PHOENIX, AZ, December 5 / MARKET WIRE/
A lofty 15 feet off the ground and 340 feet
into the air, in luminous Times Square, the Walgreens company proudly makes
its mark with a new multi-media screen display that will be seen by an
estimated 1.6 million passers-by every day.
To process and distribute the massive amount of data necessary to feed the
supersign, digital display engineering and manufacturing company D3 LED
the company that engineered and manufactured the spectacular has chosen
Vista Systems Spyder.
Elevated in the New York skyline, the multi screen display draws attention to Walgreens' new
three-level emporium located in the ground floor retail space of One Times
Square, home to the famed New Year's Eve Ball drop.
Lighting the Way
Dazzling Walgreens' advertising content is displayed daily on the
supersign, which consists of a 17,000-square foot wraparound, three-piece
light emitting diode (LED) display video wall and 13 five-foot-tall high definition
plasma screens at street level connecting the three pieces.
The LED faades are made up of 10,987 modules, each 15 inches square and
containing 1,024 to 1,600 pixels. It takes 155 gigabytes of data to send
one 30-second spot to the video wall system. "There are massive amounts of bits
going all over the place," explains Meric Adriansen, managing partner,
systems and engineering, D3 LED. "The Vista Spyder is right in the middle,
shuffling this information around."
The Walgreens signs are comprised of two large slash-shaped or diagonal
wings on the east and west sides of the building. Each wing is divided into
three sections and fed by five Vista Spyders. The wings stretch up the
faade and past the celebrated Dow Jones zipper which heralds the latest
news.
Painting on a Digital Canvas
To offer customers the highest-resolution sign, the D3 LED team
concentrates the highest resolution where it can most easily be seen. The
bottom section of the video wall system features 10mm LEDs, the middle 12mm LEDs
and the top 24mm LEDs. Inside the store are additional 6mm signs that are
also fed through two additional Vista Spyder systems.
"For graphics creation," Adriansen continues, "we drew a virtual rectangle
around each slash and called it our 'canvas.' Because our common
denominator is the highest resolution, we had to create the entire virtual
canvas based on 10mm resolution."
The creative intent developed by the designers of the branding of this
Walgreens spectacular, The Gilmore Group, called for the whole building to
come alive synchronously. As such, all digital display screen elements are synchronized through
15- to 60-second advertising spots.
The total pixel resolution of each wing is over 10,000 high by 4,000 wide.
Each Vista Spyders frame group will receive 2,048 x 1,536 DVI signals,
output by a super high resolution 2,048 x 6,144 DVI player and composite
the master image by sending it to the respective LED surfaces of the wing.
Adriansen enjoys using the Vista Spyder because it encourages creative
flexibility. "The Vista Spyder is the only device out there that allows you
to do this kind of pixel manipulation in larger DVI spaces. It's very
versatile and works great. And with so many different ways to use it, we
discover new stuff every day!"
About D3 LED
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in New York, N.Y. and Rancho Cordova,
Calif., D3 LED engineers and manufactures the world's most sophisticated
and innovative LED digital displays, LED signs, video walls, spectaculars,
ticker and marquee systems, and custom display applications. Some of the
company's most widely recognized signage includes the ABC Display Ribbons
and M&M World Sign in Times Square in New York City. At the heart of its
product suite is its proprietary TrueElement module in which every single
diode in the LED array displays the full 16-bits of color data. This has
revolutionized the performance of LED displays in image quality and
performance.
About Vista Systems
Vista Systems was recently acquired by Christie, a global leader in visual
solutions for business, entertainment and industry to create a
comprehensive source for image processing and projection solutions. The
acquisition combines the power and flexibility of Vista's video switchers
and real-time windowing and composition products with the power,
performance and reliability of award-winning Christie projection systems.
Vista Systems' switchers have become the industry standard for live
multiple-destination video and data mixed signal switching. For more
information on Vista Systems, visit their website at vistasystems.net.
