Vari-Lite
Vari-Lite is a brand of automated, variable-colour stage lighting systems. Their intelligent lighting fixtures are commonly used in theatre, concerts, television, film and corporate events.
History
Pre-history
The origins of Vari-Lite date to the late 1960s, when college friends Jack Calmes and Rusty Brutsché played together in a Texas-based blues band. They built a sound system for their shows that attracted the attention of other acts, who asked to rent it from them.In March 1970, Calmes and Brutsché, together with sound engineer Jack Maxson, incorporated Showco, with the intention of supplying sound systems to regional rock concerts. The company initially operated two sound systems and two trucks from Maxson's garage. The company quickly grew, both in size and reputation, and added lighting equipment to its inventory in 1972.
By the end of the 1970s, Showco's lighting equipment was becoming outdated, and the company could not afford to replace it.
Invention
In 1980, Showco engineer Jim Bornhorst discovered that twisting dichroic filters alters the frequencies of light filtered, resulting in an apparent color change. The company exploited this discovery by constructing a fixture equipped with two motors to move the light. An initial prototype of a fully automated lighting system, featuring a General Electric Marc 350 metal-halide arc lamp, was built in twelve weeks.Showco representatives demonstrated the prototype—known today as the VL-Zero—to members of the British band Genesis, having programmed it to enact two simple cues. Genesis, already a regular Showco client, immediately invested $1 million in the new technology, although a working model, later known as the VL1, would not be available until the band embarked on its Abacab tour. Showco used the capital to develop the control console, power distribution, and digital data transmission equipment required to implement the system.
Growth and expansion
The company subsequently incorporated as Vari-Lite Inc. and struck distribution deals to introduce the product into international markets.The Series 200 system launched in 1987, featuring the Artisan Control Console and two new luminaires: the VL2—a direct descendant of the VL1—and the VL3, based on the VL-Zero. This was followed by the VL4, a more compact and brighter version of the VL3, and two upgrades of the original VL2: the VL2B and the VL2C. A smaller backup console was also launched, called the Mini-Artisan.
In 1994, Vari-lite set up Irideon Inc. to manufacture automated lighting products for the architectural lighting market, selling it off to Electronic Theatre Controls four years later.
In 1997 the company floated on Nasdaq, selling two million shares, in a move which allowed the company to retire almost half its debt. Forty-seven percent of the company remained in the hands of Genesis and Vari-Lite management. The company then began to buy back the franchises it had created in previous years in favor of establishing new rental offices that offered conventional third-party lighting equipment alongside its own products.
In 2002, the VARI*LITE luminaire manufacturing and sales divisions were sold to the Genlyte Group. The rental division, retaining the console division, and continued to develop the Virtuoso product line, eventually merging with the Production Resource Group in 2004. In early 2008, the Genlyte Group was bought by Royal Philips Lighting. Under Philips ownership, the VLX wash, a high-intensity LED luminaire, was developed.
Having separated from its parent company Royal Philips, Philips Lighting rebranded as Signify in 2019. Vari-Lite and stablemate Strand regain their stand-alone brand status.
Accolades
The company has won three Primetime Emmy Awards for technical achievement: in 1991, for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering, in the development of the Series 200 system; in 1994, for the development of the VL5; and in 2001 for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering for the Virtuoso console.Patent infringement lawsuits
In 1989 Vari-Lite sued Syncrolite, Inc. and founder, former Showco president Jack Calmes, over alleged patent infringements. Calmes countersued, claiming that his former business partners had kept the development of the Vari-Lite system from him at the time of his departure, causing him to lose money when he sold his Showco stock. The case was resolved in Vari-Lite's favour.In August 1995 Vari-lite sued High End Systems, seeking unspecified damages and an injunction against the manufacture of the Status Cue system, including the Cyberlight and Studio Color luminaires. The matter was eventually resolved out of court.
In 1999, Vari-lite obtained a preliminary injunction against Danish firm Martin Gruppen A/S, which barred the import, sale and lease of several lighting products within the United States. Martin responded by releasing updated products that lay outside the scope of Vari-Lite's patents.
Control systems
From the very start, Vari*Lite consoles were computerised, transmitting digital multiplexed signals to the luminaires.Series 100
Originally known simply as The Vari-lite System, Series 100 used a patented protocol based on RS-422, which sent positional, beam and colour information, via a rack-mounted computer, to up to 32 individual Vari-lite luminaires, at up to 30 times a second. Up to three computers could be linked together under the control of a single console, giving a maximum system size of 96 luminaires.The transmissions were unidirectional, and the error checking was quite rudimentary, checking each transmission bit 5 times and applying the majority result. As the information was retransmitted multiple times each second, the result was no noticeable errors by the luminaires. However, the refresh rate of a full 96 channel system was visibly noticeable if, the low-numbered channels were rigged close to high-numbered channels.
