Creative Technology have made a significant investment in Brompton processing to power their growing fleet of ROE Visual LED panels. After a successful upgrade of their MC7HB panels to Tessera R2 cards they have chosen the Tessera M2 processor to drive them and their new inventory of ROE Black Onyx 3.47mm panels. The BO3.47 are currently being put to use on the Ford stand at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The set up for Ford is characteristically ambitious with a curved banner screen encompassing the entire stand. The high resolution of the panels means that the entire circumference, which has a length of 173m, amounts to an astonishing 49,824 pixels wide, varying between a height of 0.5m at its narrowest to 3.5m at its highest. In addition the stand has two additional tracking screens that have a combined size of 22mts x 6mts. This makes the total resolution of the entire screen over 43 million pixels.
The continuous nature of the content and the sheer size of the screen created an unusual challenge for Darren Alexander, CT's Project Lead when he first started planning the project with Brompton in Summer 2015. Dealing with so many feeds over such a large screen might have created a problem for other systems but the sophisticated refresh architecture and genlock capability of the M2 ensured there was no tearing of the video from section to section. Similarly the ethernet network based infrastructure of the Tessera R2 panel controller cards and processors allowed more flexibility in cabling and control with engineers able to work remotely on different sections of the screen simultaneously. The ability to use off the shelf switches and peripherals was also a bonus keeping costs down and not requiring the addition of unique inventory to rental stock.
Creative Technology President and CEO Graham Andrews commented:
“Given the challenges of building a screen with over 43 million pixels we felt the Tessera M2 processor was the only real way of delivering what everyone wanted. Our engineers liked the ease of use of the system in particular, whether it be making and storing adjustments to colour or just getting the screen working it is all very fast and intuitive.
For our applications time is precious so things which make the setup process more efficient are very valuable. Brompton's image quality was also a strong point. Our MC7HB screens have been improved by the upgrade, particularly at low brightness and the BO3.47 at Detroit looks great.”