Platinum Spot

Ebac hello. Were you at ldi? If so how come you didn't ask to see jingles? I was there. Haha.
I'll get the bulb details for you. Give me till Tuesday to find out if I can.
Sincerely,

No, I was not there, I just saw the press release on it somewhere. Thanks man.

Hey EBAC, check out Luxim for info on the first Plasma lamp. This is the way of the future, not LEDs. Glad to see Elation jumping on it quick. LEDs have too many issues surrounding them and also can do quite a bit of harm as well with over exposure/LED only buildings.

For those wondering, see here for some info as well as a picture of the fixture itself.

Dear All.

No... The Platinum Spot does not use Plasma. The new lamp in this fixture is called the MSD Platinum 5R by Philips and is a 160-180w lamp with output comparable to a 575w discharge lamp fixture. It has double the efficacy of the plasma source and the fixture is half the size also.

We had a very successful launch of this product at LDI and more info will come out very soon.

Very nice. I also heard that there was a "design spot led" with a 90 watt source at LDI! I hope to see info on this soon. Im not sold on leds for moving lights, but this sounds promising. Still disappointed thats its a not a plasma lamp, but the double the efficiency sounds good.

Ahhh, makes more sense now, just a shorter arc source lamp. Make the point source smaller, make the light brighter.

It would also be interesting to say that this new lamp is more efficient then plasma since they have Luminaire Efficacy Rating great then 90%, while arc lamps are normally around 55%. Since I have no specs on the new lamp, I can't calculate an LER for it, but I am sure it is higher then 55%. Ballasts still kill the efficiency of arc lamps and always will. Plasma likewise keeps its intensity and color temperature as it ages (losses about 10% of its output of life of lamp for Ceravision's new lamp, see below). Plasma tech is also still very young, with current tech actually younger then LEDs (less then 10 years for plasma, about 40 years for LEDs).

Luxim's lamp aren't as good as Ceravision's since they use a ceramic waveguide vs a clear quarz waveguide that Ceravision just invented this year. Specs for there new lamp:

Lamp Life: 20,000 hours
Wattage: 100-5,000
Color Temp: 2,000-12,000 K
CRI: 95
LER: 95%
Hotstrike
Dimming: Down to 20%

For those more interested, plasma basically works by shooting microwaves through a mixture of gas and metal in a glass container. Different gases and metals make different color temperatures and wave length outputs (UV, IR, visible). The magnetron is what generates the microwaves and what causes the lamp to fail when it goes bad. It is possible with current tech that they can last up to 40,000 hours. Basically, life of LEDs with the power of an arc source and ease to change like an arc source and without the narrow wavelength output of LEDs either. Best of all worlds.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent. Can't wait to see this new fixture in action, sounds on the level of another Impression like fixture. Everyone else keeps getting bigger and bigger. Elation seems to be figuring out how to get the smaller stuff to do what the bigger stuff does. Anyone can make stuff more power/more features just by making the fixture larger. Rather nice since bigger isn't always better. Also shows a commitment to design and engineering vs the easy way aka make it bigger.

You are very knoledgable and thank you for your feedback.

We will release more details shortly and the product will be shippping early in 2010 so the comparisons will start from then. Feedback was great from the show and we certainly expect great results from the Platinum and LED source fixtures we debuted.

Thank you. I know I will most certainly be looking to pick up some of these for next year for sure. I was looking at DS250 Pros and was ready to buy some, but this is much better for what I do. 250w arc sources tend to be a little weak for most of the things I do. This new light with lower power but higher output fits perfectly for when I am in power tight situations and fixture size is an added bonus. My clients generally don't like 'massive' lights either.

Ok, just saw on the website that the Platinum Spot is $2,799 MSRP!?!?! Wow... I was looking at getting DS300s in our new church, but it would be crazy to not get the PS! Obviously, I would lose color mixing, but gain zoom...

=)

platinums don't have zoom.

Oops, I thought I saw it in there. Oh well... Still, the output itself along with the energy savings is still a reason to change or at least combine.

You got to see these lights in person. They are unbelievable!

Any pics or videos from LDI with them in it?

Ok, wait a minute. The release says that the unit measures 322 FC @ 16'... The DS300 measures 400 FC @ 16' and the DS575 measures 616 FC @ 16'. If the release is correct, the unit is not comparable to a 575 but closer to the 300 watt series. The lumen output of the bulb itself is quite a bit lower than the other discharge lamps in the 250-575 range.

Am I missing something?

We appreciate your comments but yes...you are missing something very important! Raw lamp measurements are great but until you get a lamp in a fixture and in its optic system and then see how the lamp and look at the fixtures at the same beam angle you can't really tell the proper perofrmance. When you measure the TOTAL lumen output of the Platinum Spot 5R accross the entire light field then you start to see the advantage. This is why we say you have to see it to believe it!

Yes the DS300 and DS575 have a brighter hot spot but when you measure across the filed...the Platinum spot is especially brighter than the 300 and nearly as bright as our 575 - and brighter than most 575's on the market and the Platinum Spot 5R has a flatter field of light and the optics are especially sharp and again you have to compare at the same beam angle - not the most narrow angle which most measurements are taken.

I have a picture I can post of the lamp performance. It is from a American Dj shoot out but the new ADJ fixture has the new 5R lamp. You will see that it beats out a 575 watt discharge moving head from ADJ.

keep in mind this is the ADJ vizi spot not the platinum spot. This will just give you an idea of the lamp performance.
Sincerely,

Eric is correct in that footcandle measurements use a single point since the light meters used to measure them are so small. For example, I have a flash light that puts out 17 FC but a few inches away from the center it drops to probably around 4 FC.

Basically, you are looking for Lux and not Lumen or footcandles. Lux takes into account area where as lumens and foocandles don't. For example, I can have 1,000 lumens focused onto one square meter and I get 1,000 lux. However, if I take that 1,000 lumens and spread it out over 10 square meters, I now have 100 lux.

Ok I see, pardon my ignorance... From what I gather from the pics, the optics are what makes this light so bright due to the fact the there is no hot spot really? That flat area of light on the above pic is amazing!

Thanks guys!

Here is a video on the Vizi Spot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJXlwA1HjdQ. Again the even beam is amazing...

I would venture to guess the head is the same as the Platinum, but the base on the platinum will have a full feature lcd display.

Im sold after the video.