In order to distribute both power and data, 6 channel "dumb" repeater boxes were used. The cables carried both data and power. In order to meet safety standards, the data cable was rated at 600 v, to allow it to be used in 3 phase power applications. The channel number was set with three thumbwheel switches on each lite and a common practical joke on the part of non-Vari-lite crew, would be to renumber random "lites".
The designation Series 100 was not applied until 1987, upon the release of the Series 200 system.
Series 200
By contrast, the Series 200 system was designed to employ a proprietary, bidirectional protocol. Each luminaire became "intelligent"—storing its own positional, beam and colour information, and reacting to a global "memory cue" command, so every luminaire reacted simultaneously. This overcame the limitations imposed by the processor power available at the time, on the maximum number of luminaires that could be controlled from one console.The Series 200 system was introduced in 1987 and featured the VL2 and VL3 luminaires, controlled by the Artisan console, with power and data distributed to dumb repeater boxes by an ACS Rack. The repeaters gained three more outputs, making nine in total. Up to seven repeater boxes could be supplied by one ACS rack. Multiple ACS racks could be linked together, data-wise, with one acting as a master and the other as slaves.
Manchester encoding was used to improve transmission resilience and a polling system was introduced to get feedback from each luminaire. Damaged cables and "chattering" lites could cause problems in larger systems, as they introduced noise into the reply data lines running back to the Artisan console, causing luminaires to appear offline. Although this did not normally affect the playback of cues, it could cause severe problems when trying to save and backup the system data onto the 1.44Mb, 3.5 inch floppy discs that were standard at the time.
Under Series 200, the number of controllable channels was increased—at least on paper—to 1000; but in reality, the practical maximum was around 400. The reason for this discrepancy, was that if a luminaire had not been polled for its reply data within a certain time, it would become regarded as "offline" by the Artisan console. In a system of over 400 luminaires, the limitations of the hardware in the Artisan, meant that it was not possible for the console to poll all the luminaires within the allotted time.
The performance of the Series 200 system was greatly improved over its working life, through a rolling program of upgrades, modifications and retrofits. Central to these were the various software versions, which progressively refined the programming features available to Artisan console operators.
The VL4 wash luminaire was officially added to the Series 200 luminaire range in 1991.
Series 300
By the end of the 1980s, the market for moving lights was firmly established—a market which had arguably been created single-handedly by Vari-lite themselves. However, the high cost of renting a Vari-lite system and the fact that they could only be programmed from an Artisan console, by a specially trained operator, were barriers to full realisation of market potential. Additionally, despite the protection afforded to Vari-lite technology through the use of patents, rival manufacturers were beginning to market competing moving lights; along with consoles which could control their functions using the DMX512 protocol. There were also general market concerns regarding the overall size and weight of moving lights in general, which limited the number of them that could be hung on a lighting rig and made them impractical for many small / medium scale productions.The Series 300 system was developed to address these issues. Series 300 was not strictly a new protocol, but a development of Series 200 that moved most of the processing away from the luminaires and into the repeater box, thus creating the Vari-lite "Smart Repeater". The VLSR is able to distinguish between Vari-lite Series 200 and DMX512 data signals, and can be controlled with either—although not both simultaneously. Having identified the type of incoming control signal, the VLSR converts it into Series 300 data; which it sends to the luminaires, along with the 24V power lines required to drive the motors. Up to six Series 300 luminaires can be controlled via one VLSR, using Series 300 Smart Lamp Runs
When controlled by a Series 200 data signal, the VLSR stored the cue information and transmitted the raw positional and colour information to the luminaires, as Series 300 data. In this case, the Series 200 input connector was used to supply both power and data.
When controlled by a DMX512 data signal, all cue information is stored in and transmitted from the lighting console; with the VLSR simply acting as a translating device, which converts the DMX signal to Series 300 data in real time. In this case, the Series 200 input connector is used only to supply mains power to the VLSR, with DMX data being input via a separate, standard, 5-pin XLR connector.
The first Series 300 luminaire was the VL5 wash, released in late 1992, along with the VLSR. The VL6 spot luminaire was released in 1994 and the VL7 in 1998; with updated variants of all luminaires being developed, following their respective, initial releases.