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Pharos LPC X at the Blue Fin

The atrium of the Blue Fin Building, part of the Bankside development in London, has become home to one of the awarding-winning LPC X controllers from Pharos Architectural Controls. The media wall had special control requirements to be considered - not the least of which was the near-thirty thousand channels of control needed to support the Color Kinetic's iColor Flex SL fixtures that make up the media wall in the reception area for IPC Media, the consumer magazine publisher. This is one of many landmark projects specified by Speirs & Major Associates, supplied by Architainment - the Philips SSL value-added reseller, installed by Lighting Technology Projects and featuring Pharos controllers.

As Orri Petursson of Speirs and Major Associates explains: "The media screen is 40m long x 3m high and is made up of 9,500 RGB LED nodes spanning the entire length of an atrium. The obvious way to deliver and manage the content for this LED installation was to use a media server, however, due to the unusual aspect ratio of the screen the content needed to be heavily manipulated to make it legible on the letterbox-shaped screen we had designed. Pharos also hit upon a key issue, namely the need for individual pixel control, but at the time their LPC X was not available nor did other existing DMX control systems lend themselves to the application of handling 28,000 control channels. As luck would have it there was a window of opportunity to revisit the control system specification by which time the LPC X had been launched."

This high-capacity Lighting Playback Controller from Pharos supports multiple control protocols, including Color Kinetic's own Ethernet protocol for direct output of control data to the CK power supplies. "With the Pharos LPC 60 (for the required sixty DMX universes of control) we saw immediate improvements in how the content could be handled, the ease of programming, remote access for the client and general stability of the system."

The design concept was for a dynamic and contemporary look; original content was provided by SaMA, and IPC Media's own graphics personnel are now delivering their own images to the system through simple reprogramming using Pharos Designer software. Petursson continues: "The strength of the Pharos control system lies in its effects engine, making programming very intuitive without the need to have custom content created as well as being able to handle images and videos for direct playback. Also, the thoughtfulness and versatility of the playback section ensures that the automation can be easily tailored to the requirements of the installation."

The Pharos LPC X offers capacities of up to 200 DMX universes from a single solid-state unit, also supporting DMX-over-Ethernet standards such as Pathway, ArtNetII, ETCNet2 and Streaming ACN as well as DVI and Firewire DV outputs for integrating with arrays of fixtures that require video-based control.

Recently released v1.5 Designer software supports the LPC X and also introduces a new-look and improved web interface amongst a host of new features and enhancements. The award winning Pharos controllers offer all-in-one solutions for lighting, audio-visual and show control in architectural and entertainment installations.

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Pharos LPC X at the Blue Fin

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