Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Blue LED "Sconces"

This is topic Blue LED "Sconces" in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 01-06-2006, 02:54 PM:

The 2wenty thread got me thinking about my last experience at a Regal. Sometime since I saw Sky Captain, the Sunset Square Regal in Bellingham, WA has replaced their incandescent wall sconces with superbright blue LED strip lighting. These are at sconce-height (about eight feet off the floor) along the entire length of the auditorium. They're overly bright, don't dim with the house lights, and are incredibly annoying. Throughout the whole movie I had a blue glare in my peripheral, not to mention the blue wash on the screen which muddled any dark scenes. They're bright enough to cast shadows as if it were a full moon night. I hope this isn't a company wide trend. Has anyone else seen these? I only have two other theatres in town and they're both Regals. I literally would stop going to the movies if these lights show up at the other two locations.

Posted by Cory Isemann (Member # 2517) on 01-06-2006, 03:21 PM:

I've never seen that... I thought the sconces were supposed to dim with the other lights.

Do you have any pictures?

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 01-06-2006, 03:23 PM:

I was watching for it, and didn't notice any dimming. I don't think LEDs can dim. Aren't they either on or off?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-06-2006, 03:32 PM:

LEDs can dim. Light output varies with current.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 01-06-2006, 04:00 PM:

I saw this at another Regal somewhere. I can't remember where.
I agree. They're annoying as all hell.
The problem is that LED lighting is too harsh. Incandescant is the way to go!

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-06-2006, 05:00 PM:

Last month a theater I service installed 12V led aisle lighting. They were so freakin' bright that when you killed all other lighting the screen glowed blue! During the movie, all of the colors were off. It was horrible.

I went to Home Depot and picked up a generic 600W incandescent dimmer and cranked them down. Works fine now and they are still plenty bright. Cost was about $10.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-06-2006, 05:44 PM:

Our seats have LED lights at the ends of the aisles. They are on a dimmer that looks just like a wall switch but has a small slider right next to the switch to dim the lights. Works great.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-06-2006, 09:39 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
I went to Home Depot and picked up a generic 600W incandescent dimmer and cranked them down. Works fine now and they are still plenty bright. Cost was about $10.

Not sure what supplying the dimmer's SCR-chopped AC to a step down transformer in the 12-volt power supply will do. Probably okay, but be sure nothing is heating up abnormally.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-06-2006, 09:55 PM:

The people installing those LED systems probably just bought some cheapo trash. Or they screwed up and installed LED components meant for outdoor use but put them indoors. Outdoor rated LEDs are much brighter.

If you want LED lighting that is fully controllable, dimmable and very kick ass, Color Kinetics should be the first choice. They have products for ambient lighting, effects lighting, custom concept developments, color changing signage and more. Check the showcase link to see a wide range of examples of what their products can do.

LED lighting sure isn't crap (generally speaking). More and more of the channel letter signs my company makes are being lighted using LED systems. Neon is holding on in popularity, but mainly in exposed glass tube use. LED can't convincingly imitate that look.

Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 01-07-2006, 12:11 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Color Kinetics should be the first choice

Thats an interesting opinion; it is true they have some nice product, but their competency is is using the patent mechanism to prevent innovation and competition rather than actually doing anything original. All of which would be fine if they had something innovative and had patented it, but what they actually did was get a patent for technology that was in use prior to their patent application.

One of those companies it is better to avoid giving one's custom to.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-07-2006, 12:45 PM:

Color Kinetics isn't patenting LEDs and basic principals of their use. Companies like Daktronics, Barco, Lektron and more are still able to make everything from color video message centers for football stadiums to border lighting for the canopies on Sonic Drive-In restaurants without running afoul of CK's patents.

Color Kinetics patents lie in the computer-based controllers for their specific products. They have a lot of stuff that is completely unique. They have a lighted tile system that can be fully animated. Wynn Casino put in a huge installation based on that product. If only that were around when "Saturday Night Fever" were made John Travolta's dancing on lights thing would have been quite a bit more cool looking.

