How do you stand out on New York City’s 11th Avenue Auto Row—where showrooms for major automobile manufacturers stretch from 40th Street to 60th Street? For Volvo, the goal was to build an attractive brand awareness center that stops passersby in their tracks. The new space features a huge 5×7 panel video wall; a virtual-reality vehicle design room; five zones of audio; a Swedish-design inspired coffee lounge; and an advanced ClearOne VIEW Pro IP-based video delivery solution that enables custom video sizes and remote management.
According to Nick Ehr, owner of Florida-based electronics integration firm Broadcast Systems Inc, Volvo knew the video capabilities and brand appeal and messaging they wanted—family, safe, technology, and design as expressed through the power of video. Beyond that, the decisions on equipment and system design were left to the professionals.
“Their most visible need was the 5×7 panel video wall which makes a huge statement because it can be seen from the sidewalk outside the storefront,” Ehr said. “Because a 5×7 design results in a non-standard aspect ratio and pixel count, we required a scalable, flexible video distribution system. The dynamic abilities of the ClearOne VIEW Pro solution allowed for custom resolutions, content scaling, and splitting the video wall into any number of custom-sized frames, even across bezels.”
Another crucial requirement of the project was reliability and remote accessibility, particularly since the integration firm is located 2,000 miles from the job site.
“I can log into it remotely to check the temperature of all the displays, and if anything does get hot, the system immediately sends us an email. We can remotely update firmware, power cycle, adjust color temperature, add sources, and much more,” Ehr says.
The installation uses a single ClearOne VIEW Pro E120 Encoder to send signal to 35 ClearOne VIEW Pro D210 decoders, one for each panel on the 5×7 video wall. The ClearOne VIEW Pro PANORAMA software and CONSOLE software allow operators to manage displays of any shape, size or resolution, which is becoming more important as companies opt for custom LCD and LED video walls that don’t have standard pixel counts or aspect ratios.
Broadcast Systems, Inc. also installed a color management tool that allows the integrator to adjust the color temperature and image specifications for the video wall. The ClearOne system also manages content for two additional flat screen HDTVs in the showroom.
The VIEW Pro line of IP-based multimedia streaming hardware consists of various rack-mount components, as well as compact decoding options, offering H.264 compression, 24-bit color, up to 1080p resolution at 60 FPS, ultra-low latency, video windowing and advanced content control.
