We speak to Stuart G. Russell,
EMEAA Marketing Manager
for Litepanels about the financial
and environmental implications
surrounding today's lighting.
and environmental implications
surrounding today's lighting.
One of the most interesting and stimulating aspects of the
broadcast industry for me is the continually shifting landscape in terms of
technology: that sense that around every corner lurks a new technological
development that will revolutionise the way broadcast content is created and
delivered to the viewer. Unfortunately, of course, it is also one of the most
maddening and frustrating aspects of the business too. How many column inches, seminar hours and
pontificating pundits have already been devoted to the benefits and pitfalls of
3D this year when so many broadcasters around the world are still eyeing up the
transition to HD? Still, such is the nature of the beast and one takes comfort
in the belief that the better innovations do tend to stick whereas the gimmicks
soon fall by the wayside.
It is worth noting, however, that the pace of progress has
not been universally rapid and lighting is one area where ‘game changing’
innovations have been relatively few and far between. Visit any reasonably sized studio operated by
a household-name broadcaster today and you will generally still see a variety
of very traditional lighting fixtures, usually tungsten, hanging from ceiling
gantries. Because that’s the way it has
always been done. Change is in the air,
though, and the last 10 years have seen the introduction and growth of a few
new technology platforms – most notably LED – into the stubbornly orange-tinted
world of broadcast lighting. Given that
I work for an LED lighting manufacturer, I am admittedly biased when it comes
to arguments about lighting technology platforms but I put it to you that there
are now very few arguments to support the use of these traditional fixtures in
the broadcast arena when there are so many alternative products out there that
do the job better, when judged against any economic or performance criteria.
Let’s talk first about money. We are quite clearly living through tough
economic times and austerity is the flavour of the month for the foreseeable
future. Not the most exciting of diets, granted, but a necessary bitter brew to
help get the world economy back on track. In this climate, funding is scarce
and many broadcast organisations are dramatically scaling back their capital
expenditure budgets, preferring to repair and refurbish rather than splash out
on new equipment. An understandable and perfectly pragmatic move, you might
say. However, how many broadcasters actually have a clear view of how much
their existing lighting fixtures are costing them on an on-going basis? Any CAPEX investment may have long since
depreciated off into the sunset but what about the day-to-day costs in terms of
energy, maintenance, human labour and time? With energy prices seemingly being
hiked every quarter can any responsible broadcaster continue to throw money at
traditional lighting fixtures that are incredibly energy-inefficient and
wasteful? I understand that a great many Lighting Directors grew up with
tungsten technology and so cling on to these fixtures through familiarity but
the heat generated by these fixtures is staggering – that’s a great deal of
wasted energy that needs to be removed from the studio environment by air
conditioning, which is extremely energy hungry in its own right. As a relative
newcomer to this industry, I was astonished to first hear the now oft-repeated
adage that every 1 KW of lighting generally requires another 500 W of air
conditioning to deal with the resulting heat. I’ve even heard stories of
viewers calling TV stations to complain about the humming noise from the air
con that is being picked up by the studio mics.
Additionally, the heat generated by these fixtures makes them difficult
to move and more than a little uncomfortable to work under. These
inconveniences may have been regarded in years gone by as unavoidable
occupational hazards that needed to be endured because the Lighting Director
knew the results would be worth the suffering, but we now live in an era where
such masochism can thankfully be consigned to the filing cabinet marked
‘nostalgia’.
It’s a bold claim, I accept, but LED has now reached the
stage of maturity as a technology platform for professional broadcast lighting
where it can absolutely replace and outperform traditional lighting fixtures.
For a start, LED lights generally consume only a fraction of the energy of
traditional tungsten fixtures. Empirical data gathered from real studio
installations we have overseen has illustrated average reductions in energy
usage of 85-95%. Given the rising cost of energy, these figures clearly and happily
equate to financial savings of many thousands of Dollars/Pounds/Euros per
annum. And, as an added bonus, LED fixtures generate virtually no heat so the
overall need for air conditioning is greatly diminished. Which also helps to
keep your energy bills and your operating costs down. Furthermore, the lack of
heat has a number of ancillary and less obvious benefits: less make-up
retouches, happier and more comfortable talent on set, faster and easier
changes to the lighting plan (LED lights have no restrike period so no time is
wasted waiting for lights to get up to operating temperature) and a greater
number of creative options thanks to the ability to position lights much closer
to the action. And let’s not forget the
issue of maintenance – most traditional lighting fixtures rely on bulbs that
have a limited operational lifespan and need regular replacement. That’s often
an expensive endeavour in terms of finance and labour, whereas good-quality LED
lights offer many years of maintenance-free operation.
