see Eos, Congo and Smartfade ML. I will feature more on our new products tomorrow.

Ofcourse today I was cruising the competition stands and really enjoying watching them work on their products. I also visited good friends of the family.

Lars and Lasse at the Capture stand.

Yngve continues the long debut of the E.go system!

Fred Foster and Lennart Knauf discuss the future of the E.go system.

Sarah Clausen and Oskar Krogell at the end of a long day of demos.

Dennis Varian converts Congo developer Bullen Lagerbielke to an Eos man. Bullen points out a small detail.

No need for alarm Dennis - remember, he likes things backwards.

Erik Larsen keeps the Sensor rack from falling onto Mike Wood.

Quite frankly there was very little noise today. Nothing really big to report on. Happy crowds, lots of food served and tired feet. I'll try to report more on the new innovations of the show tomorrow.

David

Part 2 of The new faces of ETC - Who is Congo?

dlincecum — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 02:59:00 GMT

I’m going to talk about the two new faces I described earlier in alphabetical order – First Up Congo. (If you're new here you may want to read this post first.)

Congo is dubbed the Avab board by ETC. Many of you may be wondering what the heck that means. If your dialing in from Europe – and even some parts of North America you will recall a company called Avab. To make an incredibly long story short I can sum it up like this:

Avab was formed around 1970 (some acounts say earlier) in Sweden

The company developed very innovative lighting systems and was a leading lighting supplier in Europe

The company was known for its colorful leadership under a fellow named Kent Flood and also for quite powerful control desks. Avab innovated networking and multi-user systems very quickly in the early 90’s.

In 1996 they were purchased by Transtechnik, a German lighting company

In 2002 transtehnik was purchased by ETC

So, some of the Avab spirit now resides at ETC – although there are many other Avab spirited people around the world – and ETC is proud to have the Avab heritage adding to our own culture. (Remember that I said “ETC may not be exactly who you think it is anymore – it may be much more than that.)

I guess if Zumanity is “Another side of Cirque,” Congo represents another side of ETC.

Congo plays the role fully clothed!

So what does this mean? For one – Congo will feel completely different to those who have used ETC desks for many years. Congo follows a different flow, uses different terms and methods. It uses a traditional Avab syntax called RPN. Strange but addictive, RPN means that most functions call for a number first and the function second.

David Empey – one of our salespeople from New York says Congo speaks like Yoda!

I agree. Actually the whole desk reminds me of Yoda – strange – yet powerful.

While it takes a little getting used to – you’ll soon see that the desk has a lightning fast style and the RPN gives you some very interesting possibilities. Most functions are only 2 key hits away from you at any time. Congo’s product manager, Sarah Clausen, is fond of saying that Congo is a “stream of consciousness desk.” You can open many displays at the same time – work in Blind, Live and patch simultaneously. Congo is also a preset console – every scene is a preset. While the console uses “tracking-like philosophy” to make working with moving lights easy – it shares common ground here with the Expression family from ETC.

Congo’s hardware looks traditional. A main theatre playback – 40 (not 48!) Masters that act like anything you want them to be – traditional submasters – playback stacks, effects masters – and the list goes on. Congo uses all hard keys- no touch screens. All the content keys (the masters and direct selects are labelled with LCD’s.) There is a simple reason for that – they change content – they are pageable and re-purposeable and the labels tell you what is on them at any time. (This is an important fact as some companies introduce desks with hundreds of buttons labelled on a screen somewhere!)

Congo is powerful – flexible – fast. It is exciting and new – but with an old soul. It has an extraordinary depth of character and features. I am a Congo fan, an early adopter of the Congo concept at ETC and have been accused by my boss of “drinking the Congo Kool-aid.” Without a doubt the desk is addictive.

And – Many people will not like it. Yes – it is true. It is not for everyone.

Going back to my car imagery from earlier – to me, Congo is like a Volkswagen. Solid – highly featured- but understated. Quirky – but loveable. Big on power – low on ego.

I like the series of VW ads about “un-pimping your auto.” In the ads the idea is that they are removing the superchargers and the mag wheels and getting back to basics of good clean style. Style that is clearly evident in the vehicle. That is Congo.

Who should buy it? Well almost anyone could decide to. It is easy to learn – with an onboard help system including instructional movies. It does require some retraining of people who have used other desks. Not serious retraining – but the users need to have a willingness to look at things differently.

I urge you to give it a try – you might like it.

The new faces of ETC

dlincecum — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 04:37:00 GMT

This is the first in a three part series about our controls product line at ETC.

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ETC’s past is firmly anchored in controls. Starting its life as an idea and a single product – ETC became known as a console boutique, creating such “category definers” as the Vision, the Microvision FX and the Expression. Times have changed and ETC has changed as well.

What has changed?

A little or a lot? Most lighting desks are still used primarily for plotting intensities. But going one step above basics, the function of the desk begins to expand exponentially. Figuring most prominently of course, are automated lights. Nipping at their heels are LED’s and Media servers. What does it mean? To the average lighting tech or designer; more work – more possibilities; to ETC – new ideas, changes in philosophy, a need to move in new directions.

Remapping

ETC’s founder, Fred Foster, knew many years ago that we needed to do a rollup of all we knew and had learned and produce new control products that were tied to our legacy, but not bound by it. Several years after his call to action we have now introduced two major control platforms, which represent our heritage and pave the way to the future for ourselves and our customers. Eos and Congo: A tale of two consoles.

Why two?

The most hotly debated issue at ETC for a while, the answer came from our past. We had two platforms in the past – and the result was good. If there were any chinks in our Obsession/Expression armor it may have been that they shared too much common ground. The logic of ‘two’ goes much further; it’s about choice; “Will you be having Red or White this evening?” We believe that products are no longer defined by the number of cues, macros and channels, but by their relevancy, personality, depth of character and principle of operation. (It’s much more like people are defined)

I think an automobile analogy plays well here. Lighting desk selection is very personal - like a car. Think about the car you drive; or would drive; or wish you could drive. Why did you - or would you - choose it? Style? Color? Power? Economy? Size? Chances are you liked it. It felt right. It WAS right. Lighting desks are the same way.

Ask yourself this; why does General Motors own Saab and Hummer? They are as different as, well as different as Eos and Congo in fact.

The recognition is here is that the “maker or producer” is not the ultimate deciding factor in the purchase. The real factors are style based. The same is true for lighting desks. We offer choice - Eos, Congo – they are as different as Porsche and Volkswagen – and as similar too. Which will you drive?

ETC Heritage – More than you may think and not what may expect

Beware. ETC heritage may not be exactly what you think it is any more. Over the past 30 years we have grown from a garage shop to a 150 million dollar worldwide company and our culture has been growing as steadily as our revenue. The addition of several European brands to our product line has allowed us to open our minds and hearts to new ways (sometimes old ways!) of thinking. As many customers around the world have tried our Congo and SmartFade products they have seen familiar and unfamiliar elements – but the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We are growing, our ideas are growing, our products are growing.

You can grow with us!

To be continued … Next Week - Get to know the players.

King Congo and EosZilla -- Is that you in the middle?

David