Color Kinetics also deserves to patent and protect their unique products. The LED business is an extremely competitive business, particularly with a lot of Chinese firms trying to infringe every patent or at least try to price cut competitors out of business. Pretty easy to do when you have the state to subsidize the operation.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 01-07-2006, 01:36 PM:

Bobby, what kind of life do these type of fixtures have?

Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 01-07-2006, 02:32 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Color Kinetics isn't patenting LEDs and basic principals of their use

Well, yes they are. OK, not LEDs themselves, but the basic principles of LED use in entertainment lighting.

"Everyone knows" that PWM is the way to control LED intensity, but CK hold a patent on that.

CK also have a patent that covers using DMX512 to control LED lighting. "Everyone knows" that DMX512 is the universal way that lighting is controlled, but nope, CK have patented that.

There is plenty of innovation out there, and CK do some of that too, but these patents are not about advancing the state of the art. Given the choice, I'd shop elsewhere.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 01-07-2006, 04:48 PM:

No patent will "hold up" if there is "prior art." Louis

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-07-2006, 07:36 PM:

quote: Brad Allen
Bobby, what kind of life do these type of fixtures have?

If you left the LEDs on at full power and never turned them off any decent LED system should give you at least 10 to 12 years of life. Naturally no one is going to leave the things on at full brightness 24 hours per day. So its safe to say you could get 20 years or more out of a fixture provided no one vandalized it or impacted it.

Don't know about the life span of the computer controller systems Color Kinetics sells.

quote: David Buckley
Well, yes they are. OK, not LEDs themselves, but the basic principles of LED use in entertainment lighting.

If Color Kinetics had a full corner on the market then a huge number of other companies making LED-based products for border lighting and ambient lighting purposes would not even be in business.

As far as the patents go, I say congratulations to Color Kinetics for getting them. The LED business is sadistically dog eat dog. What they did is no different than Dolby Labs patenting their technologies, or Adobe getting a hoard of patents for what they did in Photoshop. They deserve to be able to make a living off of providing a great product.

But if that is too much of a problem, I'm absolutely sure there's about 188,943,788 companies in China offering patent infringing equivalents for a lot less money. Lord knows our government could not care less about enforcing patent or copyright protections -at least when Chinese government sponsored operations are doing the infringing.

Posted by Justin West (Member # 920) on 01-10-2006, 07:33 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Lord knows our government could not care less about enforcing patent or copyright protections -at least when Chinese government sponsored operations are doing the infringing.

That's for sure! Hmmm...and how 'bout them Paramount Decrees???

Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 01-11-2006, 12:01 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
I'm absolutely sure there's about 188,943,788 companies in China offering patent infringing equivalents for a lot less money

I'm sure they are. I dont actually have a problem with that, per se, there are people who will buy the original product because they need to guarantee of reliability and support, and those who would purchase the copy would probably not have bought the original product anyway.

But thats not the point: the point with fundemental patents is that they prevent innovation.

Lets take your Dolby example. Dolby patented a sound processing mechanism, Ok, thats fair enough. But what if the Dolby patents had also included the very concept of having optical tracks on film, which would have prevented both DTS and SDDS, and brought every ordinary stereo and mono soundhead under new patent protection and thus infringment?? The obvious answer is it couldn't happen, becauase "everyone knows" that you can put optical soundtracks on film, you can't patent something that is common knowledge.

Well, thats what CK have managed to do. They've got a patent that includes stuff "everyone knows", except apparently the patent office. Thats why most folks in the lighting industry dont like CK.

There have been patent rows in lighting previously, of course: Vari*lite patented the moving yoke light fitting. Many people didnt like that because they thought it was a bit cheeky that someone could patent something that had existed years previously, but it was the combination of features that made the Vari*lite patents worthy. And there were alternative ways to accomodate similar ideas, which lead to the "waggling mirror" types of moving lights, without dichroic colour mixing. Innovation abounded.

