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ARRI Orbiter: Everything You Need To Know

ARRI has made a name for itself as one of the most trusted and widely venerated names in film production technology and image capture. It has continually wowed the film industry and hasn’t ceased with the introduction of the ARRI Orbiter.

Being the worthy successor to the ARRI SkyPanel, the ARRI Orbiter is the newest LED fixture from ARRI. It features systems designed completely from the ground up, guaranteeing both the easiest and the most versatile use over a wide range of mediums including but not limited to motion pictures, television and broadcasting, live theater and performance, and still photography.

It is ultra-bright, completely color tunable, and maneuverable in any direction. It fully harnesses and adapts ARRI’s most powerful software and technology to date to create one of the most powerful and technologically advanced LED luminaires on the market. Let us take a look at some of the innovations the ARRI Orbiter is bringing to the table for image capture.

Orbiter Key Features

Quick Lighting Mount

Orbiter-QLM

One new key feature the ARRI Orbiter introduces is the QLM, or Quick Lighting Mount, which allows for a wide and increasing array of changeable optics that can be specifically built and customized for any situation. The QLM exponentially increases the versatility of the unit when compared to other LEDs of its kind.

Widely varying optics can be connected with the use of the QLM, allowing for wildly changing properties and effects. This can be done on the fly with no downgrade in the power of the beam, the power of the output, or the quality of coloring given from the unit.

ARRI has already designed a number of optic attachments for the Orbiter, with more options, including third-party support, coming down the line. The already designed attachments include the open face optic, the dome optic, and the projection optic. They each excel in specific areas and can be used to incorporate your unique ideas into your production.

If you need the light to reach long distances, you can attach the open face optic to the Orbiter, including several different beam angles 15°, 30°, and 60.

If you need to light up a large area, the dome optic can be attached, providing a wide, open light that covers vast spaces and illuminates them thoroughly, domes come in 3 different sizes.

The projection optic can offer more precise lighting, which can then be further adjusted with cutters or more specific focus, optics available are 15°,25°, and 35°.

To support third-party development, a QLM attachment will be made that allows for universal adaptability with both current and future products made for the Orbiter.

With the creation and incorporation of the QLM, the ARRI Orbiter is allowed to become whatever light fixture you need in the moment, and there will be plenty of room in the future for even further innovation that can provide more than you could ever imagine for the lighting of your production, regardless of the size and scale.

ARRI Spectra Six-Color Light Engine

 

Orbiter-6-color-light-engine

Another one of the ARRI Orbiters greatest features is the new ARRI Spectra six-color light engine. Designed with the ARRI Orbiter in mind, ARRI Spectra features red, green, blue, amber, cyan and lime LEDs, which can blossom into an incredibly vast color range with impeccably accurate color definition.

The highest color rendition across the vast spectrum of the CCT range will be fully supported. Compared to previous ARRI units such as the ARRI SkyPanel, the ARRI Orbiter with Spectra allows for 15% better color approximation, making sure the color you want is the color you get. You can also switch from High Color Rendering Mode to High Output Mode for 20% more output.

Orbiter - Ultra High Color Rendering

The ARRI Orbiter is given a very wide CCT range of 2,000 to 20,000 K, the largest of any ARRI unit, allowing for ultra-color rendition regardless of color temperature. With the versatility and endless possibilities of the ARRI Orbiter and the new ARRI Spectra light engine, skin tones are allowed to look more bold, natural, and impressive than ever, whether for film, television, theatrical productions, or still photography. It is completely tunable, allowing for lossless tuning down to zero with absolutely no skips in color or unstable jumps. What you get with the ARRI Orbiter is incredibly potent brightness with absolute tenability.

ARRI’s Orbiter is seemingly as powerful as the sun itself, likewise, bringing with it a brand new day for the industry of digital lighting and image capture as a whole. Quite possibly the most technologically advanced luminaire on the market, ARRI has taken their game to a totally new level with the Orbiter. Outperforming any other ARRI unit in versatility and function, without sacrificing one for the other, the state-of-the-art-electronics in the Orbiter allow it to perform more tasks than any other lighting unit available.

