Established | 1987 (37 years ago) |
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Headquarters | New York City |
Part of | Professional Lighting and Sound Association |
Website | www |
The EntertainmentServices &TechnologyAssociation (ESTA) is an American non-profit trade association that represents the entertainment technology industry and is dedicated to promoting professionalism and growth within it. It also provides a forum where interested parties can exchange ideas and information, create standards and recommend certain practices, and face problems in terms of training and certification.
ESTA members provide a wide variety of products and services to the industry, which range from large corporations to individual designers. Its members include distributors, manufacturers, companies in the field of service and production, designers and consultants.
ESTA is currently in charge of reviewing the DMX512 protocol (Digital MultipleX) as well as the development of the new sACN protocol (Advanced Control Network), both communications protocols used to control the lighting of scenarios and special effects.
In 2010 ESTA merged with PLASA [1] [2] and demerged in 2015.
As of January 2011 ESTA, the Entertainment Services and Technology Association in North America, has merged with the Professional Lighting and Sound Association, a similar organization in the UK. The new organization was called PLASA. In 2015 PLASA Governing Body chairman John Simpson announced that the organisation had been facing "critical cash-flow problems", precipitating the sale of its Eastbourne office, staff reductions, business restructuring and a reduction in services provided to members. In addition, the de-merger of the American arm of the organisation into a separate body.
All ESTA standards are now maintained by ESTA.
In 1994 the ESTA started a technical standards program for the development of industry standards. This program is officially recognized by ANSI as a "Standards Developer". Standards developed by the ESTA go through life as ANSI E1.-number-year - description .
Example standards are:
The International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) was a trade association created by the merger of the Photographic and Imaging Manufacturers Association (PIMA) and the Digital Imaging Group (DIG) in 2001. It served the photographic industry, which included tracking the market size.
DMX512 is a standard for digital communication networks that are commonly used to control lighting and effects. It was originally intended as a standardized method for controlling stage lighting dimmers, which, prior to DMX512, had employed various incompatible proprietary protocols. It quickly became the primary method for linking controllers to dimmers and special effects devices such as fog machines and intelligent lights.
LonWorks or Local Operating Network is an open standard for networking platforms specifically created to address the needs of control applications. The platform is built on a protocol created by Echelon Corporation for networking devices over media such as twisted pair, power lines, fiber optics, and wireless. It is used for the automation of various functions within buildings such as lighting and HVAC; see building automation.
BACnet is a communication protocol for building automation and control (BAC) networks that use the ASHRAE, ANSI, and ISO 16484-5 standards protocol.
A lighting control console is an electronic device used in theatrical lighting design to control multiple stage lights at once. They are used throughout the entertainment industry and are normally placed at the front of house (FOH) position or in a control booth.
LonTalk is a networking protocol. Originally developed by Echelon Corporation for networking devices over media such as twisted pair, powerlines, fiber optics, and RF. It is popular for the automation of various functions in industrial control, home automation, transportation, and buildings systems such as lighting and HVAC, the protocol has now been adopted as an open international control networking standard in the ISO/IEC 14908 family of standards. Published through ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6, this standard specifies a multi-purpose control network protocol stack optimized for smart grid, smart building, and smart city applications.
The National Information Standards Organization is a United States non-profit standards organization that develops, maintains and publishes technical standards related to publishing, bibliographic and library applications. It was founded in 1939 as the Z39 Committee, chaired from 1963-1977 by Jerrold Orne, incorporated as a not-for-profit education association in 1983, and assumed its current name in 1984.
Show control is the use of automation technology to link together and operate multiple entertainment control systems in a coordinated manner. It is distinguished from an entertainment control system, which is specific to a single theatrical department, system or effect, one which coordinates elements within a single entertainment discipline such as lighting, sound, video, rigging, or pyrotechnics. A typical entertainment control system would be a lighting control console. An example of show control would be linking a video segment with a number of lighting cues, or having a sound cue trigger animatronic movements, or all of these combined. Shows with or without live actors can almost invariably incorporate entertainment control technology and usually benefit from show control to operate these subsystems independently, simultaneously, or in rapid succession.