But back to CK: In direct parallel with CK, VL patented DMX control of moving lights, which is what CK have done, patented DMX control of LED lighting. However, unlike CK, VL recognized that there was prior art that made this potentially dangerous territory, and publicly announced that they would not enforce this aspect of their patents. Without that assurance, there would not have been a moving light marketplace, and everyone would hate VL the same way they now hate CK.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-11-2006, 10:19 AM:

David, it sounds to me like your beef lies 100% with some nitwits at the U.S. Patents and Trademark Office. Not with Color Kinetics. CK did what 100% of all other companies would do if given the chance. If a patent was indeed granted on prior art, then the affected companies need to file suit about it. Simply complaining isn't going to change anything.

quote:
I dont actually have a problem with that, per se, there are people who will buy the original product because they need to guarantee of reliability and support, and those who would purchase the copy would probably not have bought the original product anyway.

I disagree with that idea completely. IMHO, that is the same mentality criminals use.

For example, a software pirate or user or pirated software dodges paying for a legit copy of Adobe Photoshop. Yet he is still relying on the honesty of others to keep buying the program so Adobe can afford to keep producing it. If enough people choose the dishonest route, then the actual product disappears. For now, the people with ethics are carrying the others on their backs.

Same goes for the much larger and more institutionalized (and highly tolerated) exploitation of illegal migrant labor in the United States. Many businesses are resorting to hiring undocumented workers to get around the high expense of workers comp insurance, matching social security withholding and other fees businesses pay for hiring American citizens and legal foreign residents. But our public education system, property tax base, health care system and more is relying on the businesses who play by the rules. With fewer and fewer businesses working within the law, the expense is getting quite a bit worse for the ones who are still honest. Our company's workers comp premiums last year were staggering.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 01-11-2006, 12:27 PM:

Bobby-

You are correct about the strains that businesses are put under by mandatory government regulations that amount to less jobs.

But I disagree that the illegal immigrants are being "exploited". The fact is that they see the US as a place to better themselves. If they didn't, they wouldn't risk coming in illegally.

The current US setup gives companies economic incentives to use the illegals. It should come as no surprise that some of them do.

Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 01-11-2006, 07:06 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
... It sounds to me like your beef lies 100% with some nitwits at the U.S. Patents and Trademark Office. Not with Color Kinetics. CK did what 100% of all other companies would do if given the chance.

It would be, if CK did the honourable thing (as Vari*Lite did), but whilst CK continue to behave in the way they do, they are the ones bugging us with their predatory behaviour, rather than the USPTO who are merely ignorant.

Your points about software piracy are generally valid; although I buy my music and software, I know there are plenty of others who can't (as in they dont have the money) or won't (simply on principle). However, I think the rights and wrongs of music copyright are a bit off topic for this one.

Neither am I well placed to talk about US workers. And even if I did voice an opinion it would just bring Phil down on my head, so its best I dont bother [Smile]

But the issue of Chinese copies of patented technologies is an interesting area.

A USA patent only protects something from being made or sold within the USA, there is nothing stopping an identical device being made and sold in any other country. Getting world-wide patent protection is expensive, but not difficult, however the degree of protection afforded world-wide will vary by country. But the bottom line is that you cant legally sell a Chinese legally-made device that infringes a USA patent within the USA, so the remedies lie within the USA.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-12-2006, 08:08 AM:

quote: Brad Miller
I went to Home Depot and picked up a generic 600W incandescent dimmer and cranked them down.

Brad if the system is powered by a Buck Boost transformer ya got to watch what type of chopped AC signal you feed it. I did a similar thing years ago and the trnsformer eventually blew up, the fire department came on scene and the whole works. There are inexpensive dimmers that are transfromer approbved though. You might want to double check that yours is rated that way...

Mark

Mark