It would also be remiss of me not to talk about the
environment in the context of lighting. Most private and public broadcasters
around the world now have some kind of environmental or sustainability policy
or charter that sets out a commitment to reduce the environmental impact of
their operations and commits them to targets for sustainability or reduced
carbon emissions. LED lights are very much in tune with this prevailing mood –
by migrating over to LED lighting a broadcaster can quickly and easily reduce
energy usage and carbon footprint which obviously helps them meet their
environmental targets and allows them to promote their role as a good corporate
citizen.
So far, I have made the case for LED lighting in terms of
reduced energy usage, the environmental benefits, cost savings and the
operational ease-of-use. The big issues I have not addressed are quality of
light and throw. “LED is all well and good” say the old-school Lighting
Directors, “but I always shoot indoors at 2900° or 3200° Kelvin and these
LED lights are 5600° daylight balanced. I’m working from high ceilings and I’m
not sure that I’ll be happy with the quality of light / throw” (delete as
applicable). Fair point, and it is
certainly true that many LED lighting fixtures have not been able to light over
significant distances when compared to their larger, tungsten counterparts but
this situation is changing. Good quality
LED lights have traditionally offered a very soft, flattering and wrap-around light
that is ideal for lighting skin. Our square 1x1 panels, for example, have been
widely used on a variety of high-budget syndicated TV shows such as 24 and
Desperate Housewives. Many international broadcasters also rely on these 1x1
panels every day to light a range of different sets, from 24 hour news studios
to reality talent shows. The confidence that these organisations have shown in
our products is testament to the quality of light produced. Within the last six months we have also seen
the introduction of a number of LED Fresnel products - like the Sola range from
Litepanels - that offer a harder light source (with all the single shadow
properties of a typical Fresnel light) combined with the energy and heat-free
benefits of LED. These fixtures do offer
significantly more punch than their flat-panel brethren and are therefore able
to cope with greater distances. In any event, it is clear that the whole LED
market is moving towards ever larger fixtures to address this need and the 2K
and 5K tungsten equivalents are not so far away. In terms of the colour temperature / light
quality issue, the move towards HD has helped strengthen the case for
daylight-balanced lighting fixtures because the chips in the latest
high-definition cameras are more sensitive to blue light and images captured with
these cameras therefore appear more vibrant and alive when daylight-balanced
lighting has been used rather than tungsten. Please don’t take my word for it,
though – set up some camera tests and capture images using a variety of
different lights and colour temperatures.
I’m confident the results will speak for themselves…
As a final thought,
I would like to make the point that all LEDs are not the same. Imitation is the
sincerest form of flattery and the market has seen an explosion in the number
of companies promoting LED lights and panels, many at a third of the price of
premiums brands like Litepanels et al.
Buyer beware! To be blunt, any company can purchase a batch of off-the-shelf
LEDs to create a bright, cheap panel that (they claim) will be ideal for use in
a professional broadcast environment. Experience shows, however, that these
panels will look very different even just a few months after purchase. Many
companies achieve very bright results by applying too much voltage to the LEDs
inside their lights and so overdrive them. Fast forward a few months of even
modest use and the colour temperature of the light output will have shifted,
giving the lights a distinctly green or magenta hue. This can also happen when fixtures are
regularly dimmed. I have even seen some
products being sold with magenta filters in the box in order to try and off-set
this effect, which strikes me as a flagrant acceptance of guilt if ever there
was one! Companies like Litepanels have invested an enormous amount of time and
money into R&D in order to offer products that provide consistent
performance and consistent colour temperature over the lifespan of the fixture.
These products are certainly not cheap, but high-quality products rarely are. Professionals in the broadcast industry need
to work with tools that offer reliability and consistency of performance –
their livelihoods and reputations depend on it – so why take risks with
unproven products that will disappoint and quickly need to be replaced? It’s
false economy. Having attended both the
BVE (London) and NAB (Las Vegas) shows this year, I was heartened by the number
of visitors to the Vitec booth who openly admitted they had previously bought
cheaper LED lights and were disappointed with the results so wanted to talk to
us. Maybe this means the tide is turning and users are beginning to consider
the issue of ‘value’ over and above the ticket price.
In conclusion, I
feel that the future for LED as a lighting platform is, if you’ll pardon the
pun, very bright indeed. Some of the world’s foremost broadcasters (e.g. CNBC,
CNN, BBC and CBS, to name but a few) are embracing and moving over to LED in
recognition of the cost, environmental and operational benefits these products
offer and we’re only going to see this trend continue in the next few years,
especially as more and more studios are refurbished or created from what was
previously commercial office space. There are certainly challenges – we need to
keep pushing the boundaries in terms of fixture size and light output – but
these are technology issues and, as I noted at the beginning of this piece, the
technology landscape in this business rarely stays static for long.
For more information on Litepanels’ range of
energy-saving LED lighting fixtures, please visit www.litepanels.com or www.lcauk.com
