Hold on, HMIs are not incandescents, they are an arc-discharge lamp, and they have all the spectrum problems of that technology. They are probably some of the worst offenders in terms of peaky spectrum, so it's not surprising you have problems.
Anyway, I am not talking about cinematography; incandescents, whether regular or halogen, have an even, non-peaky spectrum, and don't freakishly exaggerate or mute different colors. This is what people want for their homes. The idea that we can regain this by installing banks of LEDs of different spectrum and fiddling with controls doesn't seem realistic. And psychologically, I don't want a huge continuous space of choices for my lighting, since it's impossible to settle on just one thing (there were studies about this). Again, I am talking about home lighting here, not professional videography.
Not to mention that by the time we finish installing the controls and the wiring and the LEDs and the electronics in every room, the environment will be at a huge disadvantage.
You are quite right, my mistake. I was, quite incorrectly, thinking of the halide mixed with the mercury vapor in a HMI, as opposed to the halogen around a tungsten filament in a worklight or so. The chemistry and mode of operation is so different as to be meaningless in this context, and I apologize for derailing the conversation.
It's not that I expect people to install banks of multicolored lights and tweak them endlessly, but that I disagree with you about just how peaky the LEDs are compared to CFLs. Cinematographers are hyper-picky about light and color (or should be) because the realities of both film and digital compression make it expensive and difficult to overcome a poor lighting choice after shooting has ended. LEDs have delivered considerably more convenience and predictability for small-scale lighting situations than anyone had dared hope for a few years earlier, and even when they require correction the output is consistent enough to keep the problem manageable. In short, they solve existing problems to a much greater extent than they create new ones. They are not so peaky in practice as to interfere significantly with skin tones, clothes, makeup or hair color in realistic-looking contexts (as opposed to sci-fi or 'stagey' lighting setups). That bodes well for their deployment in more ordinary settings such as businesses and homes. It seems to me that you're attaching too much important to the raw CRI score, which is after all an abstraction of a rather nonlinear curve (http://www.ledsmagazine.com/features/2/5/4/VLambda).
Whether by mixing or doping, ISTM that the ability to get a desirable result under demanding conditions with relative ease means that providing a broadly acceptable standardized product for the general consumer is a lot more feasible. Once again I am not claiming it's perfect. There are still problems, especially for film where you can't tweak the color balance during production, just as you can't tweak the colors of paint, wallpaper or furniture in the home. There's a comprehensive set of Macbeth charts at the AMPAS lighting project pages: http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/ss... and http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/ss... Despite the peakiness and pink tinge of the the multi-emitter 2 sample, and the slight darkening of the blended phosphor, you can see that they are quite close to the incandescent alternative on a range of colors. This is what I'm talking about: if you're concerned with perfect color fidelity - as you should be if you are, say, shooting a commercial that uses a well-known logo, or trying to provide accurate representations of nature, textiles, or artworks - then there are still shortcomings. If you do not need forensic-level quality, and most of the time you don't, then LEDs are an increasingly viable substitute. The biggest problem for the Academy is one of scale; what works in a medium close-up in an average size room is one thing, but when you get onto a soundstage (which you would use 5kw or 10kw incandescent lights to illuminate), then you have a whole different set of problems, and the deficiencies of LEDs are significantly magnified. That's not an issue for consumers, though, since few of them have floodlights installed :)
I'm not invested in any LED lighting companies, I'm just telling you that I've had very good experiences with the technology so far. Given the fact of the regulatory changes, which I am neutral about, LEDs seem much more likely to deliver the desired results than CFLs.
I am not invested into any lighting companies either. Maybe I should be, I am sure they stand to make a fortune on mandated fancy technologies. I am not sure why you think I advocate CFLs. I advocate letting people keep using incandescent bulbs, since they are the best residential lighting technology available, and will be for a long time. They are also very environmentally friendly, once you account for their use of only the simplest materials and manufacturing techniques. And you don't need to put up new factories.
LEDs are a very expensive technology. People in this thread are getting sticker shock from the $20 LED light bulb. I am shocked that they claim to sell it for this little. IMO they will quickly go bust. $20 is roughly the price of all those LEDs in quantity, unless I am guessing wrong about what they use, and they also need a powerful and compact control system to step down from 120 volts and control the LEDs, plus the liquid cooling tubes, plus all the manufacturing to get the LEDs and electronics in that package. Put this kind of technology in a flashlight, and it's going to be a $400 flashlight at retail very easily. And you don't get Moore's law to make it all cheap in a couple of years; these are power electronics, you can't just shrink them to 22nm.
All this, and the consumer state-of-the-art in white LEDs is a fairly nasty blue LED with a yellow phosphor to add some longer wavelengths and make it look kind of white. This is what Switch uses, and it's not a good light for homes. Even fancier and better stuff is on the way, but it's ridiculous to force people to go that kind of expense to get something which is still not as good as what they have. And don't get me started on the failure modes of LEDs - they don't burn out like light bulbs, but they grow dimmer and shift their color quite noticeably, and the electronics can start to buzz or flicker or, better yet, burn.
I understand wherre you are coming from, and why you support sticking with incandescent bulbs. I just mentioned that I wasn't affiliated with any lighting companies so you would know i wasn't pushing an agenda of some sort. I agree that the ecological/net energy benefits of alternative lighting are questionable; on a business scale there's a stronger argument, although businesses have been using cheap ugly lighting for years to keep their bills down. But since the incandescent phase-out is happening anyway and opposing it is likely a waste of time, LEDs look like the best of the available alternatives.
Anyway, I am not talking about cinematography; incandescents, whether regular or halogen, have an even, non-peaky spectrum, and don't freakishly exaggerate or mute different colors. This is what people want for their homes. The idea that we can regain this by installing banks of LEDs of different spectrum and fiddling with controls doesn't seem realistic. And psychologically, I don't want a huge continuous space of choices for my lighting, since it's impossible to settle on just one thing (there were studies about this). Again, I am talking about home lighting here, not professional videography.
Not to mention that by the time we finish installing the controls and the wiring and the LEDs and the electronics in every room, the environment will be at a huge disadvantage.