PLASA09 Awards for Innovation Winners
The 2009 PLASA Awards for Innovation, together with the Gottelier Award, were presented to a packed audience at The PLASA Show in Earls Court, London.
Over 60 products were nominated for the Awards, which were judged by a panel of independent judges drawn from across the industry.
The eight Awards for Innovation went to:
LumenRadio, for the CRMX Nova, which the judges felt advanced the technology behind wireless DMX distribution. It's low latency, RDM control and cognitive co-existence techniques will open up more applications for wireless data transmission in harsh radio environments.
D.T.S. Illuminazione srl, for the XR300 Beam. The judges were refreshed to see this significant development in existing moving light technology. The XR300 allows full continuous rotation of both pan and tilt axis at some speed which will dramatically increase the creative possibilities using such fixtures.
Robe UK Ltd, for the Robin 300 series PLASMA. The opportunity to deploy new technology in the form of the PLASMA lamp led Robe to perform a ground up rethink and redesign of the traditional moving light. The result is a fixture that impressed the judges with its quality of light, low power of operation and rich list of features.
Cast Group of Companies, for the WYSIWYG R24. The plethora of LED display technology caused Cast to re-evaluate its design and visualisation software which has led to a significant redesign of the graphics engine and fixture attributes. It now allows the full visualisation of modern display technology including video and LED screens and their content.
Coda Audio, for the SC8 Sensor controlled subwoofer. The concept of monitoring sub bass loudspeakers and tailoring the audio input to ensure a good coherent output has existed for some time. Coda are the first though to come up with a novel integration of velocity sensors into actual speaker drivers which has enabled its speakers to be accurately measured and performance compensated in real time.
ETC, for the ETC Selador fixture, a significant step towards the ultimate goal of energy efficient incandescent replacement lighting, ETC has developed this LED fixture with a colour output that gets close to the spectral curve of traditional incandescent source, thereby making LED technology a step closer to wider use in theatres and similar applications.
JoeCo Limited, for the BlackBox Recorder, which the judges said provides a neat, compact solution for capturing multichannel audio and combines ease of use with good functionality; features that will see it deployed in many pro audio applications.
Midiator, for the Midiator Vision. The judges felt that this new breed of show controller combines all the creative elements of a show and enables them to be under the control of one designer. It synchronises visual and audio events together via a simple user interface and the Judges noted that "Like a beautiful rug it ties the visual elements of a room together."
The Gottelier Award
The 2009 Gottelier Award went to Alex Cooper of Klark Teknik in recognition of his design work on such legendary products as the Midas range of mixing consoles.
Cooper was instrumental in taking Klark Teknik to an industry-leading position and has been involved in the design and development of many of KT's ground-breaking products including the XL3, XL4, the KT DN800 stereo crossover, Midas XL250, Heritage 3000, 2000, B2000 and Verona consoles, Klark Teknik Square ONE Dynamic processor, the Midas XL8 sound and control surface, and last year's PLASA Show debutant, the PRO6 Live Audio System - the company's second networked digital audio system. Cooper has been, and remains, a fundamental part of the legendary 'Midas Sound'.
