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Home> ParaZip
 
       
 

The ParaZip 400 and 200 luminaires complement the expanding line of Kino Flo soft light fixtures for television broadcast studios. The sleek ParaZips display a wide, soft beam of incandescent or daylight quality light (CRI 95) that can be dimmed up or down. The ParaZip 400 has switching and dimming controls, the ParaZip 200 features dimming only. Both Fixtures have:
 

• Dmx and manual dimming
• Yoke Mount
• Parabolic intensifying reflector
• Gel Frame
• Focusing Louver
• True Match® daylight and tungsten lamps

 










     
      
 

     Detail Of Features
    More Information
   ParaZip Highlights

  The ParaZip has distinct advantages over conventional quartz softlights.

  • Lower amperage draw, energy savings
  • Longer lamp life, lower lamp replacements, lower maintenance labor
  • Lower operating temperature
  • Lower air-conditioning costs
  • More efficient heat management design for stable color temperature
  • Uses 5500K, 3200K and 2900K, 550nm green and 420nm blue lamps
  • Full spectrum (CRI 95) lamps available in 3 color temperatures: 2900K, 3200K and 5500K
  • High color rendering True Match lamps work well alongside conventional quartz lights or HMI’s
  • Dmx control for stable color temperature and light level control
  • Color gels do not burn out or fade due to lower heat of fixture
  • Traditional yoke mount with two position setting
  • Honeycomb louvers 90°, 60° and 45° reduce the need for barndoors



The Parazip is the Parabeam's younger Brother with many common features.
The main difference with the Parazip is that the ParaZip uses a traditional yoke
and the lamps are stacked in a linear fashion. This gives the Parazip a longer,
more shallow profile ideal for low ceiling applications.

The ParaZip is a directional softlight ideally suited for today’s rigorous demands
for high quality color correct, cool lighting for HD television. With the intro-duction of HD broadcasts, it has become highly evident that the quality of light is more critical than ever. Every imperfection and detail of camera talent is now up for scrutiny. Traditional hard light can exaggerate those textural details. Soft light can subdue those same textures and render a more cosmetic appearance.

The ParaZip afford lighting designers the necessary light control required for a studio environment. The lamps are dimmable from 100% to 5% as well as switchable (turning on/off two lamps at a time) from a lighting board through Dmx.

The instrument can be tilted and panned as well as rotated to take full advantage of the lateral beam. Varying degrees of louvers (90°, 60°, 45°) reduce the need for barn doors and help create soft edge.

 
 
   Understanding “The Beam”

  Generally fluorescents have a very broad soft light output. The light tends to drop off rapidly which means the
Fixtures need to be positioned close to the subject they are lighting. The ParaZip has a computer aided designed (CAD) parabolic reflector that was designed to maximize the light output at about 16 feet (5 meters). This achieves two things: it doubles the light output of the lamps and concentrates the light where the lighting director needs
it most. Compared to the Diva-Lite, which uses the same four 55Watt compact lamps and the same ballast,
the ParaZip is twice as bright.
 


Note: A ParaBeam 400 is used for illustration purposes.

In the open face mode the fixture has nothing obstructing the front of the unit. To best see the beam structure, shine it on a white wall. You can see a wide hot center of the beam. The light above and below the beam tapers off in intensity. Although the fixture is square, the beam of light is a broad lateral oval because
of the parabolic reflector.

 
The 90° Louver concentrates the light and behaves much like a 24” barn door. The beam is slightly oval with a hot center. The light tapers off to a nice soft edge.  
The 60° Louver further concentrates the light into a smaller, tighter soft edged circle.  
The 45° Louver is the most concentrated circle of light. It would be similar to putting a 6 feet (1.5 meter) long snoot onto the ParaBeam. The spot displays a beautiful soft edge.  
     
 
The sleek profile is well suited for a low ceiling studio environment. The parabolic louver design eliminates the necessity of adding intensifiers. In small studios a narrow design also allows other fixtures to operate within close proximity. The fixture is not encumbered with long barn doors or intensifiers. The selection of the appropriate louver 90°, 60° or 45° is more efficient that barn doors.

Intensifiers are necessary in fixture designs that have inefficient reflectors and where lamps are too closely spaced.



 


A Gel Frame is provided to hold colored gels or for standard theatrical diffusion materials.

        

 




A Silver Louver is included with all ParaZip fixtures.

 
Dmx Control  
 
 
The ParaZip 400 features Dmx control of dim levels as well as four or two-lamp operation. The fixture operates on one or two Dmx addresses. Address One allows dimming control of all four lamps; address Two allows two channel control of two individual sets of lamps. Additional Dmx control, dimming control and power switch are conveniently located on one control panel.  
     


