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Hi all, interesting read of all your pods so far. As a freelance lighting designer and tech I have played with many fixtures. If you are wanting use LED fixtures then I would say only for colour. Although there are White LED fixtures the brightness Is something that has only really just got comparable but the price is rather high. For traditional white light I would stick to tungsten. You can pick up some decent used lights from places like usedlighting.co.uk If you are looking at LEDs for colour don't go for the cheap ones. Generally anything below around £200 ish generally has a poor diming curve. Brands like Chauvet are perfect for LED lights. Lighting desks: As much as people moan about Zero88 their desks are really good and simple to use. Teachers love the ease of use of them and the build quality is really good. Another really good console worth looking at is the LSC Mantra. If you need Dimmers stick to either Strand or zero88.

The kit you have there is good quality. i have used similar kit to that and have friends who own radio kit like that. The thing that a school buting it will need is radio pc software to play tracks, jingles etc. The software I would recommend is Competa. Competa Playout | vectoraudio.co.uk Competa was sold but is now Free with paid support. The person who wrote Competa is a radio engineer and works/worked for Global radio. I know several ex radio station managers who really rate it... Hope that helps.

I generally advice people to go for Intel Nucs. As great as wifi is a wired connection will always be much better for a digital signage system. If you are wanting to use powerpoint have a look at showpoint ShowPoint | Auto-start Digital Signage Presentations you can put the powerpoint on a server and it will run the latest version.

Having purchased a variety over the years I have found the Numark HF125 https://www.numark.com/product/hf125 to be really robust. on many of the ones already linked to i have found that the cable coming out of the headphones becomes faulty. You can pick the Numark up fairly cheap in bulk and they do last.

Hi @robsonma, What issues are you having and where in Lancashire are you based? Anthony

If you are looking for a solid piece of equipment then the Roland is that. If you want. From a connection point the Roland has lots of options. What the Roland lacks as already mentioned is the resolution which is downgraded to 480p. If you want a unit which can do full hd and even 4k then the Blackmagic Atem range is brilliant, the only downside, every input needs to be the same, so if you have one camera set at 1080p 25fps they all need to be that. The question is what do you want to achieve with a vision mixer. If you are looking to switch between various inputs and resolutions say for a projector then a Seamless switcher from say Kramer is what you would be after. These units take multiple inputs at various resolutions and can upscale them and downscale them to various resolutions. The question still lies what do you want to do/achieve with a vision mixer. Knowing a bit more will help with giving advice. Hope you find what you are looking for.

Hi i have had a look at what you want to achieve and as great as an IDR is it sounds very over the top. I would instead look at VS-4X - Single Output - Kramer Electronics. This gives you 4 selectable inputs. Alongside this I would add a small rackmount mixer at the stage end. This would allow you to have level control on the laptop and also allows you to add a microphone. Anthony

In one school I worked in we used to buy Logitech Harmony remotes. We found that there were a lot of profiles already available for various projector makes and models. They are not the cheapest but are a bigger remote and are less likely to be lost.

I have used various serif software and for the money it is really good. Depending on how complicated the videos need to be windows movie maker maybe your best bet.

That rather surprises me that Stage electric have said that. Installations in a sports hall can be quite fun. There are ways and means to do them and things to put equipment in. Audio is the most difficult as sports halls have really bad acoustics. What are they wanting to use audio for? If the audio is for speech then this makes it more fun as the louder it gets in there the less clear the speech will be. So for example if you have 1000 people you don't want 2 speakers at the front blasting volume, you will want a distributed system with more speakers covering the width /length of the room. So i am guessing that you have identified a wall that you want to use as the projection area. One option could be to have a ultra short throw projector which would be 1 closer to the wall and 2 easier to build a cage for. You could then have a electric drop down screen. There are various options to have the projector on a dropdown method. If you had a fixed projector in the middle of a room in a cage you would want it not on a single pole as if cage gets knocked then this would much it on the pole and take it out of alignment. From an audio point I would me more inclined to go with tight in the corner potentially looking at options from K Array Install Hope that helps if you want any help feel free to message me.

Hi just wondering if you have sorted this yet?

The Headphones already mentioned are fairly good. I have been buying these recently for the music department and when bought in bulk i have got them for around the £3.00 -£4.00 mark. They feel solid and are being used lots Numark HF125 Professional DJ Headphones

Sounds like a good idea to me, I guess you could then adjust profiles for each year group as they get older and if they need more access to various websites.

I generally use Brackets Brackets - A modern, open source code editor that understands web design. Notepad and notepad ++

Most security camera systems are fairly easy to install especially if you have a good it setup as you can then just get IP cameras.