A systems integrator is a person or company that specializes in bringing together component subsystems into a whole and ensuring that those subsystems function together, a practice known as system integration. They also solve problems of automation. Systems integrators may work in many fields but the term is generally used in the information technology (IT) field such as computer networking, the defense industry, the mass media, enterprise application integration, business process management or manual computer programming. Data quality issues are an important part of the work of systems integrators.
Fieldbus Foundation was an organization dedicated to a single international, interoperable fieldbus standard. It was established in September 1994 by a merger of WorldFIP North America and the Interoperable Systems Project (ISP). Fieldbus Foundation was a not-for-profit trade consortium that consisted of more than 350 of the world's suppliers and end users of process control and manufacturing automation products. Working together those companies made contributions to the IEC/ISA/FDI and other fieldbus standards development.
Architecture for Control Networks (ACN) is a suite of network protocols for control of entertainment technology equipment, particularly as used in live performance or large-scale installations. For example, lighting, audio or special effects equipment. ACN is maintained by Entertainment Services and Technology Association and its first official release was ANSI Standard E1.17-2006 - Entertainment Technology - Architecture for Control Networks. The standard was subsequently revised and released as ANSI E1.17-2010.
D54 is an analogue lighting communications protocol used to control stage lighting. It was developed by Strand Lighting in the late 1970s and was originally designed to handle 384 channels. Though more advanced protocols exist such as Digital MultipleX DMX (lighting), it was widely used in larger venues such as London's West End theatres which had Strand Lighting dimming installations, and it was popular amongst technicians because all the levels can be "seen" on an oscilloscope. D54 is still supported on legacy equipment such as the Strand 500 series consoles alongside DMX. Generally a protocol converter is now used to convert DMX (lighting) down to the native D54.
Remote Device Management(RDM) is an addition to the DMX512 control protocol for stage lighting equipment, introduced in 2006. DMX512 was developed in the late 1980s as a standard protocol for lighting consoles to communicate with dimmers, but has since been used for more complex applications, including the control of intelligent lighting fixtures. The addition of RDM addresses many of the shortcomings of DMX512, which is unidirectional with no support for metadata.
A theatre consultant is a consultant who specializes in the design of facilities for the performing arts, equipment for those facilities and the operation of theatre.
Digital Serial Interface (DSI) is a protocol for the controlling of lighting in buildings. It was created in 1991 by Austrian company Tridonic and is based on Manchester-coded 8-bit protocol, data rate of 1200 baud, 1 start bit, 8 data bits, 4 stop bits, and is the basis of the more sophisticated protocol Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI).
Lighting & Sound America is an American entertainment technology magazine published in New York City by PLASA Media Inc, a commercial arm of the Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA). Lighting & Sound America covers the broad range of the entertainment, presentation and events industries worldwide, including theatre, live touring, clubs, themed venues, corporate events and presentations, as well as in-depth profiles of people and companies involved in the lighting and sound industry.
Art-Net is a royalty-free communications protocol for transmitting the DMX512-A lighting control protocol and Remote Device management (RDM) protocol over the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) of the Internet protocol suite. It is used to communicate between "nodes" and a "server".
The Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) is a family of specifications published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) used in conjunction with the ISO/IEC 14908 control networking standard for smart grid applications. OSGP is optimized to provide reliable and efficient delivery of command and control information for smart meters, direct load control modules, solar panels, gateways, and other smart grid devices. With over 5 million OSGP based smart meters and devices deployed worldwide it is one of the most widely used smart meter and smart grid device networking standards.
The Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA) is a trade association headquartered in Eastbourne, United Kingdom. Its membership is made up of companies involved with the events and entertainments technology sector.