The ParaZip 400 can also be controlled manually. The user can select 2 or 4 lamp operation as well as dimming control.

 


Remote Dim plug-in located on control panel.  
A hand-held remote dimmer (DIM-5) on a 15ft extension cable can also be used in small studios that do not have a Dmx dimmer control board.  



   The Yoke Mount

 

The ParZip 400 and 200 have traditional Yoke Mounts. The yokes have been
designed such that the fixture brackets can be place in one of two positions.
The additional option is useful when hanging the units in a studio with a low
ceiling.

The Parazips can be mounted to a baby pin using (MTP-I40) or to a
junior receiver using (MTP-I80).

 

 
     
 

 

 
            MTP-I40                                    MTP-I80  
    



    Light Control
 
 

Barndoors (sold separately) are available but rarely used. The most effective
ones are the doors along the longer edge of the fixture. On this axis the doors actually have some effect. The side doors have little effect due to the deep set parabolic reflector.

 

The ParaZip barndoors are sold in sets of two and can be individually mounted.The Barndoor hinges can be tightened with a screw driver
if they become loose over time.

 


 
  Honeycomb Louvers are available in 90°, 60° and 45°.
  They provide great beam control and for the most part eliminate the need for
  barndoors.
 
     



    The Lamps

 
 

ParaZips operate on 55Watt twin tube compact fluorescents. Kino Flo’s True Match® KF55 and KF29 are designed for daylight and tungsten respectively.
In 1995 Kino Flo received a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in part for the development of its color correct
line of fluorescent lamps.

The True Match lamps allow the KF29 to mix seamlessly with regular studio quartz hard lights. The KF55 mixes seamlessly with natural daylight or HMI’s.

In June 2009, Kino Flo introduced the new KF32 compact 55Watt lamp to add to its award winning True Match line of professional cool lights. This addition expands the creative palate for cinematic HD and filmmaking. Like other lamps in the True Match family, the new KF32’s color (CRI 95) is formulated by Kino Flo to match the spectral sensitivity curves of HD and digital film imaging equipment. With its proprietary chemistry, the new KF32 in a Kino Flo fixture displays a unique quality of soft light.
The smooth beam gradient responds especially well to the new generation of HD cameras on the set and works side by side with traditional tungsten sources without corrective filtration.

The 420nm blue and 550nm green lamps are also available for lighting blue and green screens. The narrow band lamps provide an efficient light source for special effects compositing.

 

 



 ParaZip Advantage
 Environmental Advantage
 


From a “green perspective” the ParaZips provide great energy savings.

For example: 2000Watt Quartz softlight = 16 amps
                       220Watt ParaZip 400’s = 2.0 amps
                       Both have the same light output.
The air conditioning load to handle heat generated by lighting is calculated in Btu/kWhr.
                       2000Watts = 6826 Btu/kWhr
                       220Watts = 750.86 Btu/kWhr
 
Factoring this type of power and energy differential in a studio adds up to monumental savings in
green house gases, not to mention money saved.

Long Lamp Life

Lamp life of a compact fluorescent for the television and motion picture industry is determined more by its
lumen maintenance than by its actual "burn time". All fluorescent lamps display a lumen depreciation curve.
This means that over time the light output gradually drops and lowers in color temperature.  A lamp may be
rated at 10,000 to 20,000 hours but its useful light quality is shorter. It is realistically more in the 2000 to
2500 hour range. In a Studio environment this adds up to about 1 year of continous use.

All fluorescent lamps require some "burn in" time before they operate at their rated Kelvin temperature and brightness. For dimming products, the lamps perform best after 100 hours of operation.

True Match Color Correct Lamps

True Match lamps are formulated to correspond to the spectral distribution curves of film and television cameras
as well as look correct to the eye. They are designed to match the colors from studio quartz units or daylight sources such as HMI’s.  This gives the lighting director the option of mixing quartz hard light sources with fluorescent soft sources. Most lighting designers want the ability to use both qualities of light to enhance the set.

Architectural lamps are designed to optimize government-mandated standards for lumens per Watt efficiencies (energy savings targets). In order to achieve these standards the lamps contain high levels of green spectrum, which our eyes don’t perceive as inaccurate. Film and television cameras do record this added green. This renders for example a Caucasian skin tone as grayish and unattractive. The architectural lamps do not match with other studio lamps. They render colors inaccurately and make correction in post almost impossible.

In 1995 Kino Flo received a technical achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
for the development of the first color correct lamps for film. Kino Flo continues to be a leader in their field introducing new developments and constantly improving the efficiencies and formulations of its lamp technology.

Heat Management Design

The physical heat of the lamp directly influences color temperature and lumen performance and lamp life.
In order to maintain a stable color performance the lamp requires:

  • a cool spot at the tip of the lamp
  • a horizontal orientation
  • or a vertical orientation where the base of the lamp is above the lamp tip.

