High End Systems is an Austin, Texas-based manufacturer of entertainment lighting and control systems. The embryo of the company, Blackstone Audio Video, was founded in 1972 by Lowell and Sue Fowler. Later on High End Systems was founded, owned, and managed by Lowell Fowler, Richard Belliveau, and Bob Schacherl before it was bought by Belgium-based Barco in 2008.
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Early History
After graduating from the University of Texas with a degree in communications, Lowell Fowler founded Blackstone Audio Visual with his wife Sue. They specialized in projection systems called “Atmospheres,” which used multiple slide projectors that dissolved from one image to the next. They also owned and operated a nightclub in the west campus area of the University of Texas called Stars. It was there that Fowler met Richard Belliveau, who convinced him that the lighting could be improved. Belliveau then set out to install more advanced lighting equipment in Stars, as well as other nightclubs, when he began working for Blackstone Audio Visual.
Belliveau was born in Hitchin, United Kingdom. His father was in the U.S. Air Force and his mother was British. His family frequently moved around Europe and the United States when Belliveau was a child. He became a self-taught electronics technician while he was in high school in Austin, Texas. He learned he could earn extra money by modifying musical instruments and by installing and repairing car stereos. He entered and won many competitions for car stereo installation. Later, he began working as a DJ, and his background in electronics and natural curiosity enabled him to install, repair, and eventually design audio and lighting equipment.
Blackstone Audio Visual moved from a small shop in central Austin to spacious offices in north Austin in the mid 1980s, in the same complex as Dell computer. By this time, Bob Schacherl, who was one of the first employees of the company, had become a partner. The three partners began attending trade shows and learning about state-of-the-art lighting equipment, much of which was being manufactured in Europe. They began installing and distributing Pulsar, Clay Paky, Coemar, Optikinetics, JEM, and other European brands that were difficult to find in North America. At the same time, Belliveau began designing and building loudspeakers especially for nightclubs and discothèques. Blackstone Audio Visual specialized in installing high end audio, video, and lighting systems in nightclubs all over the United States. But Belliveau was unhappy with the design of many of the products they were selling, so he began to design his own.
High End Systems Begins Manufacturing
In 1987, Belliveau began experimenting with dichroic filters and designed a color fading lighting instrument called Color Pro. It used three MR-16 lamps to crossfade between colors, which was unique at the time. In the process, it was discovered that dichroic filters, which are color-tuned thin-film filters deposited on hardened glass, were very expensive. So Belliveau bought a used vacuum chamber and directed employees to re-build it for the purpose of manufacturing their own dichroic filters. At the time, there were no other lighting companies that made their own dichroic filters. Color Pro was a commercial and critical success, selling multiple hundreds of units each month. It was distributed worldwide through a newly established distributor network.
Around the same time, Belliveau set up a manufacturing division called Lightwave Research for the express purpose of designing and building new products. Another new company called High End Systems was incorporated in order to separate the installation company, Blackstone Audio Visual, from the sales and distribution of equipment. More employees were hired and more space rented in order to accommodate the growing enterprises.
The next products to be designed and built were the Laser Chorus and Dataflash. Laser Chorus was a multiple-head laser system with 4.9-milliwatt gas laser tubes available in red, yellow, green, and orange. The heads were controlled by a microprocessor-based controller and they were capable of producing effects such as tunnels, planes, and various other geometric shapes and patterns. Because they were not over 5 milliwatts they were Class IIIA lasers and did not require a variance to operate in most states in the U.S.
Dataflash was a multi-head, microprocessor-controlled strobe system with DMX control. It was used on many high-profile tours, including the Michael Jackson Dangerous tour, as well as in many nightclubs like Mannequins Dance Palace in the Pleasure Island area of Walt Disney World.
Another new product produced by Lightwave Research around the same time was the F-100 Fog Generator. It became one of the most widely used stage and entertainment fog machines in the industry.
Among the many other innovations that Lightwave Research was known for was the LCD Controller. It was a microprocessor-based, rack-mount controller with a push-button interface and an LCD display. There were LCD Controllers for Color Pro, Dataflash, and Intellabeam. They had unique features such as binary access, which provided for triggering of cues from a remote console or computer.
Intellabeam Launched
The introduction of Intellabeam automated light in 1989 marked a new chapter in the history of High End Systems and in the live event production industry. Until that time, most automated lighting in the live event production industry were rented, and Vari*Lite dominated the concert and touring market. But widespread acceptance of Intellabeam meant that, for the first time, production companies could now buy their own automated lighting and rent them for concert tours and corporate events. Lighting designer Chas Herington was one of the first to specify and use them in a major worldwide tour in 1991, which was Dire Straits' "On Every Street" tour. High End Systems technician Bill McCarty was the automated lighting tech who went out with the tour. He helped make the fixtures more road-worthy by requesting modifications from the road after every gig. Once word spread about the success of the tour and the lighting system, they gained favor amongst lighting designers.
Soon after the success of the Intellabeam, High End Systems became recognized as a worldwide supplier of road-worthy concert and touring lighting equipment and effects, which paved the way for entry into theatre, television and film, cruise ships, and other markets.
Trackspot was another Lightwave Research product that manufactured in the early years. It was a, smaller, more economical moving mirror fixture with a proprietary 250-watt quartz lamp. It had a set of personality DIP switches that allowed the fixtures to be addressed by fixture number instead of DMX starting address.
Technospot was a compact automated moving yoke profile spot with a 5.3-inch exit lens. The “indigo highlighter,” which is four 1-watt indigo LEDs, give it a distinctive look. It features CMY color mixing, a fixed color wheel, two rotating Lithopattern® wheels, a rotating prism, an animation wheel, 11° to 34° zoom, and RDM capability. It outputs over 12,000 lumens.
Later Years
One of the more significant achievements of High End Systems was the introduction of the DMX-controlled media server called Catalyst in 2002. Up until that point, media servers were manually-operated systems where the media, either tape or video computer files, were switched using a push button matrix switcher or a T-handle switcher to crossfade between sources. In 2000, High End Systems introduced a digital projection system with a video projector, Orbital Mirror Head, and a DMX-controlled media server that interfaced with a lighting console. It allowed a lighting programmer to program the video switching and effects into the lighting console and play them back as part of the light show. The first such system was called Catalyst, but Catalyst evolved into the DMX-controlled media server while the Orbital Mirror Head was marketed alone.
That era marked the beginning of High End Systems’ immersion in digital luminaires. Soon after Catalyst, they introduced the DL.1 Digital Luminaire, a moving yoke projection system under the control of DMX512. It required the use of an external media server but the next evolutions of the product, the DL.2, DL.3, and DL.V all have media servers built in. The integration of media servers in their digital luminaires led to the development of another media server, the Axon Media Server.