Who is Eos?

dlincecum — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 02:57:00 GMT

Who is Eos?

Well hopefully you have read the two posts that relate to this one.(The new faces of control) (Who is Congo)

Now meet the newest face of ETC controls, Eos.

At first glance Eos appears to boldly go where ETC has not gone before. Its hardware looks different - two touchscreens built in, no grandmaster or blackout button, only ten "submasters." Its software interface has a new appearance, built fresh from the first lines of code. After sitting at the desk for a few minutes an ETC-familiar user will find that the experience of using an ETC desk, an Obsession or Expression, is clearly present - but in new ways. Eos is quintessential ETC at its best. It encompasses all that we knew, learned, and have been told about lighting control for the 21^st century.

Is Eos Obsession 3? No – it’s much more than that. Eos rethinks modern lighting controls and our older established concepts - an old fade philosophy newly applied, a familiar syntax extended and strengthened, a brand new user interface, new hardware concepts that make the most of modern innovation - while retaining the ease of previous systems.

Eos feels new and fresh and young. It's DNA is rooted in theatre concepts and philosophies that are native to demanding lighting designers. It is a "tracking - move fade - LTP" desk (look for more on this in a later post!) Its syntax is familiar from ETC relatives, Obsession and Expression, now extended to encompass a rich world of moving lights and media servers. This powerful programming language allows multiple actions to occur in one command. It also allows a lighting designer to speak to the desk and the operator in a simple manner with little interpretation required by the operator.

As cliché as it sounds, I think Eos truly offers the “best of both worlds” in several ways. For instance;

Eos combines a familiar command line style of programming with direct select functions and integrates the two seamlessly
Eos brings the flexibility of touch sensitive LCD displays for instant access to show content and adds hard keys over them for tactile feedback.
Eos introduces a new way to record the data you want, where you want it, combining the two unique concepts of a “state machine,” (capturing everything on stage) with the selectivity of a "programmer" (isolating what you want to record)
Eos playback style is also a combination – providing a “true tracking experience” with the capability to change that to a state machine – capturing complete states and fading from state to state

Now back to my car analogies for a moment. If Eos were a car?

Let's see . . .

Eos is a modern luxury sedan, designed for power and comfort and dripping with amenities. I found this older BMW ad that speaks to my image of Eos.

Do you get my drift? Think about this - familiar command line syntax provides a smooth ride. Full integration with direct selection tools gives you the speed and power of a stick shift -- but with an automatic transmission! Another BMW ad makes the point for me.

But with all that power comes luxury. The Eos Desk is beautiful and has all the best new features to make things just right. These include a new way of working with touchscreen LCD's that allows tactile feedback (a click you can feel) and multi-touch features - allowing range selection on an LCD! It includes a motorized fader bank that level matches as you page and special rotary encoders that use Haptics technology to run smooth when controlling a continuous parameter like Pan - or to click from stop to stop when controlling a frame based parameter like a Gobo wheel.

All that power -- AND you will look good sitting behind the wheel!

Eos will appeal to virtually everyone who has ever used an ETC desk in the past and it will bring a whole new group of customers to ETC – users of MA, Hog 3 and Virtuoso will find a new desk to consider. Right now Eos is saying "Hello World! Anybody been looking for a change?"

Have you met Eos yet? You can take the online tour - but - go ahead and contact your ETC dealer or sales rep - because you WILL want to test drive Eos soon. I guarantee it!

David

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

Who is Eos?