Media façade specialist VML-Technologies has designed and manufactured a giant LED display in the Dutch city of The Hague. The display measures more than 19m wide x 14m high, and is situated approximately 80m above ground on in the façade of the “Strijkijzer” building.
The display, which can be viewed up to 2km away, is used as a community information board, featuring a mix of local news, information, events and advertising. Plans are afoot to give local people the opportunity to interact with the display via social networking sites for such things as birthday greetings.
The installation consists of 1,716 Lattice S-14054L LED strips which cover an area of 11 windows wide and six windows high. VML-Technologies designed and manufactured custom LED strips which seamlessly integrate into the façade of the building, with no visible cables or equipment anywhere on the display. Even though the system is 70% transparent, so that the occupants of the building can still see outside, by day the display packs a powerful punch, ensuring a vivid image even on the brightest days. When turned to black overnight, it becomes virtually invisible.
Using the VML Lattice PictureBox Controller, the LED strips are controlled in such a way that the whole picture is ‘pasted’ across the grid of window frames and remains perfectly visible.
Specialist ale bar and restaurant Mason & Taylor has taken over the former Green & Red Mexican-themed bar/club in Shoreditch, London. The new operator wanted to reconfigure the basement and add a large projection screen system and turned to The Sound Division Group who had carried out a sound and lighting system installation in the 220-capacity basement venue two years ago.
The owner was faced with re-siting some of the existing Martin Audio loudspeakers in order to accommodate the installation of a new cellar around the reworked bar. The DJ console (with its industry-standard Pioneer CDJs) remains, but an electric drop-down screen has been added by Sound Division among the ‘shabby chic’, low-slung soft furnishing and drapes at the end of the room. This has been designed equally for private corporate clients, wishing to give VGA Powerpoint presentations, as much as audiences for the Sunday film nights, when the content will flip to a higher-resolution HD source.
Sound Division specified an 8ft wide 16:9 retractable projection screen in combination with a ceiling-mounted Optoma EH1020 3500 ANSI lumens native 1080p HD projector. To maximise the rig’s high-definition capability, Sound Division also installed a Panasonic DMP-BD65 Blu-ray Player, with a local VGA plug-in point and Kramer source switching.
Studio 100’s theme parks receive more than two million visitors each year and this number is continually growing. The latest addition is the new Mayaland extension at Belguim’s Plopsaland De Panne.
FACE has been involved in the design and installation of the sound management system at all Studio 100’s parks. Each environment requires networked multi-zone speaker systems with versatile features – preferably compact, IP-rated for outdoor use, and with wide dispersion and high SPL- as they need to perform both at low and high levels for speech intelligibility.
For the general speakers the stylish Martin Audio C115 surface mount and C4.8T ceiling speaker offered the perfect solution. For higher output and longer distance, FACE opted for Martin Audio’s OmniLine system. “We did a demo with OmniLine and have never had so much positive feedback about how a slim six- or eight miniature speaker column could produce such a fantastic sound while looking so elegant,” said FACE MD Karel de Piere.
FACE have also installed all sound management systems with Media Matrix control, which handles signal routing, audio content, hard disk play back, source management, equalization and line control. For amplification they use Powersoft which saves energy and provides easy remote control. For the user interface, FACE has developed its own control using open source programming and user friendly touch screens — thus the user can easily trigger all kinds of preprogrammed scenarios. In addition, the light and video systems applied can be controlled by the same interface and control panels.
Pic credit: Geert Moors (Painting with Light)
SGM lighting fixtures and control feature exclusively in the Grand Ballroom of the new Hotel Ramada Piteşti in Romania. All the overhead intelligent lighting for the stage and auditorium floor has been supplied by SGM, and comprises six fully-featured Idea Spot 575, four Idea Wash 575 moving head zoom wash lights and two Idea Colorchanger 575s, with 7-segment colour and effects wheels. These are all run off a sophisticated SGM Pilot 3000 system, capable of controlling up to 1024 DMX channels via two independent DMX outputs.
The contract for all the architectural and production lighting was won by Professional Sound Impact (PSi), working through Briliant Technologies Group, and the design was conceived by PSi founder, Sorin Stanescu.
It was at the beginning of this year that PSi was awarded the AV contract after the Hotel Ramada Piteşti decided to develop the multi-function Grand Ballroom, with a view to staging a range of corporate events (including live shows and musical revues) for between 300-400 people.
