Upgrading Insight 2

Smells like prime territory for an Emphasis upgrade

-- you don't need the full blown WYSIWYG 3D upgrade, but the processor will allow a serious upgrade in channel count and some perks of ML functionality like Move-Before-Bright ("dark-move" or "mark" for the rest of the planet) and the Dynamic Effects palette definitely does not suck.  (but having an encoder wing would help)  I'm spoiled on our expression3/emphasis system, I just used an "Emphasized Express 48/96" on a show and was feeling a little limited without my 5x5 encoders, but it still worked pretty darned well with just the trackpad and arrows.  I have no experience with the Insight Emphasis facepanel

...of course you could just e-bay the 2 insights and add the cash to the "buy-me-an-Ion" budget.  :)

What you really have to look at is:

1. How many moving lights and of what flavor you will be dealing with? (do you want to run 2 Rosco I-cues or are we renting in a dozen VL3000's?)

2. How will you be using said moving lights?  ( are we painting or is it flash-n-trash?)

3. What are you able to spend for said upgrade?

This is definitely territory for a sit-down with your local ETC rep.

I could be wrong, but the Insight III, and I assume the II as well, had 500 or so CHANNELS with 108 SUBMASTERS.  Don't confuse the two.

Upgrading to Emphasis is an option, but check as to the value.  The base model Emphasis is 500 channels w/2d visualization (at around $5,000), thus no advantage in channel counts - which you may or may not need in any event, depending on how many ML's, scrollers, and static channels you intend to use.  Going to 1000 channels on Emphasis starts to put you into the price range of a basic Ion - just one without any subs/playback faders.  With Ion you'd get MUCH better ML control then what's available in Emphasis.   With Insight II you would also want to add the plug-in encoder panel, which is no longer made and would be difficult to locate used. 

If it were my money, I'd be looking at an Ion.

Steve B. 

The Insight 2 has 108 channels and submasters, no ability to increase bast 108 channels (I've tried :))

Is the Emphasis upgrade just an addon to the board, or is it an entirely new board?

Ebaying the existing boards might be an option, but we would run into problems with getting the district to agree--too much bureaucracy,  they belong to the district, not the theatre program.

How much are the Ions? I couldn't find a price with a quick search. I can check more later though, I've gotta run.

Thanks for the help,

Andrew 

The Insight 2 has both 108 channels and 108 submasters.  The channel count increased to 324 with the Insight 2x and 512 with the Insight 3.

The Insight 2 can, however, run the same software (Expression 3.1) as the newer models and provide the same ML features, albeit without the physical encoder wheels.  First time I ever ran MLs was on an Insight 2, in fact.  (And yes, 108 channels is very limiting when you have 120 conventional dimmers and 2 Technobeams).  Depending on the vintage of the console, you may need to get a small hardware upgrade for the board to run v3.1.  Contact ETC tech services about this option.

And finally, the Insight 2 cannot be upgraded to Emphasis.  ECS requires an Insight 2x or Insight 3.  Normally, one would send their facepanel in to ETC for Emphasis upgrade, and then you'd have a PC hooked up to it via ETCNet2 for visualization and such.

So in the end...  if you just need some simple control over MLs, get the console upgraded to v3.1.  If you need something more advanced, it sounds like you'll need a new console...

<cough>Ion</cough>
 

So in the end...  if you just need some simple control over MLs, get the console upgraded to v3.1.  If you need something more advanced, it sounds like you'll need a new console...

<cough>Ion</cough>

Agreed, spring for an Ion.

SB
 

I'd love to convince them to get a new board, but there's a new school opening in the district and they're getting all the budget for their new equipment. So sad.

So it'd be possible to do pan/tilt/color/gobos without the encoder wheels? As for the channel limitation, we can probably find some creative ways to work around it. It's theatrical, so we usually only end up using 80, 90 channels, and we can probably cram that in. And it's not like we'll be using huge numbers of intelligents.

So, software and possible hardware upgrade to the current board--all free?

Thanks so much to all for the advice!

Andrew 

Given that a typical ML uses about 24 control channels each, I'd be looking at a stand-alone console to control the ML's.  Maybe sombody has a Light Jockey DMX output unit you can borrow, then get the software for free.

Or arrange a (cough) 2 -3  week demo (cough) of an Ion........

SB 

You mentioned you have 2 Insight 2's. Use one for conventionals and one for the movers. It's probably easier to split your DMX universes that way in the first place. The Insight's have MIDI ports, so if you want to get fancy you can trigger one from the other.  Then be sure to show this crazy rig to the right people to convince them to sell the Insights and spring for an ION. :)

All of the attributes (pan, tilt, color, etc)  of a moving light are all just generic DMX values. You can program your movers 'old school' by patching each attribute as a dimmer and manipulate them with the faders, or upgrade to software v3.1 and patch them with profiles to keep things a bit more organized, and use the keyboard for attributes (or rent/borrow an encoder set.)

Thanks for the ideas, all...turns out I was misinformed and they're actually original Insights, not Insight 2's (I believe). It doesn't say 2 anywhere on it, just 'Insight'. What options for upgrading does that leave? Any?

And for what it's worth, using both of them was what I was thinking about :)

Andrew 

Ah.  Well, I think that if you have an original Insight you're pretty much out of upgrade options.  It cannot run the more modern versions of the software.  Basically, you can just send the DMX values out to the fixture like Kevin mentioned.  If you just have a few set "looks" that you're going for, running them in cues or subs wouldn't be all that bad...

I suppose we also all assumed that you have a DMX console... which your Insight might not be.  The digital control output port on the back can be configured for DMX512, ETC/LMI, or D192.  Are you using the DMX512 setting?