Andrew Veitch, lighting director for Channel 9 in Sydney, is always keen to try out a promising piece of new lighting technology and so it was no surprise that he was eager to try out the Jands Vista lighting console.

After giving the Vista a trial run in the Channel 9 studios, Andrew was confident enough to specify it for the live to air, outside broadcast of The Footy Show held at the Gold Coast Convention Centre last month.

“I liked how you could use the pen to group things easily - you could copy, paste and add things very quickly,” said Andrew.

“It was great how you had all the gobos on the tablet in front of you so you could quickly grab a colour, grab a gobo and lock it all in. It’s a very different way of using a console but I liked that. With a Wholehog it’s much more laborious; with the Vista it’s all there in front of you; just do it, record it and play it back. Simple!”

Channel 9’s Mark Albright operated the Vista and he too was enthusiastic about its revolutionary features.

“Once you get used to the fact that the Vista is nothing like a Wholehog and more like a PC, it’s a great operating system,” he said.

“It’s user-friendly, has good help functions and has nice lay out. It’s also got a really extensive effects library, which is excellent, and you can easily make up your own effects, which was fantastic. It certainly is a good console to use.”

The lighting team at Channel 9 have also been trying out the new Varilite VL2500 wash luminaire.

“They were great!” exclaimed Andrew. “The colour mix was particularly impressive as was their output.”