The ParaZip design addresses these requirements:

  • Two special cooling chambers at opposite ends of the fixture provide ventilation. This ensures that the heatfrom the lamp is drawn out of the fixture and away from the body of the lamp. A temperature-stabilized lamp will provide consistent color performance.
  • The deep parabolic reflector further prevents the heat from lower lamps to be transmitted to the lamps above.

A well maintained lamp temperature extends the lumen maintenance, color temperature and life of a lamp.

Many manufacturers do not emphasize heat management as a critical design element. They place lamps so close together that they heat each other up and never provide a stable temperature environment.  A True Match lamp
in a poorly ventilated fixture will not perform as well as in a Kino Flo fixture. We have seen customers of other manufacturers buy True Match lamps and wonder why the performance is not as good as in a Kino Flo fixture.
The answer is all in the heat management.

Reflector Design

The parabolic reflector design puts out a narrow lateral beam.  When lighting a news set you very often are
lighting two to three people at a news desk. The effective area to be lighted is a broad rectangle. With
conventional lights, the lighting projection would be a large round area. Barndoors or flags would be used to
remove the light from above and below the rectangular area. This constitutes tremendous loss of light and efficiency. The ParaBeam puts the light where it is needed most. Barndoors or flags can still be used to eliminate
spill above and below the rectangular area without reducing the efficiency of the instrument.

Another great advantage of the ParaZip over conventional quartz soft light units is the efficiency of the
reflector design. Quartz softlights rely on a white painted reflector that yellows and gathers dust. This alters
the color temperature and reduces light output. The drop off is much like a bounce card. For this reason
soft lights have to work close to their subject matter. The ParaZip reflector is a precision design using
highly reflective material that is shaped to project a beam of soft light at a focal distance of about 16ft (5m).
This explains how 110Watts of good design can equal 2000Watts of inefficient design.

Reflector designs by other manufacturers of fluorescents tend to be shallow and inefficient. In order to get more light output they add expensive and time consuming accessories called intensifiers. These are large reflector panels that attach to the four sides of the fixture. They make the fixture twice as big and add unnecessary cost.

High Efficiency Output

The ParaZip's lumens per watt out performs all other units in the market, using a 110watt fixture to do the work
of another manufacturer’s 220watt fluorescent fixture. Photometric performance is very important.  It is also important to note that other manufacturers use high green-spiked lamps to boost artificially their photometric values.

Yoke Mount

The ParZip 400 and 200 have traditional yoke mounts. The yokes have been designed such that the fixture brackets can be place in one of two positions. The additional option is useful when hanging the units in a studio with a low
ceiling.

The Parazips can be mounted to a baby pin using (MTP-I40) or to a junior receiver using (MTP-I80).


Dmx Control

The ParaZips can be controlled through a Dmx 512 digital protocol. They do not require dimmer racks.
This saves capital costs as well as energy costs.

Most studios are designed with dimmer racks that are regulated from a lighting board. The lighting board sends out a Dmx signal to the rack that adjusts the voltage to the lamps through pulse width modulation. The more quartz lights are used more dimmer racks need to be added. These racks generate heat and noise and require a special soundproof room.

Studios using Kino Flos can rely on a simple Dmx lighting board to control the fixtures. The dimming electronics are contained in the fixture and do not require expensive dimmer racks to adjust line voltage. The Dmx signal regulates the dimming levels. There is no additional noise or heat generated by this process. Small studios can use dimmer control boards that cost as little as $400.


Cost Savings
  • Cost savings attributed to fluorescents cover a broad range of concerns:
  • Lower energy costs
  • Less heat so lower air-conditioning expenses
  • No gel replacements because of low heat
  • Fewer lamp replacements due to longer lamp life
  • Lamp replacement labor reduced by a factor of 10
Energy Savings Calculations

With the push for reducing fossil fuel consumption, TV studios are looking at cooler more efficient lighting systems
to reduce costs and save energy. Part of this process involves generating energy values to determine savings.

One of the most important values is Btu/kWh.

British Thermal Units per Kilowatt Hour

Any light generates a percentage of usable light and the rest in heat.

For example, a standard incandescent light bulb converts only 11 percent of its electrical input into visible light, while the rest is dissipated directly as heat. There are energy costs involved in cooling the studio environment.
The measure of Btu/kWh is a means of calculating the thermal loads related to operating lighting.

Use the following information to calculate Btu/kWh

Watts to BTU
1 KWH= 3413 BTU/Hr.
1 watt= 3.413 BTU/Hr.
3.413 BTU per Watt-hour

Example: ParaZip 400 = 220Watts
220 x 3.413= 750.86 Btu/kWh

 

 

 
 

 

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