The Orbiter doesn’t just outperform other fixtures, it eclipses them on the track and passes it twice before the bell rings. Four times faster than the SkyPanel, with 125 times more memory than the SkyPanel built in at launch, the ARRI Orbiter arrives on the market already dwarfing its predecessor.

Not only that, but the adaptability and software infrastructure built into the ARRI Orbiter open it up to be further advanced in real-time with no limits, having extensive updates, including new software features, being provided for it well into the distant future like we had with the Skypanel series. It is a very sleek piece of technology, oh and it’s also weatherproof.

 

LIOS – Lighting Operating System

 

Orbiter- LIOS Color Modes

Taking full advantage of all past software development the ARRI team has ever accomplished, including a longstanding and venerated history in both digital lighting and image capture, ARRI has provided for the Orbiter a new OS built from the ground up, designed specifically for the Orbiter. LiOS, or Lighting Operating System, is ARRIs magnum opus when it comes to its software technology. Absorbing into itself and enhancing all prior leaps made in the field of lighting technology, LiOS is a veritable capstone, standing as the most powerful and intuitive OS in the industry.

Everything the ARRI SkyPanel attempted and worked towards has been exhaustively matured and perfected in the development of the ARRI Orbiter and its LiOS. The ARRI Orbiter blows its competitors out of the water.

The biggest feature of LiOS is its range of color modes. These include CCT, HIS, RGBACL, Gel Selection, X/Y Coordinates, Source Matching, and Effect. Most powerful of all, however, is the new color sensor mode, developed exclusively for the ARRI Orbiter.

The color sensor mode takes full advantage of the ARRI Orbiters full suite of built-in sensors to accurately and finely measure the ambient light around it and then fully recreate it through the Orbiters own output. The things that can be done with this feature will be incredibly versatile, allowing for a whole new generation to further explore and innovate in the field of digital lighting for image capture.

Multiple Sensors

 

Orbiter- Sensors

Orbiter also comes stacked with a color sensor, a 3-axis accelerometer for motion sensing, a magnetometer for directional sensing, an ambient light sensor, and heat sensors.

Surely, the ARRI Orbiter is a luminaire to be reckoned with. On top of its power, the ARRI Orbiter will prove to be both incredibly versatile in its applications and unbeatably user-friendly.

Intuitive & Removeable Controller 

 

Orbiter - Removeable Controller

One of its most attractive features for the user is a removable control panel with a 4” full-color electronic that can be taken away from the unit and used to control the unit as a remote control.

This remote unit will provide full functionality for the ARRI Orbiter with an incredibly intuitive and easy-touse interface, so you can pick up the control from wherever you need to be stationed and start lighting the room the way you want to light it.

With the remote control panel, the device can be operated from up to 15 meters away. It will stay connected by wire to ensure no weakness in signal affects your ability to control the device.

On top of this, the ARRI Orbiter features nearly universal connectivity for any device imaginable to sync up and interact with it, making it the perfect universal tool.

 

Orbiter Input/ Outputs

 

Orbiter - IO interface ports

Included in its design is a full setup of the most popular inputs and outputs on the market, making sure you can hook up the ARRI Orbiter to whatever device it needs to be hooked up to. The ARRI Orbiter is also equipped for all modes of wireless connectivity, with not one but two separate EtherCON ports, which can support right out of the box sACN and Art-Net 4.

Adaptability with an oncoming plethora of third-party add-ons has also been guaranteed to keep coming steadily down the line, promising to further enhance both the capabilities and connectivity of the ARRI Orbiter.

An SD card slot is used for both future software expansions, which will be plentiful, and for making sure the firmware stays up to date so that the Orbiter stays functioning at a high standard. Connectivity is rounded out with both USB-A and USB-C ports, allowing unlimited communication with many other devices.

The plethora of support and maintenance being promised for the future of the ARRI Orbiter makes it a luminaire of nearly infinite potential. Given ARRIs solid reputation and history in the industry, with each new unit eclipsing the one before it in terms of both power and versatility, the appeal and purchase of the ARRI Orbiter seems like an absolute given.

With an unlimited range of applications spanning from the motion picture industry to broadcast television, theatrical performances and live entertainment to still photography, the ARRI Orbiter is the perfect unit for anyone in need of adaptable, flawless lighting for their professional project.