Hi I have used the Epson ones and really like them, I too would be interested to see how these compare as they have an attractive price point. I have used NEC projectors and quite like them. I am wondering if we will start to see a decline in interactive boards or if the manufactures will join up with a projector firm to offer a smart interactive projector?

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What about building an asterisk system? Might sound overkill but could pave the way to upgrade your whole phone system.

If you are wanting a lot of the Selecon units then you will easily start spending thousands. from the pictures it looks like there are already some profiles and Fresnel and so I would personally adjust the rig and add led lights to add colour and use the normal stage lights for white wash. The dimming curve is not the greatest on the chauvet slimpar range but for a school these units are very cost effective. The chauvet colordash has a better dimming curve but is more expensive. Knowing the general setup of drama studios having led units down the side will make it easier to flood the space in colour which is what most drama teachers are after. For around £2000-£3000 they could get a good range of led fixtures. Personally i would be tempeted to get the quad led units over tri as you get RGBA which gives the amber rather than just RGB.

I have to disagree Andrew on the price of products file and fresnel units. Philips selecon pl1 units which are under a thousand pounds. Ok not cheap when you need a few but great units. Chauvet also do the slimpar pro vw which is a white light fixture where u can mix warm white and cold white. On a power note I would change the 13 amp plugs to 15s and then buy one of these type boxes http://www.mtxengineering.co.uk/product-categories/categories/54/MTX%20Socket%20Boxes And then wire this to a 13 amp plug. This would then be like patching the dimners but would provide hot power

Hi this is an interesting read. I build custom websites for people and have generally chosen to use wordpress as a CMS. Would I use wordpress as a VLE probably not but then it all depends on time and budgets. Both wordpress and moodle are a php database system. Each has been designed to work differently though. From an ease of use and plugin point of view wordpress has thousands and in theory you can turn wordpress into a VLE and it will work then comes the BUT.... You need someone to manage it and look after it and develop it. Moddle once built and setup and configured and made to look pretty will generally work fine and can be left but wordpress is not a native VLE. It's a bit like projectors they have a native resolution, they will do others but they work best in their native one and this is the same. From a cost and setup quickly wordpress works install plugins and off you go but unless it's a major plugin support will not be great and when something goes wrong your system can crash. A large issue and will always happen is people will use it for 5 minutes and then it will not get used. What ever VLE u have if it is not pushed and kept updated and developed staff will not use it. I have seen schools pay loads on frog and share point and unless teachers use it dies

Having recording studios and tv studios are great if they are properly used. I have seen schools install all these rooms and unless the school is running a proper course which needs the equipment then it just sits there. The teachers also need to be trained properly in using it and the subject or a technician who knows how to use the equipment and who can support the teacher in teaching the subject. Another issue is the budgets that schools put into these projects of often way to little. If it is going to be done do it properly buy equipment that will ideally last or have a plan to start with the basics and then add to it. Another issue is rooms especially with recording studios these need sound proofing which adds extra costs. For some reasons these projects are handed to the IT department which to be fair is never ideal. People see that the equipment uses IT and assume that IT people can set it all up and spec all the equipment. I feel this is unfair as unless you have a specialist in your department who knows all about it then there is a lot to learn. One bit of advice I would say is don't go to companies who advertise as education specialists, they often have limited brands and offer limited equipment. Find someone local, even a freelancer who you can talk to about what you need and want to achieve. A good one will be able to think out side of what you need and should be able to spec a better system. Hope that helps that's just my thoughts and knowledge

I worked in a school with a TV studio. It was never used as the school was getting re built and the studio became a class room. The new school had a TV studio room but the kit was quite old then as it was all component. I have built live video systems for event firms. It all depends on what you want to do. There are cheaper systems and you can get away with using of the shelf cheap cameras. Equipment which I would suggest looking at is the blackmagic stuff as your hardware video switcher. If you PM me and can tell me abit about your budget I am more than happy to help you build a system and recommend you some suppliers.

I guess it all depends on your setup. A MAT site wide wireless system would be rather handy. A major question i have would be what are the current systems like in the current schools. Although it maybe a pain if they already have a decent wireless setup then It might be easier to leave them from a cost perspective. Ultimately I guess it all depends on how many sites you have and how good the existing systems are. For MAT with primary schools this would be really helpful as generally primary schools from my knowledge do not have an IT tech where as secondary schools generally do. From a system point of view I would say go and try a few, and see how good they are at handling multi site setups and delpolyment. Sounds like a fun project.

Can I ask why not just have independent setups in each academy.?surely that would be easier.