 

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Technical Specifications

Light Aperture
45 mm / 1,78“Beam Angle
80° Half Peak Angle, without optics

Weight
Manual Version: approx. 15 kg / 33 lbs
Pole Op Version: approx. 16 kg / 37 lbs

Handling
Aluminum yoke with quick release, high strength tilt lock, pole operation option (pan and tilt)

Mounting
28 mm Spigot (Junior Pin)

Tilt Angle
+/- 90°

Voltage Input Range
100 – 260 V~, 50 – 60 Hz

Power Consumption
400 W Nominal, 500 W Maximum (Max of 4.16 amps @ 120 volts)

Mains Power Connection
powerCON TRUE1 TOP
(Bare Ends / Schuko / Edison, Japanese, Chinese cables available)

Battery Connector
3-Pin XLR Connector

Battery DC Voltage Range
48 V~

White Light
2,000 K to 20,000 K continuously variable correlated color temperature

Color Modes
Wide color gamut
Color Modes: CCT, HSI, individual color, gel selection, x/y coordinates, source matching, lighting effects, and color sensor mode

Color Temperature Tolerance
3,200 to 5,600 K: +/- 100 K (nominal), +/- 1/8 Green-Magenta (nominal)

Color Rendition
CRI Average > 98
TLCI Average > 95
TM-30 Average > 94

Green-Magenta Adjustment
Continuously adjustable (Full Minusgreen to Full Plusgreen)

Dimming
Smooth, 100 – 0%, continuously

 

 

 

 

Remote Device
Full E1.20 RDM standard implementation with custom & standard RDM command management (RDM)Housing Color
Blue/silver, black

Ambient Temperature Operation
-20 to +45º C (-4 to +113º F)

Protection Class / IP Rating
I / weatherproof

Estimated LED Lifetime (L70)
50,000 hours

Estimated Color Shift Over Lifetime (CCT)
+/- 5 %

Certifications
pending: CE, CB, GS, cNRTLus, FCC, PSE

Color Temperature Tolerance
3,200 to 5,600 K: +/- 100 K (nominal), +/- 1/8 Green-Magenta (nominal)

Color Rendition
CRI Average > 98
TLCI Average > 95
TM-30 Average > 94

Green-Magenta Adjustment
Continuously adjustable (Full Minusgreen to Full Plusgreen)

Dimming
Smooth, 100 – 0%, continuously

Connectivity
Removable Control Panel via PoE, 5-Pin DMX in and through, Ethernet in and through, 2 x USB-A, USB-C, SD Card, Sync Input, LumenRadio CRMX (DMX & RDM)

Remote Device
Full E1.20 RDM standard implementation with custom & standard RDM command management (RDM)

Housing Color
Blue/silver, black

Ambient Temperature Operation
-20 to +45º C (-4 to +113º F)

Protection Class / IP Rating
I / weatherproof

Estimated LED Lifetime (L70)
50,000 hours

Estimated Color Shift Over Lifetime (CCT)
+/- 5 %

Certifications
pending: CE, CB, GS, cNRTLus, FCC, PSE

Conclusion 

With a smorgasbord of features already built-in, as well as a generation of support and innovation guaranteed by both ARRI and third-party developers, the ARRI Orbiter is no-question a must onset when it comes to lighting for your next commercial, photoshoot, movie or live performance. The Orbiter’s capabilities and power are guaranteed to keep improving in years to come, mirroring what we witness with ARRI’s Skypanel line of upgrades. 

As always, we are committed to offering you the latest technology in professional lighting and camera to make your next project come to life, be on the lookout for the Orbiter soon for rent at MPS Studios.  

In case you haven’t see yet it here’s ARRI’s Orbiter Keynote presentation which goes into more detail and has a full demo of the light in action:

Sources:

https://microsites.arri.com/orbiter/

https://www.arri.com/en/company/arri-news/news-stories/news-stories-2019/arri-introduces-orbiter-the-ultra-bright-led-point-source-with-a-variety-of-optics

https://lightingkeynote.arri.com/

https://microsites.arri.com/orbiter/orbiter-tech-specs.html